Such profound words from an amazing man. With Steve Jobs' death earlier this week, the world lost a real genius, a true visionary whose life work truly changed the landscape of the world forever. Quite a legacy.
The words he spoke in this quote are very thought-provoking. Obviously he followed his own advice in all aspects of his life. I've been doing some reading about his life this week, and I discovered that not only did Steve Jobs co-found Apple with Steve Wozniak in the late 1970's (from whence the world got the Mac computers, iPods, iTunes, iPads, iPhones, etc.), but after resigning from Apple in 1985 (after losing a power struggle with the Board of Directors), he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios, and he became its Chief Executive Officer. By doing so, he became a major force, both economically and imaginatively, of many computer-animated films (like Toy Story, Pixar's first release, for which Steve Jobs was listed as Executive Producer). He remained the major shareholder of Pixar (at 50.1 percent) until 2006 when Disney acquired Pixar, and in the process Steve Jobs became Disney's largest individual shareholder at 7 percent and a member of Disney's Board of Directors.
In 1986, Steve Jobs founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets. Apple's subsequent 1996 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he served as its interim CEO from 1997, then becoming its permanent CEO from 2000-2011 when he resigned due to health reasons. After resigning as CEO in August 2011, Jobs was elected Chairman of Apple's board of directors and held that title until his death earlier this week.
In Steve Jobs' personal life, he was married for 20 years to Laurene Powell, and they have three children (a son and two daughters). He has another daughter from a previous relationship, Lisa Brennan-Jobs. Interestingly, Steve and Laurene were married by a Zen Buddhist Monk. Also interestingly, Steve apparently once dated Joan Baez and also Diane Keaton briefly (at least according to two biographies that were written about his life). His favorite musician was Bob Dylan, and he was a huge Beatles fan (which must be why he named his company Apple - after Apple Records, the Beatles' record company).
Very interesting man.
Of course, in my mind the above quote correlates directly with my Exit from Mormonism. I spent 50 years of my life trapped by dogma, living with the results of other people's thinking. Letting the Mormon Church decide what I did and when I did it. I let the noise of others' opinions drown out of my own inner voice (in many ways). But in the end, I finally had the courage to follow my heart and intuition - and become who I really am. And yes, everything else is secondary.
3 comments:
Today's NYT crossword puzzle is dedicated to Jobs. It's the first I'd heard of Next. He did amazing things with his short life.
The whole experience of leaving Mormonism helps people like us understand how precious our time is.
Yes, Steve Jobs lived an amazing life and did a lot of amazing things - despite all odds. In addition to what I mentioned in my post, he was born out of wedlock, was given up for adoption at birth, dropped out of college, and then changed the world. Obviously he never let anything get him down or cloud his vision (even the LSD he says he did in the 70's... LOL). He is a true inspiration.
What's amazing about that quote from Steve Jobs, Diane, is that my TBM relatives liked it after I posted it as my status on FB. I was amazed thinking that they would see it as an assault on their way of thinking and their worldview, but it was just the opposite, they saw it as good advice for life. Amazing! I think the man was even wiser than I previously gave him credit for. How he can appeal to two diametrically opposed groups with a single quote. I can only hope for such skill in my words to be found at some point.
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