Monday, October 5, 2020, marked the ninth anniversary of the passing of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Mr. Jobs’s death followed years of suffering and complications from pancreatic cancer. He was just 56 when he died.
Steve Jobs on Death: ‘No One Wants to Die’
When people think of Mr. Jobs’s commencement address to Stanford’s class of 2005, they always refer to the famous “stay hungry, stay foolish,” ending. AppleInsider flagged up another key moment from that speech. At one point, Mr. Jobs referred to his diagnosis and mortality. He discussed the day the tumor on his pancreas was found and how it changed his thinking towards death. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life,” he told the students.
Despite his positivity at the Stamford address, Mr. Jobs’s condition required him to go on medical leave in January 2009. He returned to the Apple stage on September 9, 2009, following a liver transplant. At the event, he praised the “generosity” of his donor before unveiling a new set of iPod nanos. He would go on to live for over two years before his death in October 2011. Tim Cook had been appointed his permanent successor as CEO just six weeks earlier. He paid tribute to his predecessor and mentor:
To this day, debate and controversy surround the medical and care decisions Mr. Jobs made for himself. Some wonder if he could have lived longer had he taken a different approach. We, obviously, will never know that. What we do know is that his ideals remain as relevant to Apple as they ever did, with the company’s Apple Park campus the ultimate tribute.
As good as Apple and its products (not to mention Tim Cook) continue to be (even the “beleaguered” interregnum Apple of the 1990s produced interesting things like Quicktime, the Quicktake camera, and the Newton/eMate) there really was something special about Steve Jobs and Apple. From the Apple ][ to the Macintosh to the iMac to the iPod to the iPhone to the iPad, these were all amazing devices that turned technology into something fun and empowering. And there is nothing quite like a Jobs “One more thing…”
Thanks, Steve!
Charlotte:
One minor correction; that was SJ’s 2005 address at Stanford University.
Cheers.