Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011

There has been some considerable blogging and obituary of Steve Jobs, who created Apple Computers from nothing to today : the most important and valuable high tech company in the world.  Apple changed my life in college when I waited hours for a Mac at one of Brown's two 24/7 "computer centers". In the '90s it was a PowerBook , and again the 2000s with the iPlayer, Macbook and now iPad.  No other company, save Microsoft or Volkswagon (my first car , in High School, a VW hatchback), has been in my life longer and made it better, cooler.

Jobs, 12 years my senior, may be a Baby Boomer but my generation knows the truth:  he belongs to us. Jobs emphasized style and marketing as much as substance . He wore running shoes to present at big conferences. And, of course, he was the dawn of our revolution that spread American idealism better than any military policy.  Thanks to Jobs, America grew during the '80s corporate down-sizings : Fortune 100s got lean and start-ups got their talent. We called on Jobs again after the tech boom-bust and he delivered , keeping Silicon Valley and the Californian dream alive. We have lost one of the great ones.
Photo: Jobs' first TV appearance in '78, six years before the first Macintosh, three years before the IBM PC.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice."

--Steve Jobs, to Stanford Business School in 2005