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I first saw this email in the recently released book "Make Something Wonderful". It was curated by his widow Laurene Powell Jobs. She would definitely have unpr

I first saw this email in the recently released book "Make Something Wonderful". It was curated by his widow Laurene Powell Jobs. She would definitely have unprecedented access to his archives and maybe some incentive to persevere his memory (though not all widows are so devoted). For what it's worth, I found the book to be a great tribute to a life and well worth the time spent reading it and the purchase price (it was free a few months ago when it was released): https://books.apple.com/us/book/make-something-wonderful/id6446905902 https://books.apple.com/us/book/make-something-wonderful/id6... On a more personal note, I understand the impulse oppose the deification of Steve Jobs (or anyone else for that matter), but I think doing so without understanding why people look up to him misses something important. As soon as you deviate from the straight well worn path to success you quickly realize that people around you really don't like that you are doing something different (even if it is not that radical). Both strangers and friends will question you, they will criticize you and they will try to make you doubt yourself at every step of the way. Steve Jobs is one of the few dissenting voices who shows you that it can be done and it is important to try. I'm sure there are other people you can point toward for inspiration. There are probably more creative, more compassionate, more ethical folks out there to drive this point home, but that's really not the point.

mentos 3y ago
Thanks for sharing, I found this passage from that book really insightful: "We believe that as the price points come down, as the consumer market blossoms, design and fashion become even more important. Let me give you an example. This is [an image of] the most popular watch in the world. And it’s popular not because it tells time better than any other watch. It’s popular because of its design. I’ll give you an interesting statistic: ten years ago, the average American owned one watch. Because of design entering the watch market, today the average American owns seven watches. OK? Seven watches because of design. Because of fashion. Now, when we dream, we dream of this. Right? [Audience laughs.] And one of the great joys that I found at Apple a year ago was the best industrial design team I’ve ever seen in my life. The designs for the new PowerBook G3 and the iMac—they’re all done inside Apple by some brilliant, brilliant, super hardworking people. And you’re going to see a continual stream of very innovative design out of Apple—I think the best in the industry by a mile. These are four incredibly powerful, unique, compelling assets: the brand, the installed base, especially in the consumer and education markets, the ability of our design to really take these products into that consumer space of fashion, and the fact that our products are dramatically simpler to set up and use than our competition’s." -Steve Jobs Speech at Macworld July 1998

mentos 3y ago

Thanks for sharing, I found this passage from that book really insightful: "We believe that as the price points come down, as the consumer market blossoms, design and fashion become even more important. Let me give you an example. This is [an image of] the most popular watch in the world. And it’s popular not because it tells time better than any other watch. It’s popular because of its design. I’ll give you an interesting statistic: ten years ago, the average American owned one watch. Because of design entering the watch market, today the average American owns seven watches. OK? Seven watches because of design. Because of fashion. Now, when we dream, we dream of this. Right? [Audience laughs.] And one of the great joys that I found at Apple a year ago was the best industrial design team I’ve ever seen in my life. The designs for the new PowerBook G3 and the iMac—they’re all done inside Apple by some brilliant, brilliant, super hardworking people. And you’re going to see a continual stream of very innovative design out of Apple—I think the best in the industry by a mile. These are four incredibly powerful, unique, compelling assets: the brand, the installed base, especially in the consumer and education markets, the ability of our design to really take these products into that consumer space of fashion, and the fact that our products are dramatically simpler to set up and use than our competition’s." -Steve Jobs Speech at Macworld July 1998