6 ms·

The last time I saw Steve Jobs

390 points by stevenleeg 15y ago

watmough 15y ago
The man seems to be an infinite source of eye-moistening stories. Really nice, thanks.
- wuster 15y ago
  I'm sure some employees from his early days would have less flattering stories to tell, but it wouldn't be classy for them to tell them now that he's gone. So the other side of Steve will be buried with history.
- hyperbovine 15y ago
  I don't understand what is "eye-moistening" about somebody failing to act like an asshole and doing what any normal person what have done.
  - pbreit 15y ago
    I have a rather cold heart myself but still had no trouble seeing how a cute story like this told shortly after a tragic and untimely death could resonate in a heartfelt way.
    - bh42222 15y ago
      No doubt it is a touching story. That was my reaction to it as well. But when you read hyperbovine's point, and think about it... it is also true. So touching story yes, but normal human behavior - yes.
      - pbreit 15y ago
        Hyperbovine's point was "I don't understand what is "eye-moistening"". And very honestly, I'm not sure how normal it is for the guy who runs the most valuable company in the world to be walking out to his company's general parking lot by himself unrecognized.
  - mortenjorck 15y ago
    That's just it, though. Any normal person would have done that. The billionaire CEO of a worldwide, multi-billion-dollar company at the forefront of its industry is not a normal person. A normal one of those would be surrounded by assistants, walking fast, and brusquely brush off such an uninvited interruption by the hoipolloi. Steve was not a normal billionaire CEO.
_THE_PLAGUE 15y ago
What a wonderful story. Just when I thought I had shed all the tears I was going to shed over this over this past week, it just all comes right back. He was a legend, but also a good human being. A true rarity.
- gchandrasa 15y ago
  Yup, really rare.
napierzaza 15y ago
That makes no sense. If you are as much a fan as you bring your family there, but you don't know what Steve Jobs looks like? Has he not be on the cover of absolutely everything since 2007?
- veyron 15y ago
  there's a whole cohort of people who are entranced by the iphone but have never seen steve jobs. To be fair, he doesn't appear anywhere in the stores or in most advertisements. I realize it's hard to believe, but you can be a fan of the product without being aware of the key members of the company that produced the product.
- pmorici 15y ago
  I'd say it's conceivable. Isn't there a statistic out there that says something to the effect of a large portion of the population can't name the current president of the United States?
  - epo 15y ago
    I think that was the vice-president. What is shocking is that in another survey, some 40% of Americans asked didn't know who or what the Taliban were.
- staunch 15y ago
  Celebrities often look very different in person than your mental image of them.
- tjogin 15y ago
  Most people who love the Mac or some other Apple product are fans of the _product_, many of them have never even heard of Steve Jobs, and most of them don't know what he looks like. I know that doesn't jive with the popular misconception that everybody who loves an Apple product idolizes Steve Jobs, but, really, it's all about the product.
- marquis 15y ago
  Perhaps they were visiting a family member. I've passed by Infinite Loop to have lunch with friends.
nirvana 15y ago
I've been following Steve Jobs since I was a kid, about 30 years ago. Woz was more my hero then, but I read everything I could about Jobs even then, and ever since. I think Jobs transformed himself on a fundamental level. The young Steve seemed arrogant and self centered. Getting pushed out of Apple seems to have been a kick to the soul, and then in his 10 years away, he seems to have changed everything about him that was bad. Just check out how he responded to the insult given to him at the 1997 after WWDC session. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF-tKLISfPE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF-tKLISfPE Now that enough time has passed, all the people who were bashing Jobs from 1990-2011 are back bashing Jobs again. But I think these stories are the real guy. I was in his presence on a couple of occasions. You can fake some things, but its really hard to fake who you are. Everyone has their good and bad days... but one thing I can say about Steve, he was always genuine. Made him a great salesperson, too, cause even if he was wrong, he believed. So, I am grateful for these anecdotes. I'm eternally grateful for the 2005 commencement address. He was so private, and for good reason, and until the biography comes out these are some of the few views we have to him as a person. (I think the biography is going to be very revealing, and surprising when it comes out, since he's such a "control freak" but I think he didn't exercise any control, and people will be shocked.)
- quizbiz 15y ago
  There is a wonderful argument about product strategy in there. Steve Jobs says, ""you've got to start with customer the video and work backward to the technology"".
- chugger 15y ago
  1) Silicon Valley's prodigal son is banished from his company. 2) Grows up 3) Comes back to become one of the greatest visionaries of our time. Inspires millions. 4) Dies young.
  - jforman 15y ago
    Reminds me of The Hero's Journey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero%27s_Journey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero%27s_Journey (the pattern of separation, initiation, and return common to many hero myths).
Samuel_Michon 15y ago
As I too was (and am) a nobody, who got to meet Steve Jobs on several occasions, I bring you: My first encounter with Steve: http://dailyperry.com/post/11206943414/my-first-meeting-with-steve http://dailyperry.com/post/11206943414/my-first-meeting-with...
- RexRollman 15y ago
  Glad to see that I am not the only one who liked the hockey puck mouse.
- nirvana 15y ago
  "That’s my memory of Steve. He showed me the World of Tomorrow." Thank you for that. I feel the same way. So many things are so misunderstood, but there's always a reason. Apple makes a whole lot of sense if you stop to think about why they did whatever. Yet the magic comes from people not thinking why. Remember all the criticisms of the iPad when it was announced? All gone now, now people just want it. They don't know why, but they've experienced it.
tptacek 15y ago
I think one of the things that made Jobs death such a punch to the gut for me was the fact that until very recently, we all had some hope that his health problems were chronic, debilitating, but not terminal (Joe Nocera had, for instance, reported that Jobs cancer had not recurred at his last medical L.O.A.). When Jobs' death was announced, I immediately began reevaluating the little moments and snapshots we had of Jobs in the last year; his head resting on his wife's shoulder after a talk, his voice at the Cupertino city council meeting. Someone else pointed out how remarkable it was that Jobs had achieved all he had while staring death in the face. Remarkable, yes, but also very sad. So, I'm relieved at stories like this, showing Jobs enjoying his life even as he knew it was drawing to a close. Thanks!
- thaumaturgy 15y ago
  I admit that after the paparazzi photo of him was released, I loaded up HN every morning expecting to see the announcement of his passing away at the top. But, I was also hoping that it wouldn't happen. I think part of me thought of him as so fundamentally stubborn that if anyone could cheat death, he could. I liked to imagine Death showing up at Jobs' side, and Jobs fixing Death with his patented steely glare, and saying, "No, wait, there's one more thing..." I was saddened by the news of his death in a way that I haven't been in a long time. He was a human being, with all the requisite faults and foibles -- and some people are trying to ignore those now, and others are trying to hilite them -- but he aspired to greatness, and he accomplished it in a way that so few people do. In a sometimes dispassionate world, he seemed to be a passionate exception.
joshaidan 15y ago
I like the tidbid about Jobs knowing how to focus the iPhone by tapping a part of the screen. He's one of the few CEOs who know how to use their products. What was it, Eric Schmidt never used Google Buzz or Wave?
- TamDenholm 15y ago
  Well, go and compare the amount of products google has to the amount of products apple has. Eric Schmidt isnt going to use them all, but i bet he knows how to use Google Search.
  - Samuel_Michon 15y ago
    I'd be more interested to hear whether Eric Schmidt knows how to use AdWords. After all, that's Google's main source of income.
  - Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
    Also worth remembering that Apple products were largely what they were because Steve had Apple build things Steve wanted to use. Google isn't built in that image and even if it were, the image it would be built in is Larry and Sergey's, not Eric's.
- jonknee 15y ago
  Steve Jobs wasn't a conventional CEO and was widely known to micromanage the design of products. It's likely that he personally signed off on exactly how the tap to focus feature worked from a design standpoint. Schmidt's no slouch though, he's just on the engineering side (he co-write lex!) instead of design side. I bet Schmidt has a great understanding of how Google's search software works.
lhnz 15y ago
I just started laughing after reading this article but I mean no disrespect. It's an inane story about a man that takes a photo for some tourists. Take a step back. I know many consider him your hero but he was a human being. It should not be surprising or interesting that Steve did normal things. It's very interesting to me how society both elevates leaders and then humanizes them while adding modern societies virtues. It reminds me of how heroic and chivalric virtues were mixed into Arthurian literature. I'd love to read a parody. Perhaps there could be a set of parables with Steve doing normal human things which represent modern human virtues.
- sceptre 15y ago
  +1
- athst 15y ago
  This is an interesting story precisely because it is so ordinary. Over the past week we've heard and read so much about all of his grand accomplishments. After all of that, this is a little story that reminds us that he was a human being. And it's not an inane story either. How often is he not recognized in public? Does he get pleasure when he sees a family using his products? You'd like to think that interactions like this made him happy, and that's what makes it sweet.
  - lhnz 15y ago
    Hear me out. (1) I don't think you would be interested in the answers to those questions if the article was about an ordinary man. The only redeeming feature of the story is that it's about a famous genius that died recently. Remove that and tell me that story isn't inane. (2) You're attempting to study the character of a man whose work interests you. It has turned out that his character is that of an ordinary man who acts with humanity. This is completely unsurprising but you assert that this is 'interesting'. The belief that this story is significant and unusual is utterly unbelievable to me. It suggests that many people believe that those that are considered geniuses or visionaries are somehow completely different from normal men and may not socialize or empathize with others in the same way as a normal human being. (3) The really interesting thing about this thread is that there are so many people that (a) are trying to judge his character -- I believe that this might be because we seek our highest values in celebrities, (b) believe that they can analyze his character from just a few recounted events, (c) elevate leaders to the level that they need to be deliberately humanized with stories for others to realize that they're "just like you and me". Please help me understand how you and others think.
teja1990 15y ago
It's a great story. Steve is a human being , yes humans do make mistakes , else who else will. Its the ones who change themselves are the ones to talk about, he is one of them. Steve was arrogant and cocky during the starting days of apple. Come on guys, he was still in his 20s and owns millions, all self made who wouldn't be ? After his return he was a completely different man. These days i see some posts talking about Steve's grey days , this story shows what kinda person he really was at the end. SO lets forget about his past grey days and lets try taking the good in him :)
tonio09 15y ago
ok. wtf is going on. why does this story have 314 points? it's about a man taking a photo of a couple. Is this supposed to be a top quality post or what? Why does it matter that the man was Steve Jobs and not some random dude? Did you get more out of this story one way or the other? HN FAIL.
tuckbuck 15y ago
ENOUGH ! so you saw Steve Jobs taking a photo. so what ? this thing is getting ridiculous and it is a good linkbait.. Everyone has to die sometime for some reason.He came, did his thing and went away,now it is time to move on and do your own thing. Grow up and stop wasting time on the past ....
philwelch 15y ago
A story about Steve taking a photo, and his attention to detail in doing so, is especially fitting because of his apparent passion for photography. You could tell in his keynotes that he was especially proud of iPhoto, which seemed to be his favorite application to demo, and he is said to have served as photographer at Larry Ellison's wedding. This story isn't about an important, busy man with his own problems stopping to have a normal interaction with naive strangers. It's about a man appreciating the important, everyday moment in life when a family asks a bypasser to take their picture to document their memories of going to a special place, and seeing through their eyes the difference his work has made.

390 points by stevenleeg 15y ago

watmough 15y ago

The man seems to be an infinite source of eye-moistening stories. Really nice, thanks.

wuster 15y ago
I'm sure some employees from his early days would have less flattering stories to tell, but it wouldn't be classy for them to tell them now that he's gone. So the other side of Steve will be buried with history.
hyperbovine 15y ago
I don't understand what is "eye-moistening" about somebody failing to act like an asshole and doing what any normal person what have done.
- pbreit 15y ago
  I have a rather cold heart myself but still had no trouble seeing how a cute story like this told shortly after a tragic and untimely death could resonate in a heartfelt way.
  - bh42222 15y ago
    No doubt it is a touching story. That was my reaction to it as well. But when you read hyperbovine's point, and think about it... it is also true. So touching story yes, but normal human behavior - yes.
    - pbreit 15y ago
      Hyperbovine's point was "I don't understand what is "eye-moistening"". And very honestly, I'm not sure how normal it is for the guy who runs the most valuable company in the world to be walking out to his company's general parking lot by himself unrecognized.
- mortenjorck 15y ago
  That's just it, though. Any normal person would have done that. The billionaire CEO of a worldwide, multi-billion-dollar company at the forefront of its industry is not a normal person. A normal one of those would be surrounded by assistants, walking fast, and brusquely brush off such an uninvited interruption by the hoipolloi. Steve was not a normal billionaire CEO.

_THE_PLAGUE 15y ago

What a wonderful story. Just when I thought I had shed all the tears I was going to shed over this over this past week, it just all comes right back. He was a legend, but also a good human being. A true rarity.

gchandrasa 15y ago
Yup, really rare.

napierzaza 15y ago

That makes no sense. If you are as much a fan as you bring your family there, but you don't know what Steve Jobs looks like? Has he not be on the cover of absolutely everything since 2007?

veyron 15y ago
there's a whole cohort of people who are entranced by the iphone but have never seen steve jobs. To be fair, he doesn't appear anywhere in the stores or in most advertisements. I realize it's hard to believe, but you can be a fan of the product without being aware of the key members of the company that produced the product.
pmorici 15y ago
I'd say it's conceivable. Isn't there a statistic out there that says something to the effect of a large portion of the population can't name the current president of the United States?
- epo 15y ago
  I think that was the vice-president. What is shocking is that in another survey, some 40% of Americans asked didn't know who or what the Taliban were.
staunch 15y ago
Celebrities often look very different in person than your mental image of them.
tjogin 15y ago
Most people who love the Mac or some other Apple product are fans of the _product_, many of them have never even heard of Steve Jobs, and most of them don't know what he looks like. I know that doesn't jive with the popular misconception that everybody who loves an Apple product idolizes Steve Jobs, but, really, it's all about the product.
marquis 15y ago
Perhaps they were visiting a family member. I've passed by Infinite Loop to have lunch with friends.

nirvana 15y ago

I've been following Steve Jobs since I was a kid, about 30 years ago. Woz was more my hero then, but I read everything I could about Jobs even then, and ever since. I think Jobs transformed himself on a fundamental level. The young Steve seemed arrogant and self centered. Getting pushed out of Apple seems to have been a kick to the soul, and then in his 10 years away, he seems to have changed everything about him that was bad. Just check out how he responded to the insult given to him at the 1997 after WWDC session. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF-tKLISfPE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF-tKLISfPE Now that enough time has passed, all the people who were bashing Jobs from 1990-2011 are back bashing Jobs again. But I think these stories are the real guy. I was in his presence on a couple of occasions. You can fake some things, but its really hard to fake who you are. Everyone has their good and bad days... but one thing I can say about Steve, he was always genuine. Made him a great salesperson, too, cause even if he was wrong, he believed. So, I am grateful for these anecdotes. I'm eternally grateful for the 2005 commencement address. He was so private, and for good reason, and until the biography comes out these are some of the few views we have to him as a person. (I think the biography is going to be very revealing, and surprising when it comes out, since he's such a "control freak" but I think he didn't exercise any control, and people will be shocked.)

quizbiz 15y ago
There is a wonderful argument about product strategy in there. Steve Jobs says, ""you've got to start with customer the video and work backward to the technology"".
chugger 15y ago
1) Silicon Valley's prodigal son is banished from his company. 2) Grows up 3) Comes back to become one of the greatest visionaries of our time. Inspires millions. 4) Dies young.
- jforman 15y ago
  Reminds me of The Hero's Journey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero%27s_Journey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero%27s_Journey (the pattern of separation, initiation, and return common to many hero myths).

Samuel_Michon 15y ago

As I too was (and am) a nobody, who got to meet Steve Jobs on several occasions, I bring you: My first encounter with Steve: http://dailyperry.com/post/11206943414/my-first-meeting-with-steve http://dailyperry.com/post/11206943414/my-first-meeting-with...

RexRollman 15y ago
Glad to see that I am not the only one who liked the hockey puck mouse.
nirvana 15y ago
"That’s my memory of Steve. He showed me the World of Tomorrow." Thank you for that. I feel the same way. So many things are so misunderstood, but there's always a reason. Apple makes a whole lot of sense if you stop to think about why they did whatever. Yet the magic comes from people not thinking why. Remember all the criticisms of the iPad when it was announced? All gone now, now people just want it. They don't know why, but they've experienced it.

tptacek 15y ago

I think one of the things that made Jobs death such a punch to the gut for me was the fact that until very recently, we all had some hope that his health problems were chronic, debilitating, but not terminal (Joe Nocera had, for instance, reported that Jobs cancer had not recurred at his last medical L.O.A.). When Jobs' death was announced, I immediately began reevaluating the little moments and snapshots we had of Jobs in the last year; his head resting on his wife's shoulder after a talk, his voice at the Cupertino city council meeting. Someone else pointed out how remarkable it was that Jobs had achieved all he had while staring death in the face. Remarkable, yes, but also very sad. So, I'm relieved at stories like this, showing Jobs enjoying his life even as he knew it was drawing to a close. Thanks!

thaumaturgy 15y ago
I admit that after the paparazzi photo of him was released, I loaded up HN every morning expecting to see the announcement of his passing away at the top. But, I was also hoping that it wouldn't happen. I think part of me thought of him as so fundamentally stubborn that if anyone could cheat death, he could. I liked to imagine Death showing up at Jobs' side, and Jobs fixing Death with his patented steely glare, and saying, "No, wait, there's one more thing..." I was saddened by the news of his death in a way that I haven't been in a long time. He was a human being, with all the requisite faults and foibles -- and some people are trying to ignore those now, and others are trying to hilite them -- but he aspired to greatness, and he accomplished it in a way that so few people do. In a sometimes dispassionate world, he seemed to be a passionate exception.

joshaidan 15y ago

I like the tidbid about Jobs knowing how to focus the iPhone by tapping a part of the screen. He's one of the few CEOs who know how to use their products. What was it, Eric Schmidt never used Google Buzz or Wave?

TamDenholm 15y ago
Well, go and compare the amount of products google has to the amount of products apple has. Eric Schmidt isnt going to use them all, but i bet he knows how to use Google Search.
- Samuel_Michon 15y ago
  I'd be more interested to hear whether Eric Schmidt knows how to use AdWords. After all, that's Google's main source of income.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
  Also worth remembering that Apple products were largely what they were because Steve had Apple build things Steve wanted to use. Google isn't built in that image and even if it were, the image it would be built in is Larry and Sergey's, not Eric's.
jonknee 15y ago
Steve Jobs wasn't a conventional CEO and was widely known to micromanage the design of products. It's likely that he personally signed off on exactly how the tap to focus feature worked from a design standpoint. Schmidt's no slouch though, he's just on the engineering side (he co-write lex!) instead of design side. I bet Schmidt has a great understanding of how Google's search software works.

lhnz 15y ago

I just started laughing after reading this article but I mean no disrespect. It's an inane story about a man that takes a photo for some tourists. Take a step back. I know many consider him your hero but he was a human being. It should not be surprising or interesting that Steve did normal things. It's very interesting to me how society both elevates leaders and then humanizes them while adding modern societies virtues. It reminds me of how heroic and chivalric virtues were mixed into Arthurian literature. I'd love to read a parody. Perhaps there could be a set of parables with Steve doing normal human things which represent modern human virtues.

sceptre 15y ago
+1
athst 15y ago
This is an interesting story precisely because it is so ordinary. Over the past week we've heard and read so much about all of his grand accomplishments. After all of that, this is a little story that reminds us that he was a human being. And it's not an inane story either. How often is he not recognized in public? Does he get pleasure when he sees a family using his products? You'd like to think that interactions like this made him happy, and that's what makes it sweet.
- lhnz 15y ago
  Hear me out. (1) I don't think you would be interested in the answers to those questions if the article was about an ordinary man. The only redeeming feature of the story is that it's about a famous genius that died recently. Remove that and tell me that story isn't inane. (2) You're attempting to study the character of a man whose work interests you. It has turned out that his character is that of an ordinary man who acts with humanity. This is completely unsurprising but you assert that this is 'interesting'. The belief that this story is significant and unusual is utterly unbelievable to me. It suggests that many people believe that those that are considered geniuses or visionaries are somehow completely different from normal men and may not socialize or empathize with others in the same way as a normal human being. (3) The really interesting thing about this thread is that there are so many people that (a) are trying to judge his character -- I believe that this might be because we seek our highest values in celebrities, (b) believe that they can analyze his character from just a few recounted events, (c) elevate leaders to the level that they need to be deliberately humanized with stories for others to realize that they're "just like you and me". Please help me understand how you and others think.

teja1990 15y ago

It's a great story. Steve is a human being , yes humans do make mistakes , else who else will. Its the ones who change themselves are the ones to talk about, he is one of them. Steve was arrogant and cocky during the starting days of apple. Come on guys, he was still in his 20s and owns millions, all self made who wouldn't be ? After his return he was a completely different man. These days i see some posts talking about Steve's grey days , this story shows what kinda person he really was at the end. SO lets forget about his past grey days and lets try taking the good in him :)

tonio09 15y ago

ok. wtf is going on. why does this story have 314 points? it's about a man taking a photo of a couple. Is this supposed to be a top quality post or what? Why does it matter that the man was Steve Jobs and not some random dude? Did you get more out of this story one way or the other? HN FAIL.

tuckbuck 15y ago

ENOUGH ! so you saw Steve Jobs taking a photo. so what ? this thing is getting ridiculous and it is a good linkbait.. Everyone has to die sometime for some reason.He came, did his thing and went away,now it is time to move on and do your own thing. Grow up and stop wasting time on the past ....

philwelch 15y ago

A story about Steve taking a photo, and his attention to detail in doing so, is especially fitting because of his apparent passion for photography. You could tell in his keynotes that he was especially proud of iPhoto, which seemed to be his favorite application to demo, and he is said to have served as photographer at Larry Ellison's wedding. This story isn't about an important, busy man with his own problems stopping to have a normal interaction with naive strangers. It's about a man appreciating the important, everyday moment in life when a family asks a bypasser to take their picture to document their memories of going to a special place, and seeing through their eyes the difference his work has made.