SJ was a true visionary. He had a philosophical and deep look at the computer revolution, and he was one of the few leaders who actually cared about building products he could recommend to his own friends and family.
He was also a fantastic speaker. I watch his iPhone and other announcement videos from time to time and his ability is unparalleled. You can see how many modern day presentations are derived from his style
Another prescient "talk" is Douglas Engelbart's "Mother of all Demos", from 1968 where he shows off the mouse and other technologies that became commonplace. It feels remarkably contemporary and other than the obvious age of the video, feels like a modern day conference talk.
I attended a few of his keynote speeches. The "reality distortion field" was real. It was impossible to look away from him. And no matter how cynical I was when I arrived, by the end of the presentation, I believed everything he said.
I think a big difference between Apple and some of its competitors is Steve’s inherent outlook.
He clearly envisioned a world that he wanted to make. Even in these clips, it’s clear he is thinking about the current state of things not being adequate for the vision he wants.
When I look at Apple, and certainly the couple times I interviewed there, they have that same vision as part of their culture. In one of my interviews, I was asked about my own view of the future. Another time they asked me how we could avoid certain dystopian trends like proliferation of ads and reductions in privacy.
Both times it was clear the product vision wasn’t just monetary. To quote jobs from this talk, people wanted to give back to the world.
I compare that to some other tech giants I’ve interviewed for and the focus is, how can we maximize returns.
Apple certainly isn’t perfect, and they’ve faltered many times, but I think there’s the spirit of Steve in everything today.
Often I ask the interviewers “What is customer value? Is it the value we provide to customers or the value we get from them?”. Apple is the only place I’ve interviewed where people start with the former rather than the latter.
Even though I was a heavy Android and windows guy going into those interviews, it did convince me to start paying more attention to their product vision and I eventually switched over. Sadly they went with an internal candidate but it was still very eye opening.
Within five years of SJ's death, Apple was selling last year's model iPhone at discount prices... in rose gold... running a version of iOS with Letraset text where the icons used to be.
There is few people who would disagree, specifically both the guy who was fired in the elevator, and the person right behind him, who quit a week later. The guy Jobs fired in the elevator was an engineering liaison to the design team, who's firing set back the iPhone by more than 6 months.
