iSad en enkele levenswijsheden van Steve Jobs

De Jobstijding was onvermijdelijk en de halve wereld is nu iSad. Steve Jobs was een buitengewoon inspirerende man die twee keer zijn stempel op de tijd drukte. Hij was ook opvliegend (hij ontsloeg soms mensen in de lift), maar hij is toch vooral de belichaming van Apple, dat eerst (met Steve Wozniak, zie foto) in 1976 de PC als eerste op de markt bracht en na een tweede start decennia later het wegkwijnende Apple een nieuw leven, een iLife inblies met iTunes etc.
56 jaar maar en toch zo veel gepresteerd.

Via de Wall Street Journal (in het FD kun je een video over het onderwerp zien) wil ik enkele levenswijsheden van Steve Jobs geven.

Hij was een visionair die in 1985 (zelfs eerder) al een hele reeks dingen juist zag in de ICT Revolutie. In 1985 legde hij al uit dat de mensen in de toekomst mensen een PC o.i.d. zouden kopen vanwege de mogelijkheden om in een groot netwerk te kunnen communiceren. Al in 1985 voorzag hij doorbraken in de communicatie die vergelijkbaar zouden zijn met de uitvinding van de telefoon.

Uit de Stanford commencement speech, June 2005:
“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Steve Jobs zal ook herinnerd worden als de meester marketer. In 1996 zei hij over ontwerpen:
“Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn’t what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that.
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.
“Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have. [Wired, February 1996]

Ter Veer en ik schreven in ons boek in het hoofdstuk over cycli dat levenscycli enorm belangrijk zijn voor vooruitgang en dat we daarom allemaal dood moesten.
Steve Jobs zei in 2005:
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true."