by Rev. Dr. Ed Hird
Like Steve Jobs, I
grew up at a time when huge mainframe computers would fill entire rooms.
The concept of having one’s own personal computer
was unthinkable. In Palo Alto the future Silicon Valley where
Jobs grew up, virtually everyone was an engineer or worked in electronics.[i] My dream from Grade
3 to Grade 10 was to be an electrical engineer like my father. I will
never forget when my dad gave me my first microprocessor, replacing the old
vacuum tubes. While completing my Masters in 1980, I submitted two
papers written on the University of British Columbia mainframe. My
professor commented that this was the first computer paper that he had ever
read, but not likely his last.
In reading Walter
Isaacson’s recent Steve Jobsbiography, I was inspired to
think about lessons that we might learn from Jobs’ life. Jobs was a
world-changer, a revolutionary, and an artist. One of his maxims was
“It’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy.” Jobs once even
hoisted a Jolly Roger flag with the eye patch being the Apple logo.
He commented: “we were the renegades and we wanted people to know
it.”[ii]
Jobs had a genius for
creativity, innovation and excellence. ‘Good enough’ for Jobs was not
good enough. He wanted people to stretch, to dream and to risk everything
on the next technological breakthrough. Jobs said: “There’s an old Wayne
Gretzsky quote that I love. I skate to where the puck is going to be, not
where it has been.”[iii] Curiosity and the
joy of discovery propelled Jobs to imagine the unimaginable. Through
Pixar, iPod, and iPhone, Jobs radically reshaped movies, music and phones.
I remember the buzz of waiting in line at Park Royal Shopping Centre in
West Vancouver for the iPhone 4. I was given the eighth of the eight
phones delivered that day. A lady from the jewelry store rushed over and
told me that this would change my life. It felt somewhat over the top but she
proved to be right. Using my iPhone probably shaved about one to two years off
my doctorate.
Jobs had a remarkable
gift at integrating technology and beauty, science and art. Robert
Palladino, a former monk teaching calligraphy at Reed College, radically shaped
Jobs’ passion for design. Bill Gates once said: “I would give a lot to
have Steve’s taste.”[iv]
Like his Microsoft rival
Bill Gates, Jobs was a technological rock star. Eight times, he was on
the cover of Time, over twelve times on the cover ofFortune, as well as the covers of Rolling Stone andNewsweek. Bono
called Jobs the hardware/software Elvis.[v] Bill Gates once said:
“Don’t
you understand that Steve
[Jobs] doesn’t know anything about technology? He’s just a super
salesman… He doesn’t know anything about engineering and 99% of what he says
and thinks is wrong….”[vi]
In the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, Jobs accused Gates of
stealing ideas from Apple. Gates memorably responded:
“Well, Steve, I think there’s more than one way of looking at it. I think it’s
more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house
to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.”[vii]
Ejected from his own
company Apple, Jobs picked himself up and dusted himself off, going on to a
stunning financial success with Pixar’s Toy Story movie.
When Jobs returned to Apple, the company was very demoralized, just ninety days
from bankruptcy. Jobs rallied the troops, insightfully saying: “Apple
didn’t have to beat Microsoft. Apple had to remember who Apple was.”[viii]
Our greatest weaknesses
are often hidden in our greatest strengths. Jobs’ passion for excellence
often made him very painful to work with. Many of his personal and
business relationships were unable to survive his aggressive zeal for
innovation. Jobs’ ability to silently stare and then blow up at people
allowed him to weed out unsuitable colleagues. Karen Blumenthal commented
that “he could be both charming and gratingly abrasive, sensitive and
stunningly mean-spirited.”[ix] Gates jokingly once
said: “Steve is so known for his restraint.”[x] In some ways, he
was a Samson figure, talented and tortured. At age 23, he abandoned his
own child Lisa, denying his paternity, the same age that his birth parents gave
him away. Only fourteen years later, after naming a computer after her,
did Jobs bring Lisa back into his life.[xi]
Raised in church, Jobs
described his becoming disenchanted when the pastor seemed callous about the
suffering of African children. How sad that the pastor did not challenge
Jobs to join him in making a practical difference in Africa. The
malnutrition of African children doesn’t have to be that way. We can be
Jesus’ hands and feet. Steve and his good friend Bill Fernandez spent
many hours walking and discussing spiritual matters: “We were both interested
in the spiritual side of things, the big questions: who are we? What is it all
about? What does it mean?”[xii]
Perhaps one of the best
influences in Jobs’ life was Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Jobs and
Wozniak’s partnership integrated the hippie and the nerd, bringing together
vision and know-how. Without Wozniak, there would have been no
Apple. Woz remarkably said that Jobs had been respectful to him on almost
every occasion. Ronald Wayne, another Apple co-founder commented: “Wozniak
was a fascinating guy, fun to be with and the most gracious guy I ever met.”[xiii] Steve Wozniak observed:
“Although I never went to church, I was influenced occasionally by stories
about Christian things; values like the idea of turning the other cheek. If
somebody does something bad to you, you don’t fight back. You’re still good to
them and treat them with love from your heart. Values of caring about the
communities I grew up in, the schools that I went to, the cities I lived in;
putting proper value on that. Values of respecting other people; not being a
criminal or stealing.”[xiv] Woz embodied Jesus’
Golden rule to do unto others as we would have them do to us.
My ultimate lesson from the Apple co-founders is to be like Jobs in
innovation while being like Woz in respecting people.
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector
BSW, MDiv, DMin
-an article for the April 2014 Deep Cove Crier
-award-winning author of
the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
p.s.
In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50
cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7.
For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done
by PAYPAL using
the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address.
The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to download a
complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the
complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
[i] Steve Jobs: the last thing PBS
movie, 1999.
[ii] Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs (Simon & Schuster, New York , NY,
2011) P. 144-145.
[iii] Anthony Imbimbo, Steve Jobs: the Brilliant Mind Behind Apple (Gareth
Stevens Publishing, Pleasantville, NY, 2009) Steve Jobs: the last thing PBS
movie, 1999, p. 97.
[iv] Steve Jobs: the last thing PBS
movie, 1999
[v] Karen Blumenthal, Steve Jobs: the Man who thought different (Fiewel and
Friends, New York, NY, 2012), p. 263, p. 278.
[vi] Isaacson, p. 302.
[vii] Andy Hertzfeld, A
Rich Neighbor Named Xerox, November 1983http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=A_Rich_Neighbor_Named_Xerox.txt (accessed
Feb 10th 2014)
[viii] Steve Jobs: the last
thing PBS movie, 1999.
[ix] Blumenthal, p. 2.
[x] Steve Jobs: the last thing PBS
movie, 1999
[xi] Laura Collins, Daily
Mail, UK, “Steve Job’s ex-lover’s book reveals Apple founder”, October 29th 2013, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2478339/Steve-Jobs-ex-lovers-book-reveals-Apple-founder.html (accessed
Feb 10th 2014)
[xii] Blumenthal, p. 13.
[xiii] Steve
Jobs: the last thing PBS movie, 1999
[xiv] “An Interview with Steve
Wozniak”,http://www.thetech.org/exhibits/online/revolution/wozniak/i_b.html(accessed
Feb 10th 2014)
2 comments:
Ed, wow! Thank you for pulling back the curtains on Steve Jobs and his co-founders of Apple. Especially your sharing these fascination aspects of Jobs' and Wozniak's gifts, personalities and values. ~~+~~
Interesting post, Ed. Makes me want to learn more about Jobs and Woz!
Post a Comment