Back To Cursing
My story about Steve Jobs is not all that spectacular. I wasn’t going to write it at first, but yet here I am. I guess I have to admit that I will miss the world I used to know, the world in which he was present, more than I thought I would.
When I started my first job it was a programmer’s job on Mac OS at a company called Artwork Systems. They were among the first companies that ported their code from the 68K to the PowerPC and claimed in their folder that it as a technical feat to accomplish.
What did I know? I was a freshman from university and eager to have a job. In university I had used all sorts of operating systems, especially in my last year, where I spent time abroad using whatever computer terminal I could find available to finish the tasks I had been assigned to do. There were all sorts of Unix systems and sometimes there was even a Windows computer.
Because of that I was able to adapt to a new system quite easily. I also had the basic programming skills necessary, so I got the job. I ended up in a small company with 5 computer engineers, all of which were Mac fans. And the Mac was, as Siracusa said, in the ropes. It did not look like it would survive another 5 years so we started thinking about porting code to Windows.
Then came the point where Steve Jobs came back to Apple. To me he was just a name, but to the developers around me he was God. Even then. I distinctly remember the twinkling light in the eyes of an older colleague of mine. This would get Apple back on track. I was surprised and in disbelief that a rational being like my colleague could actually believe that one guy could turn around a big company that easily. I thought of him as an old nostalgic fool that is about to get disappointed. But it was I, the youngster, that was about to be set straight.
Not much more than a year after that the first product from the “new” Apple arrived in our offices. The iconic iMac, that came in different candy colors got everybody enthusiastic again. Not only the computer engineers, but the secretary and the people in the accounting department. The women! That was unheard of, women being enthusiastic about a computer.
Suddenly it seemed that the fact that you had to restart your Mac every other hour or so did not matter anymore. This was not a great device, but it was a beautiful one and it seduced everybody. It opened my eyes to the fact that I had been using uninspiring beige boxes. I had not noticed that the computers I loved already were too ugly to be loved by other people. By normal people. Now I did.
And then came, year after year, new products and iterations of products, some revolutionary and some failures. When Mac OS X was introduced I found back my old love for the Terminal in a computer that was beautiful to look at and also easy to use. I guess that is where I flipped from being an avid user to being a fan.
When the iPhone got introduced I was happy to finally have someone that is trying to kick the collective butt of telcos. Finally there was a phone that I wanted to use, not just some piece of crap that I put up with and throw away when it’s broken. I was not confident that the iPhone would become a big success, but I was rooting for it, heavily, and here we are.
That is what I will miss the most: the fact that there is someone that has the power, the charisma and the will to kick established butts. The printer industry could use some butt kicking. The banks could use some butt kicking. The publishing industry is getting some butt kicking as we speak, as is the music industry.
It seemed that if Steve took you on, your con game was over. They say Apple was the greatest product he made, and it will thrive even without him. I’m pessimistic about that. As I see things, if Steve asked Tim to walk around one day on the Apple campus, on hands and legs and barking like a dog, Tim would have done it on a whiff. If Tim asks Ive to do such thing, I’m sure some egos will start to get hurt.
People are people and without a great leader they believe in, it becomes a play of human emotions. Power games will start, compromises will be made and wrong decisions will be pushed. It’s the way things go in the absence of religion.
Steve Jobs was the personification of that religion, the True Great Undisputable Leader, and Apple will evolve back to an ordinary company without him. We won’t see it tomorrow and we won’t see it next month. There are brilliantly functioning teams at Apple that have ideas and prototypes and roadmaps for a couple of years to come, and they will produce excellent output for a while still. It’s after that that we as outsiders will see the results of the crumbling that is starting now.
So this is where we are. It feels like the speed at which the universe is expanding was bigger last week than it is now. It is a matter of time before the universe stops expanding, and starts contracting.
As to Steve, he can do no wrong no more. He is like Kurt Cobain: he died on a peak and we are unable to see if the road with him would have lead us towards higher peaks or towards a valley. We will assume there is an unexplored and forever unreachable mountain range after that horizon where paradise is and that he would have lead us there.
That we must remain here, without him, is an ill fate to carry. With printers that don’t work and banks that go bankrupt and no hope for a quick fix. We’re back to cursing instead of wishing. And to fix things ourselves, the best we can.
