How do you measure the worth of a person? Taking a step back to recognize the value of a life is difficult. Unfortunately, it often takes death for us to consider such matters.
Last week, Steve Jobs died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 56. Jobs changed the world. That much is undeniable.
Everyone agrees that Steve Jobs was a venerable force behind almost all of the technological advancements of the past couple of decades. He is one of few individuals to whom we can point as having redefined the expectations of everyday life. Want to instantly talk to your friend overseas “face-to-face” through a device you can hold in your hand? Sure thing.
Jobs was an effective leader and CEO of Apple, an international corporation. According to the website “Things Apple is Worth More Than,” Apple’s market cap is $380 billion. For anyone who isn’t majoring in economics, that refers to the price of one stock share multiplied by the number of shares outstanding.
The website claims that Apple is worth more than the entire NFL 10-fold, or all the gold at the New York Federal Reserve ($350 billion U.S. Dollars) or the entire economy of Singapore — projected at $318 billion.
Still, the outpouring of grief and mourning had me wondering.
What was it that caused so many people to flock to Apple stores and assemble makeshift memorials? I haven’t seen pictures of people standing in the streets holding flowers and each other in such despair in a long time.
Thousands of people are being killed in Syria. Yet CNN, a respected news source, dedicated almost 24 hours of straight coverage to Steve Jobs. Now, it could be because I was never a “Mac person,” but something seemed off. Why does his death mean so much to so many people?
Call me an idealist, but I refused to accept that the outpouring of emotion surrounding Steve Jobs’ death emanated from his commercial success, fame or even the popularity of the iPod. What does it say about our culture if a person is given such veneration merely because of their financial success? Rather, I committed to uncovering what principles and philosophies Jobs exemplified and what constituted his legacy.
On the most basic level, I think the products he was responsible for each have ideologies behind them. The iPod is about simplicity and individuality. With Macs and the iPad, Apple showed us that yesterday’s impossible is always just one development away.
More abstractly, Jobs represented ambition. As a college dropout at 20, he found his passion in life and relentlessly pursued it from then on. How many of us can testify to such clarity, vision and determination? I’m 20 and I haven’t declared my major.
In 10 years he created a multi-billion dollar company. But what’s so remarkable about Jobs is that this only represented his commitment to go big — and he knew it.
I urge everyone to get on YouTube and watch his commencement address at Stanford University in 2005. In it, he shares his philosophy about going home big. Jobs recognized that ingenuity and real success are immaterial.
I’ll end with a quote from that speech that reaffirmed my faith that we truly have lost someone special.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary,” he said.
“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”