10 Tragic Details Surrounding The Death Of Steve Jobs

6 /10 Massive Comeback

Just about five years after Apple established itself in the market, Jobs led a team that would eventually come up with Macintosh. He left the company in 1985 following a conflict with the then CEO John Sculley.

During the separation, Jobs shifted to focus on NeXT, which was later acquired by Apple, and Pixar, now a subsidiary of Disney.

When Jobs returned to Apple 12 years later, he oversaw three products to bring Apple back on the map: the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. All three changed the face of the industry as a whole.

5 /10 Effective Executive Style

It is no secret that Steve Jobs was neither a hardware engineer nor a computer programmer.

He made it clear to everyone that his role as a leader included choosing the best people for whatever project was ahead and encouraging everyone to exceed expectations.

As a leader, however, he had the final say on the product design. Throughout his years as CEO of Apple, Jobs was not known as particularly friendly.

He liked to meddle in tiny details and throw some caustic, even humiliating criticisms. But in the end, such an executive style worked well.

4 /10 Only The Future

Whether he had already known that he was coming back in 1985 or that he didn’t care, Jobs didn’t clear out all his personal belongings from his office.

Seemingly important objects (including his first Apple stock certificate) were ultimately thrown away.

Shortly after returning in the late 1990s, Jobs decided to send the company’s historical archive – among the documents were Apple management records – to Stanford University Libraries.

As it turned out, he wanted to create a culture where the company focused only on the future and what could happen instead of the past and what could have been.

3 /10 Apple, Not Disney

That perspective also was made clear in the biography “Becoming Steve Jobs” authored by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli.

According to Tim Cook, the current CEO of Apple, his predecessor found it disgusting how Disney culture had not seen much of a change since the death of Walt Disney.

Even in life, he pointed out that after his death, he didn’t want anybody at Apple to ask what Steve Jobs would do in any situation.

Before the new Apple Campus was completed, Jobs had asked not to name the facility after him. It was called Apple Park.

2 /10 Inevitably Obsolete

His fixation with the future somehow made him realize that all the products he designed would eventually become obsolete shortly.

In an interview in 1994 (Jobs was 36 back then), he said it would happen when he reached 50 years of age.

Perhaps he was thinking about older devices like calculators, film cameras, the Nintendo, overhead projectors, and maybe printed encyclopedia.

Technically he was right, although newer technology products such as smartphones and portable digital audio players still follow the design lines of the first iPhone and iPod.

1 /10 Personal Computer

Steve Jobs came to the scene when the world still essentially saw computers as laboratory equipment meant to be used only by professionals.

Although some had penetrated the home-users market, computers were expensive.

Jobs made everyone know that computers could do many things other than solve math problems and calculate accounting solutions. Despite the sophistication, computers could be fun and empowering.

The way how people used computers and smartphones today is, to some extent, triggered by product design ideas Steve Jobs had decades ago.