A cold night in Sandton, Jo’berg and the depressing news that UK has readjusted its growth target from 0.2% to 0.1% is what I went late night to bed with. Usually woken up by the 7am alarm, this time it was the early rays of sun that somehow had managed to creep in my room that woke me up. A look at the watch – 7.45am. Damn! A look at the phone – dead. Double Damn! Switched on my TV and hurriedly started doing my chores when got the most depressing news of the day, perhaps more gloomy than the recession news we have started getting used to - Steve Jobs is dead. Damn raised to the power of infinite.
Momentarily, a deep sense of grief filled in, as if I had lost someone who was very close to me. Never in my life had my eyes become moist and felt so saddened over the death of any public figure. The global mourning as seen over twitter, facebook, electronic & print media and other social channels with Google – Apple’s most bitter rival in recent times putting up an obituary on their home page reflect what an iconic personality he was.
While Steve would always be remembered for founding Apple and revolutionizing the way we see & interact with mobile, music & computing devices, for me it’s his intrinsic qualities as a human being that he demonstrated to raise an empire and become a guiding light for millions of people is what the world will remember him for.
In a consumer research driven world, Steve Jobs threw out of the window all the theories we had learnt in Philip Kotler’s Marketing & Advertising bible. Consumer is always right – do extensive research around consumer products to know user behavior. When iPad was launched and it caught fancy of the world, in an interview when asked if any user or market research was done for the product, Steve bluntly replied – “consumers don’t know what they want. It’s our job to provide them”. That was Steve who always lived by his gut feel and instincts. When the big guns were building boxy computing machines in the 80s, Steve targeted for a ‘lifestyle’ product through Macintosh. He was a visionary – a gifted one who just lived his entire life with a single minded motto – follow your dream. He was a person who redefined the phrase out of the box thinking.
His passion for being a perfectionist is also well known. He threw out 2 iphone prototypes before finally approving the final one. Creatives in Apple have a direct reporting to Steve as all product designs right from an accessory pin to a Macbook goes for an approval through him.
Inspite of being thrown from his company, being on his own, trying new things out and coming back again to lead Apple and then battling various health issues to rise up again and again to stun the world with one path breaking product after another reflected his never say die attitude. In his now famous Standford speech he reflected on how "Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.
"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
A dreamer. A visionary. A person from a contemporary era who kept on raising his internal benchmarks for innovation. A person who never gave up and taught us to stay hungry and foolish.
RIP Steve Jobs. Apple won’t be as fruitful without you.
