“Tim Cook has asked Apple staff to honour the late Steve Jobs on the fourth anniversary of his death, urging them to stop each other to ‘ask what he was really like,'” Rhiannon Williams reports for The Telegraph. “”
“In an internal email to staff seen by The Telegraph, chief executive Cook paid tribute to his former leader and ‘dear friend,’ stating that messages and drawings from Jobs’ children were still displayed on Jobs’ office whiteboard at Apple’s Californian headquarters,” Williams reports. “Cook has previously said that Jobs’ office in Apple’s 1 Infinite Loop headquarters in California had been left ‘exactly like it was’ as a form of memorial.”
“The anniversary of Jobs’ death comes as director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin prepare to release their Steve Jobs blockbuster biopic on October 9,” Williams reports. “Cook has dismissed the portrayal of Jobs in the film and recent documentary Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine as ‘opportunistic.'”
Tim Cook’s email to Apple employees:
Team,
Today marks four years since Steve passed away. On that day, the world lost a visionary. We at Apple lost a leader, a mentor, and many of us lost a dear friend.
Steve was a brilliant person, and his priorities were very simple. He loved his family above all, he loved Apple, and he loved the people with whom he worked so closely and achieved so much.
Each year since his passing, I have reminded everyone in the Apple community that we share the privilege and responsibility of continuing the work Steve loved so much.
What is his legacy? I see it all around us: An incredible team that embodies his spirit of innovation and creativity. The greatest products on earth, beloved by customers and empowering hundreds of millions of people around the world. Soaring achievements in technology and architecture. Experiences of surprise and delight. A company that only he could have built. A company with an intense determination to change the world for the better.
And, of course, the joy he brought his loved ones.
He told me several times in his final years that he hoped to live long enough to see some of the milestones in his children’s lives. I was in his office over the summer with Laurene and their youngest daughter. Messages and drawings from his kids to their father are still there on Steve’s whiteboard.
If you never knew Steve, you probably work with someone who did or who was here when he led Apple. Please stop one of us today and ask what he was really like. Several of us have posted our personal remembrances on AppleWeb, and I encourage you to read them.
Thank you for honoring Steve by continuing the work he started, and for remembering both who he was and what he stood for.
We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it. – Steve Jobs
