The latest issue of Fortune includes a column from Stanley Bing who writes about how the world has been changed by Steve Jobs.
Bing writes, “I want to take this opportunity, before time and our common mortality rob me of the chance to do so, to thank you, Steve Jobs, for all that you have done for me. No, I never had the privilege of meeting you, or had a chance to get yelled at by you in a business meeting, or even watch your charisma transform an audience into acolytes. But I feel as if I know you well enough to express, as you ascend to your new role as chairman, the sadness I feel and my gratitude for so many of the good things that you have brought to my life. It’s not business. It’s personal.”
Bing goes through the variety of inventions that Jobs has been responsible for and how they have influenced his life writing, “It’s been your world, Steve. And we’ve been lucky enough to run along behind you, picking up goodies as you dropped them in our path. It’s a little scary to think that one day you’ll go off to your famous mountaintop and not return with the next big thing. But at least we can all say we lived in a time when there was a person with such an imagination, and offer thanks in whatever digital or analog format we choose, wherever on earth we may be.”
Much more in the full article here.
Yes, indeed. Thank you Steve!
Yes! Thank you Steve!
Gerbrand, from the Netherlands
Thanks Steve from an italian journalist with Power Mac G 5 (June 2003 edition…) !
Who’s cutting the goddamn onions around here!?
Seriously, thank you Steve. I owe you my career, unquantifiable joy, and a sense of attachment and control to my technology.
Yes thanks Steve. And thanks Bing – brought a tear to my eye.
From the bottom of my heart, Thank you Steve !!!
Very nice and an echo from my own heart!
“I want to put a ding in the universe.” (Steven Jobs)
This is probably the best ever line that describes Jobs and what he was doing.
“You’re welcome” “Je vous en prie” “De nada” “Prego” “Nichts zu danken” “どういたしまして。” “不用谢” “Пожалуйста”.
You stay classy, planet Earth.
Hey, people running behind Balmer know he drops things, too.
They just try not to step in it…
ROTFLMAO, yes, windows users must always be careful where to step
Thanks Steve ! I wish the best for you!
Yours always,
Muhammad (Not the terrorist!)
Steve has put far more than a ding in the universe. More like setting aflame and feeding an abiding bright beacon light of hope and truth and love, a monumental labor of love and enthusiasm and perseverance that has propelled quality of life forward.
When a person passes on and has his life review, he sees all he has thought, done, experienced, and how every ripple affects others. Steve will be inundated with joy love and gratitude to a momentous extent that Heaven has rarely seen. What an extraordinary Titan Steve is, what a rare treasure, what a blessing.
For Steve, the best is yet to come.
Hear! Hear!
In 1995 I was freed from suffocating grip of the dreaded MS constrictor – 1,000,000 times worse than any python. So, yes, I too, want to add my voice to the grateful chorus: Thank You. Thank You. And again I say, Thank You.
Steve, many forces can irrevocably change a person’s life for the better.
You were one of them.
Thanks.
Steve Jobs – love the guy. If he had 200 years, this planet might be liveable. Lets learn from his example.
My favorite quote from SJ.
“Apple’s goal isn’t to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products… We trust as a consequence of that, people will like them, and as another consequence, we’ll make some money. But we’re really clear about what our goals are.”
Yup, have to agree with you on that. Money is not the target, it’s a by-product of making something amazing.
So many short-sighted CEOs fail to grasp that.
Steve, thank you for everything you did as CEO of Apple Inc.
All my love to you and your family,
RastaMouse
i also am very grateful for all Steve has done to enrich my life. And I am very glad he was young in a different time when entrepreneurial freedom was highly valued and government coercion of in the free market was not a social goal as it is now. Thank you Steve for being an exemplary representative of free market capitalism and all the good that it can produce, if it is unfettered by the tyranny of the State.
Thanks, Steve
After reading such a personal thank you from this writer, I was amused as I had recently considered writing an email to Steve (of which I have done a few times before but never with any expectation of a reply!) to do the very same thing; to thank him for the last 10 years of Apple
products and how they have positively added to my life. So in the same vein, here’s mine.
Firstly, I want to thank you for my first 5GB iPod. I cannot explain how frustrated I had been for so many years! CD players, then onto Mini Discs with the expensive 5 packs that forced us to Richer Sounds, God Amazon was a still a pipedream! When would someone allow me to save all my music as file types and let me play the digital copies? You sorted it. I loved the click wheel. Click, click, click.
My iPhone. Only writing this now do I realise that statement applies to 3 separate devices to date, but I know there’ll be more! I have relied on your constant attention to detail and human interface rules to never find it difficult to do any of the umpteen things I now rely on my phone to do for me. For my phone alone, I thank you greatly!
My MacBook. A black slab of plastic that’s taken 5 years to prove it’s as reliable as it’s predecessor; the 12″ PowerBook, which didnt let me down in 5 years!
It’s kept up with all your crazy OS upgrades, 1 a year, no probs! And all the Windows gags, like “giving someone a glass of ice water in hell” Only you Steve, only you.
And finally my Apple TV, which nowadays has enough of your very own Pixar stuff to keep my son Castor happy while I do the hoovering or some other such mundane house chores! The content won’t get scratched to then not work in the drive; and I’m sure soon will be hosted by a big Apple shaped cloud in the sky for any of my screens in the house to play. (oh, and I cried so much in the first 30 mins of Up my son started wondering what was wrong with me!)
But finally & I suppose most importantly, I want to thank you for highly influencing the way I look at design and product. This was not something that I digested at school, it was a learning curve driven by your products and how they always seemed to strike a chord with people. Apple products were packed beautifully regardless of popularity. The box my iPhone (x3) has arrived in has been lovely to open; all three times! And I even appreciate that you put the effort into reducing their size with each iteration for environmental reasons! Your products have set a benchmark that other manufacturers rarely meet. There is a part of me now which has a quality control switch which could only have been instigated by your endless attention to detail to wear off on the users of your toys!
Ps, thanks for FaceTime too!
Thank you Steve, for all the wonderful Apple products I have owned since my first Mac SE back in 1987, as I planned to go to school and work in Beijing, and wanted an OS that could allow me to type in Chinese. I used to lug that Mac SE around in its bag all over China! And, given the widely fluctuating power voltage in China, that power supply was amazing that it never failed, even though my Toshiba dot-matrix printer crapped out.
HERE. HERE! Thank you Steve!
RIP Steve Jobs. Thanks for the iPad!
Beautifully written…. from someone who (seriously?) has never watched a Steve Jobs keynote
Thank you so much Steve for everything. You have given us all a priceless gift: Hope.
We love you and will always cherish you. You will remain in our hearts forever.
Love to you and your family.
“R.I.P” implies somebody is dead. Steve Jobs is alive.
Yes! Thank you so very much for all that you have provided us though out the years Mr. S. Jobs! Dare I say, Sir Jobs! Because we all know you should be the one with that title. Not that other guy!
He’s always skated to where the BUCK is going to be. 🙂
You know what would make ALL OF US really truly happy?
Something like this:
As a result of a new therapy, Steve Jobs appears to have done it again. His health is returning and he’s gaining weight according to un named sources close to the Apple Chairman.
THAT would be the best news of the last 20 years. I believe that if we jointly believe it to be true, it WILL be true…and for THAT I would be extremely grateful.
Very nice post. I pray for him everyday, his family too. Can you imagine how elated everyone around the world would be? Miracles do happen and I hope he is the recipient of one.
Steve regaining weight and getting better would be best for him, more so for us. By all means, he – like anyone else should get better. If he does get better, he should not return as CEO, but keep his current job at Apple which means he’ll still have his hand in Apple and help them innovate. Hopefully Apple will never ever forget its DNA (Jobs) 20, 50 whatever years after he passes away.
My own father did get sick and look worse in a matter of months… then died. Its difficult to recover and I wish Jobs the very best. But he is a man, he – like the rest of us, will eventually die. He will be remembered… but others in the industry who have done great things have already died. Most don’t remember Jay Miner.
Steve Jobs…. A man called many a different name.
Loved and hated like his nemisis, Bill Gates. Which I still remember that Star Wars Lando surprise moment when gates pops onto the big screen in front of thousands of Apple users.
(like when Lando brings Han Solo to Darth Vader) Its on YouTube “Macworld Boston 1997-The Microsoft Deal”
Steve Jobs hasn’t done everything “perfectly”, and his reality distortion field has worked for so long (typical joke)… but in the end, it didn’t matter than Apple’s OS isn’t #1 on the planet. He created Apple and he saved Apple. Unlike most consumer tech companies, he lead Apple to innovate. Some may consider it stuck-up and such…. especially with its users, which is true for some. But such people exist for anything out there, not just Mac.
I’m not sure what I can think him for… he’s been my bad guy (and Billy Gates), but I can respect him for how he ran his company, selling generally upper quality products. (The cover-up thing never looks cool) His vision that computers should be easy to use, for even the biggest idiot is valid for many people. You get more done when you are NOT fighting your computer.
Steve Jobs, his company and the people who work there deserve the respect for bring out the cool BIG toys we use for work, play and life.
I wish him the best & I would love to see him get better.