“News of Steve Jobs’s death, while not unexpected, precipitated strong emotions inside and outside business and technology circles, as he was lauded for being a visionary who changed the world,” The Wall Street Journal reports.
WSJ reports, “Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates said it had ‘been an insanely great honor’ to work with his long-time rival and Apple Inc. co-founder. ‘Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives,’ Mr. Gates said. ‘The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come. For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.'”
WSJ reports, “‘Steve Jobs was a great friend as well as a trusted advisor. His legacy will extend far beyond the products he created or the businesses he built,’ said Robert Iger, president and chief executive of Walt Disney Co. ‘Steve was such an ‘original,’ with a thoroughly creative, imaginative mind that defined an era. Despite all he accomplished, it feels like he was just getting started. With his passing the world has lost a rare original.'”
“Larry Sonsini, chairman of law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, which has represented Apple since 1980, said he was devastated by the news that Mr. Jobs had died and that he had spoken to Mr. Jobs on the phone last week,” WSJ reports. “‘I knew he was tired but he was still at it and still taking to me about what’s going on and the industry and I was asking questions about the dynamics in the market,’ he said. Mr. Sonsini added that the Mr. Jobs death will be a ‘setback for the country, not just the (Silicon) Valley. … He really truly was one of the more exceptional geniuses in technology, in history…. don’t think anybody came close to him.'”
Read more from Michael Dell, Carol Bartz, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Jerry Brown, Marc Andreessen, and others in the full article here.
Related article:
Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder, dead at 56 – October 5, 2011
I know that this is stupid, but I am mad at the level of progress of medicine we have. We live in XXI Century, but there are still no really working artificial organs that could have sustain Jobs’ life, his brilliant mind.
It’s not stupid. Everyone who loses someone to such an illness probably has those thoughts cross their mind.
That day will come when we have more cures and shit like artificial organs to sustain life, maybe sooner than we think. It’s just unfortunate that Steve couldn’t be around to benefit from such future advances in medicine.
Steve left us with the building blocks. It’s time to show him what we can do with it now. SIRI is just one more fine example of the possibilities we have and It will change how we use a Smartphone and a computer all over again.
SIRI – Steve’s Intelligence Resides Inside. Sorry, I might have gotten a little drunk on the kool-aid. 🙂
Well, cancer is a pretty tough desease to cure. From a scientific standpoint, the reason being is because cancer cells are mutated versions of you regular cells so your immune system refuses to fight it and that’s what troubles scientists the most.
But I agree, I really wish we could have some better medicine at this point
The problem is our healthcare system is a wall street industry only worried about profits not health. The industry doesn’t want people to be cancer free because there is no money in making people well. But…there is a lot of money in treating disease over and over and over. Why do you think all these diseases just get worse and there never is a REAL breakthrough?
Please remember that Jobs, in his finite wisdom, was using alternative therapies during a very progressive period of his cancer. He was not relying upon evidence-based medicine, which may well have kept him with us for much longer.
you’re contradicting yourself: “very progressive”
exactly.
he started alternative med when it was too late.
it is the evidence-based med that killed him.
do you know the % of cancer cures from med or chemo?! it’s nearly “0”
the only sane alternative IS Alternative!
just like with alt. energy: naysayers bitch that the infrastructure/transportation used to bring alt. energy to us, beats the purpose since we need oil/coal for that.
well, that’s a silly excuse.
steve jobs always excelled.
so, for energy or med to advance, we do need to spend more time/energy/funds on those technologies
@Rolf
“do you know the % of cancer cures from med or chemo?! it’s nearly “0″”
My mother underwent intensive “evidence based” chemotherapy to treat multiple myloma (a form of bone marrow cancer) at 84 years of age for 6 months. And she’s been symptom free for the past 3 years. So you “0%” is demonstrably false.
Stick to your homeopathic remedies. That will free up the stuff that works for the rest of us.
great news for your mom.
seriously.
my zero percent was symbolic, not literal or empirical.
but the med success rate that you call evidence-based is pure conjecture, extremely inconsistent. there’s no more success in it than alternative help. alternative help is new. medical is not. plus all the R&D goes to the filthy rich doctors not alternative therapies.
it is evil to charge so much.
i too have family members with cancer & hepB/C, yet it is not the chemo or med establishment that cured him. his dad suffered from it too, gave his millions to cancer research, yet when his son asked for help they denied him! that’s the nat’l c assoc!
most cancer patient that survive helped themselves. it’s in the attitude mostly, internal strength, meditation etc., since there’s no cure in sight yet on either side of the argument.
I am a cancer survivor, yes, and relied solely upon scientific medicine- surgery and radiation treatments. I’d be dead right now if I had turned to alternatives.
i’m happy for you.
but you’re a fractional success story in med cure.
there’s no more success in it than alt.
plus how can you judge Alt. when you have not tried it. you can’t know you’d be dead.
It is gossip by Fortune magazine, which contradicts basic fact like that Jobs was diagnosed in 2004, not in 2003, and was treated surgically very quickly. Jobs told this story to Stanford students in 2005, years before certain Fortune’s authors came up with this nonsense story.
It reminds me of Fortune reports that Michael Jackson ordered to curse Steven Spielberg via voodoo.
Have you seen the Apple.com site? I was expecting something classy, but wow. His spirit lives on.
I love the website. So nice of apple to dedicate their home page to him. No other company in the world would do that.
It’s perfect. Just what he would have wanted.
Words simply fall short of fully converying what SJ meant to the world. I feel fortunate to have been alive to see a genius, master and humanitarian excel at his craft.
The Apple Stores are dimming the Apple lights tonight.
*goosebumps* 🙁
We’re born. We die. The part in between is called Life. What is important is what you do with it.
Steve Jobs, more than most, grokked that. See his Stanford University commencement speech of a few years ago to understand what he understood.
Steven P. Jobs = Michael Valentine Smith
That speech is being used in almost every obit on TV news that I’ve so far seen. It’s a classic, for sure. Jobs’ Gettysburg, although he spoke for a bit longer….
Legacy, Jobs, Apple. Very Simply Stated. Think Different is an Understatment. The loss is hard to process. Don’t kid yourselves, he is in a better place. NeXt 🙂 we are proud.
The name of the latest iPhone now seems very fitting as a final tribute.
iPhone 4S. Where the “4S” means “For Steve”
I like that!
Like an epiphany, it hit me, why the loss of Steve Jobs, a man I’ve never met, has such a profound effect on my emotional psyche, now, at the sunset of his passing…
For over 25 years, I’ve been defending him, his company, and his products passionately and emotionally. PC users have suffered through a passionless, bland computing experience all that time, and have no way of empathizing with what this is like.
Through his brilliance, I was able to move into a wonderful, exciting, new stage in life: moving from old, manual paste-up days of production art, to completely computerized graphic design, expanding my mind in the process.
And, it was through his vision, that computing could be organic and emotional, that drew out more creativity in people than anyone ever thought possible… But, beyond creativeness, it was also just so organic in how simply and functional it all worked… So organic, that it became an extension of yourself.
For decades, I fought a lonely battle against all of the nay-sayers and Apple haters… Sometimes, standing completely alone in a crowd of those Apple haters; haters just BECAUSE it was Apple… Most having never even sat an Apple Computer once in their entire lives.
So, now… Steve Jobs feels like he’s a part of my family… One that I have supported, loved, and protected through good times, and bad, for more than half my life…
We all should hope to foster a life that is as brilliant… and leaves a legacy as strong and as profound…
RIP
Steve Jobs
1955-2011
Wow, you took the words right out of my mouth. Thank you so much for articulating what I am so painfully feeling. Your story is my story!
I too can so relate to your words; thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Jobs; I feel I’ve lost a family member and a close friend. You’re dearly missed. R.I.P.
Ditto, that’s my story too. Such, wonderful thoughtful words Shon. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience.
I’m heartbroken today. Rest in peace Steve. Go well.
I can’t stop crying. You have said all the words that need to be said for me.
Derss, I would not use this as an opportunity to blame a lack of progress in the medical field. Our technological capabilities and medical knowledge are growing exponentially and in the grand scope of time I don’t think we are anywhere near the end of such a fast growth rate.
The medical field is intrinsically tied to the technology field, and, even if we could make a synthetic organ, it would likely be decades before we could make synthetic organs that would work with all immune systems and tissue types. The variables are vast and beyond the scope of microbiology. There are just way too many factors going on to expect such a technical feat any time soon. But yes, I share the frustration.
One thing for sure though is that when a patient is as strong willed as Steve Jobs they will always defy expectations. He lived far longer than the naysayers made it seem like after his initial diagnosis. He was an extraordinary fighter.
He is a role model to people living with cancer everywhere. I hope people will take this time to consider being organ donors. This requires little paperwork.
The iPad is simply amazing and revolutionary and as soon as hospitals and other healthcare facilities are able to adopt them (competently of course) we will see a dramatic increase in the quality of care given to all patients. For all those who complain that an iPad isn’t enough of a computer, they must have never seen the myriad medical apps that so streamline our experience today in the healthcare field. The main problem today is that the older generations are less likely to be tech-savvy and the inept IT departments may not impliment these technologies in a timely fashion.
The more people that learn to use iOS effectively in healthcare, the better off all of us are in health outcomes in my opinion.
Many will overlook Steve Jobs’ very direct contributions to medical science.
At nearly any medical campus you will see not only iPhones and iPads, but Mac users everywhere. The younger generation of healthcare professionals have been more impacted by Steve Jobs than anyone is ready to give him credit for. But as the older generation retires it will be obvious that Apple devices will be a mainstay of critical importance.
About a month ago, my circa 2002 PowerBook finally broke by cracking the display frame. It had been my 10-year-old son’s computer for about the last 4 or 5 years. This happened while he was using it to do some homework.
And when it broke, he cried.
Not because he got hurt. Not because he was afraid of being yelled at. But because he was sincerely saddened by the loss of his trusted friend–an outdated and slow laptop that was “his.” He asked if we could please keep it around, and not throw it away. It now sits on a shelf like the remains of a beloved family pet.
Such is Steve Jobs’ legacy… creating products that we love. Products that touch us and allow us to be better humans–more productive and creative than we may had previously thought possible. It is why I buy computers that are more than the sum of their spec sheets. It is why I am a consumer of their goods, an evangelist of the philosophies, and a long-time shareholder.
Think different… and stay the course.
Thank you Steve.
I came to be a mac user very recently really.
Ive “used” macs over the years but never as my primary machine.
My sweet wife gave me a second gen intel based mini as a gift.
I had no idea that little elegant machine would lead to me questioning a lot of what i thought about computers in terms of design and usability.
I used to think that because Steve didn’t know how to program that he was somewhat out of his league running a tech company. Using his vision of computing ive come to realize that him being a user instead of a developer was one of his greatest strengths.
While us devs often work away trying to make the ultimate geek toys this guy set his sites on the common human.
Insanely brilliant is all i can think today.
Im happy to be alive and honored to have felt the impact of this legendary titan.
RIP Steve…. You delivered more than any of us could have imagined
Friends and business rivals mourn SJ’s passing…
Hope this doesn’t sound inappropriate. I’m not trying to be.
Did I miss Woz’s tribute? I’m sure he’s sad and would pass on his condolences to the family but I haven’t seen or maybe just missed. Anyone know if he added his remarks to the mix?
Steve Jobs in a nutshell:
as if that’s possible!
Macs were passionate, emotional, organic extensions of ourselves,
that got us out of the stone age, inspired much work, many careers.
if you never touched a Mac, you used drones or merely cold machines.
Steve’s legacy will inspire all more years to come.
all legends die young.
Steve Jobs’ sudden death:
it just shows you how frail life is.
it lasts seconds in time/space continuum.
it shows us how little we progressed in medicine,
since Egyptians mummified.
if only Steve ran the world!
imagine all the People living in peace!
no boundaries.
no health problems.
scientific breakthroughs.
booming economy.
apolitical politics.
just f’g peace. simplicity. sirius bliss.
I can only now wish that I had been a friend or colleague of Jobs, but I’ve certainly been a codependent in his vision of taste and technology. A true vantage point in the universe is now missing.