Remembering the Unparalleled Visionary that was Steve Jobs

Posted in Inspiration • 569 days ago • Written by Rachel Arandilla • 4 Comments

Steve Jobs was a creative visionary and innovator. There is no doubt about that. Jobs changed how the world live their lives, from how they listen their music to how we communicate with people, and how we interact with technology as a whole.

The date was October 5, 2011. Apple released the news through press release that Steve Jobs has passed away. Although they didn’t say why, it was later found out that he succumbed to the complications of pancreatic cancer.

At first, his death was met with disbelief as people shared the news through blogs and social networking sites. The Steve Jobs, deceased? It’s hard to imagine the world without the spectacled, black-shirt-and-jeans genius that he is. What will the world do without him?

One anonymous fan immortalized Jobs with the quote: ‘Three apples changed the world: one that Eve ate, the second one that fell on Issac Newton’s head and the third one that Steve Jobs built.’

Photo by: Noah Berger

 Photo by: Noah Berger

Image by Pietro Zuco

Photo by Pietro Zuco. Apple fans in Ginza, Tokyo pay their respects with digital candles–on their iPhones and iPads, what else?

Photo courtesy: Jonathan Mak

Upon the release of the news, a visual tribute with the classic Apple logo and Steve Jobs’ silhouette in the apple bite. It had a simple, short caption, saying ‘Thanks, Steve’. It was designed by a 19 year old Hong Kong based artist Jonathan Mak. It quickly went viral, spreading across the whole blogosphere.

Things You Didn’t Know About Steve

Steve Jobs is almost like an open book to us. He created the coolest company, Apple. He is also a major stockholder for Pixar. He brought to us the generation’s gamechangers, such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

Despite Jobs being a public figure, he has some well-kept secrets. Here are some things you may not know about Steve Jobs:

On the Company’s Name Apple

The story of how Jobs’ and Wozniak’s company became known as Apple is actually a funny one. Steve Jobs was three months late to filing its trademark, so Steve Jobs threatened his colleagues that if they couldn’t come up with a better name by the end of the day he’d have to go for his favorite fruit, Apple. He did, and the rest is history.

His Annual Salary as Apple’s CEO is…

Jobs has an outrageously low salary of only $1 a year since 1997, the year when he became Apple’s CEO. Jobs once said ‘I get 50 cents a year for showing up, and the other 50 cents based on my performance.’

The meager income seems unnecessary because of his 5.5 million shares of Apple, which are now worth more than Apple and Intel combined–at $388 billion and showing no sign of slowing down. He also sold his shares of Pixar that’s now worth $7 billion.

Steve Jobs being Fired from his own Company

Steve Jobs, founded Apple with Steve Wozniak when he was 21. He became a millionaire by 23, and was fired from his own company by 30.

He hired Pepsi-Cola executive John Sculley to help the then troubled company. Soon after it was found that John Sculley and Steve jobs didn’t get along, and the two great minds clashed. Sculley had trouble with increasing the low Macintosh sales and the creative chaos Steve Jobs had unleashed. Sculley decided Jobs had to go, the board sided with him, and he was out.

It’s devastating to be fired–and tenfold when you’re fired from the company you created and built. It was a humiliating public defeat, but Jobs was adamant all throughout the rough years and returned stronger and wiser from the experience.

On How He Lied to Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak

Image from Gizmodo

This happened back in the day, when Steve Jobs worked for Atari as a programmer. He was appointed to create a game called ‘Breakout’, with the agreement of $700 and additional $100 for every chip eliminated in the machine. He promised Atari to submit the design within four days. Jobs has little interest or knowledge in it, so he recruited Wozniak and agreed to split the money 50-50. The deadline was met for Wozniak didn’t sleep for four days straight. Wozniak reduced the chips by 50, and Atari gave them US $5,000. Jobs however lied to Wozniak and gave him only $350, half of $700 (instead of the real bonus $5,000).

On Steve Jobs’ Trademark Fashion

Image from FastCompany

The trademark of the great Steve Jobs is his everyday uniform: the black turtleneck, Levis 501 denim jeans and New Balance sneakers. In fact, Jobs revealed that he has over a hundred of them. But not many people know the back story of it. Isaacson’s biography of Jobs ‘Steve Jobs’ reveals:

On a trip to Japan in the early 1980s, Jobs asked Sony’s chairman Akio Morita why everyone in the company’s factories wore uniforms. He told Jobs that after the war, no one had any clothes, and companies like Sony had to give their workers something to wear each day. Over the years, the uniforms developed their own signatures styles, especially at companies such as Sony, and it became a way of bonding workers to the company. “I decided that I wanted that type of bonding for Apple,” Jobs recalled.

Sony, with its appreciation for style, had gotten the famous designer Issey Miyake to create its uniform. It was a jacket made of rip-stop nylon with sleeves that could unzip to make it a vest. So Jobs called Issey Miyake and asked him to design a vest for Apple, Jobs recalled, “I came back with some samples and told everyone it would great if we would all wear these vests. Oh man, did I get booed off the stage. Everybody hated the idea.”

In the process, however, he became friends with Miyake and would visit him regularly. He also came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style. “So I asked Issey to make me some of his black turtlenecks that I liked, and he made me like a hundred of them.” Jobs noticed my surprise when he told this story, so he showed them stacked up in the closet. “That’s what I wear,” he said. “I have enough to last for the rest of my life.” (excerpt from Isaacson’s ‘Steve Jobs, quote courtesy of Gawker.)

His Future Plans for Apple

One of Steve Jobs’ last presentations was the unveiling of his future plans for the new and state-of-the-art Apple headquarters. The new HQ will sit on 150 acres close to Pruneridge Avenue and Wolfe Road. There is no single straight piece of glass in the building, noted Jobs.

Image from Yahoo News

Parking will go underground, and Jobs plans to increase the 3,700 trees to double. He also wants to add apricot orchards, a nod to his neighborhood when growing up. Structure will be fueled by natural gas. Construction will commence in 2012 and open by 2015. The structure looks spectacular, like a picture out of science fiction novels. It’s sad that Steve Jobs did not live long enough to see his dream become reality.

Inspiring Words from Steve Jobs

•  “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Image from Digital Media Academy

• “That’s been one of my mantras: focus & simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
  – BusinessWeek interview, May 1998

Image from Addwater Agency

• “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.”

• “Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” - Stanford Commencement Speech, June 2005

• “But Apple really beats to a different drummer. I used to say that Apple should be the Sony of this business, but in reality, I think Apple should be the Apple of this business. “

• “I want to put a ding in the universe.”

• “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.” - Stanford Commencement Speech, June 2005
  
  

Other Inspiring Tributes to the Late Steve Jobs

 Aside from Jonathan Mak’s inspiring tribute, many fans have produced wonderful artworks from all over the world. This is a great testament to how Jobs inspired millions of people to be creative, to think differently. Here are a few creative tribute from various fans with the same voice: ‘Thanks, Steve!’

Steve Jobs and Apple’s DNA by Charis Tsevis

Illustration by Charis Tsevis (Tsevis Visual Design)

Illustration by Charis Tsevis (Tsevis Visual Design)

Steve Jobs Tribute by Federico Mauco

Tribute to Steve Jobs by Federico Mauco

Steve Jobs by Bryant Arnold

by Bryant Arnold

Steve Jobs Iotacon by Andy Rash

by Andy Rash

Steve Jobs 1955-2011 by Simona Marino

RIP Steve Jobs by CandyExplosives

Steve Jobs Portrait by Genis Carreras

Special Thanks to Steve Jobs! by MENGAD

Steve Jobs: 1955-2011 by Kristian Hay

Steve Jobs by seyhanargun

Steve Jobs in Pop Art by setobuje

Steve Jobs Tribute by Materialize 127

Steve Jobs by ThatCrookedMind