Steve Jobs. A name that does not require any introduction. The man behind the phone in your hand and the computer at your desk, he’s regarded as the greatest person to exist in the history of personal technology.

I’ve been hearing this since I was ten maybe. Jobs is the greatest, he pushed technology leaps ahead, Apple is the most innovative company in the world, etc. I was reading Elon Musk’s biography a few years back and there’s this one line that stuck — the author is praising Elon for Tesla and SpaceX and tries to compare him to Jobs; but then the passage goes like “…though Elon is no Jobs”.

Elon is no Jobs? So you’re implying that the guy who makes self-driving cars and his very own rockets, even he is not comparable enough to Jobs? How great is Jobs?!

For many years, I’ve been dabbling with this question. What made Jobs, Jobs? How come a person who could neither code, nor design, is credited for pioneering the personal computing space?

I got my answer in this video:

The answer is that, as they all say, Jobs was a visionary. He had a crystal clear vision of where technology is going in the next 5, 10, 50 years. And he was at the forefront in making that vision become reality.

In his most famous speech from Stanford convocation, Jobs talks about connecting dots backwards to understand how even the most independent events impact each other to form a cohesive trajectory of life. Backwards, right? But Jobs had an extraordinary ability to connect them forwards. To an extent of course, but better than most.

In this video, not only he’s (casually) predicting the breakthroughs in computing for the next 50 years, he’s explaining the most complex concepts as simply as possible:

• [2:51] He explains computers — “…Third thing about computers, they’re really dumb. They’re exceptionally simple, but they’re really fast.” How would you go about explaining computers?

• [10:14] When companies like Microsoft and IBM saw personal computers as advanced calculators, Jobs saw them as a new medium to communicate. He’s anticipating handheld computers and wireless networks. Bear in mind, this is the year when internet was just invented.

• [14:37] Feel his excitement as he explains Lisa Draw. This excitement from 40 years ago is what has expanded over time to have Apple (quite literally) own the creative professionals market. Film makers, composers, designers, artists, photographers, programmers, everyone chooses an Apple product for their creative workflow (with the exception of game developers). Whereas Windows machines are mostly used by office workers. Jobs knew what he’s building and who he’s building it for.

• [17:43] He starts explaining computer programs, abstracts a few things out for top level explanation, transitions to a video game example and then to a super articulate RPG example, and finally, he predicts the most advanced program we have today — ChatGPT. Though his prediction was for the next 50-100 years. Well, we arrived a bit early Steve!

• [22:13] Explains how these computers will eventually be connected together to act as a medium for people with similar interests to come together. Today we call this medium social media.

• [25:50] Launches world’s first personal computer 7 years ago, and already wants to shrink it to the size of a book. But the genius lies in the fact that he says “we will be there within 5-7 years” and actually ships PowerBook in 1991.

• [29:18] “…wasn’t this the way it always was?” Make the product so good, so transformative, that the person using it forgets how they did things without it. Excellent excellent heuristic for quality.

• [38:31] Introduces the world to the App Store, 25 years before actual launch.

You may think it’s not that big of a deal considering that he was living in the Valley, deep in the tech business, so he’s supposed to know all this. But consider this — you’re 28, a college dropout with no formal education in tech or management or marketing, no skills in code or design or engineering, and you talk about the future of technology with such clarity and accuracy. It’s unbelievable.

What’s more? After this speech in 1983, Jobs was fired from Apple in 1985. While he founded and grew his next company named NeXT (duh), Apple went down to bankruptcy. Rejoins his baby company in 1997 and Apple becomes Apple.

During this time, he did one more thing — Pixar.

These stories are not a coincidence. Apple’s fall and rise, the transformation of animation and music industries, didn’t just happen. One person can make a difference. If that person is Steven Paul Jobs.

💭 Aphorisms

I am not a fan of Jobs. I wrote this one out of curiosity and astonishment. Slightly different from the standard format but I hope you liked it. Let me know your thoughts by replying to this email or commenting on the website :)

Good night!
Aachman