In Memoriam: Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

What is left to say about Steve Jobs after the huge outpouring of sorrow and accolades in the wake of his death? Probably very little, but I won’t let the passing of the world’s greatest CEO drift by without making a few points relevant to the topics I write about in this blog space.

For starters, he was the greatest presenter in business history. His new-product announcements were eagerly anticipated and heralded for their style, drama and unforgettable moments. Jobs is said to have practiced his presentations for hours in the venue where they would be delivered. Yet, his presentations never looked over-rehearsed. They were always casual, genuine, pitch-perfect, and tightly connected to his audience.

No CEO understood branding like Steve Jobs. Even his choice of the Apple name and logo displayed brilliance beyond his years, implying the biblical, the foundational, the willingness to strike out on one’s own, to partake of the fruit of knowledge. He was a highly visual person who understood the power of design, simplicity and artistry.

His standards were exacting in everything from product design and packaging to usability and marketing. Apple’s advertising campaigns were second to none because Jobs understood that products needed to appeal to a person’s emotions, not logical calculations. Ads for the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad and other products rarely talked about performance, and certainly never bothered with lists of features and benefits. They appealed to the viewers’ emotional core, and to the sense of purpose the products would bring to people’s lives.

His 2005 commencement speech to Stanford University’s graduating class is legendary. Three simple, self-exposing stories delivered in just 15 minutes with humility and emotion. Each of the stories is a lesson to live (and die) by. Jobs’ address dealt with the primary issues of life – courage, passion and death.

I’ll finish by repeating what I said in the first paragraph. Steve Jobs was the world’s greatest CEO. Is there really anyone who would dispute this given the things he accomplished in personal computing, telephony, music, movies, media and interactive communications?

Jobs could have been destroyed by his firing many years ago by Apple’s board of directors. Instead, Jobs created NeXT Computer and Pixar Animation. He sold Pixar to Disney. He sold NeXT to Apple, was reinstated as Apple’s CEO and took the company from the brink of bankruptcy to the world’s most valuable technology company.

Along the way he taught the corporate world that business without art and soul is a vacuous endeavor.

His personal evolution turned him from a brash, egotistical young entrepreneur to a wise and humble statesman who shared many life lessons with us.

In the end – just as Jobs said in his Stanford commencement speech – the old was cleared away to make room for the new. It’s just hard to imagine the clearing away of Steve Jobs will create room for another captain of industry who could possibly leave such a massive global footprint.