Steve jobs announced he is stepping down as the CEO of Apple today due to his ongoing battle with a rare form of panchreatic cancer. He will be staying on indefinitely as chairman. A good moment to stop and review the contribution of this titan of the computing industry and father of so much that is right in American culture generally.
I was just complimented by a colleague who had stopped by my cubicle to discuss this development. When I said Steve Jobs is the one guy who really gets that the machines need to be there for people, and not the other way around, he, my colleague, said Steve Jobs said that! I don't know this for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me. Jobs knew that while we can let ourselves be impressed by the speed and sleekness of the hard and software we create, ultimately humans are the superior thinking machines. They need to adapt to us, we shouldn't be expected to adapt to them (unless we're programmers or engineers or something).
Steve Jobs knows that we are the superior beings.
My office is abuzz with the news this morning and an e-mail from our COO just went out with some excellent quotes from Jobs. Here's the link.
