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The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs

• Walter Isaacson

Reprint: R1204F

The author, whose biography of Steve Jobs was an instant best seller after the Apple CEO’s death in October 2011, sets out here to correct what he perceives as an undue fixation by many commentators on the rough edges of Jobs’s personality. That personality was integral to his way of doing business, Isaacson writes, but the real lessons from Steve Jobs come from what he actually accomplished. He built the world’s most valuable company, and along the way he helped to transform a number of industries: personal computing, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, retail stores, and digital publishing.

In this essay Isaacson describes the 14 imperatives behind Jobs’s approach: focus; simplify; take responsibility end to end; when behind, leapfrog; put products before profits; don’t be a slave to focus groups; bend reality; impute; push for perfection; know both the big picture and the details; tolerate only “A” players; engage face-to-face; combine the humanities with the sciences; and “stay hungry, stay foolish.”

Six months after Jobs’s death, the author of his best-selling biography identifies the practices that every CEO can try to emulate.

His saga is the entrepreneurial creation myth writ large: Steve Jobs cofounded Apple in his parents’ garage in 1976, was ousted in 1985, returned to rescue it from near bankruptcy in 1997, and by the time he died, in October 2011, had built it into the world’s most valuable company. Along the way he helped to transform seven industries: personal computing, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, retail stores, and digital publishing. He thus belongs in the pantheon of America’s great innovators, along with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney. None of these men was a saint, but long after their personalities are forgotten, history will remember how they applied imagination to technology and business.

• WI Walter Isaacson, the CEO of the Aspen Institute, is the author of Steve Jobs and of biographies of Henry Kissinger, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein.

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Steve Jobs Deathbed Speech

Apple co-founder steve jobs did not leave behind a deathbed warning about how the "non-stop pursuit of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me.", published nov. 7, 2015.

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In November 2015, a rumor began circulating on social media that when Apple co-founder Steve Jobs passed away at age 56 in 2011, he delivered a speech or left behind a deathbed essay about the meaning of life.

One of the earliest iterations of this rumor we've found was published on gkindshivani.wordpress.com under the title "DID YOU KNOW WHAT WERE THE LAST WORDS OF STEVE JOBS?":

"I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In others' eyes, my life is an epitome of success. However, aside from work, I have little joy. In the end, wealth is only a fact of life that I am accustomed to. At this moment, lying on the sick bed and recalling my whole life, I realize that all the recognition and wealth that I took so much pride in, have paled and become meaningless in the face of impending death. In the darkness, I look at the green lights from the life supporting machines and hear the humming mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of god of death drawing closer ... Now I know, when we have accumulated sufficient wealth to last our lifetime, we should pursue other matters that are unrelated to wealth ... Should be something that is more important: Perhaps relationships, perhaps art, perhaps a dream from younger days Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me. God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth. The wealth I have won in my life I cannot bring with me. What I can bring is only the memories precipitated by love. That's the true riches which will follow you, accompany you, giving you strength and light to go on. Love can travel a thousand miles. Life has no limit. Go where you want to go. Reach the height you want to reach. It is all in your heart and in your hands. What is the most expensive bed in the world? Sick bed ... You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you but you cannot have someone to bear the sickness for you. Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost — Life. When a person goes into the operating room, he will realize that there is one book that he has yet to finish reading — Book of Healthy Life. Whichever stage in life we are at right now, with time, we will face the day when the curtain comes down. Treasure Love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends. Treat yourself well. Cherish others."

Although Steve Jobs passed away in 2011, the above-quoted essay didn't begin circulating online until November 2015, was not published anywhere outside of unofficial social media accounts and low-traffic blogs, and has not been confirmed by anyone close to the founder of Apple.

Furthermore, after Steve Jobs passed away on 5 October 2011, his sister Mona Simpson remarked on her brother's final words while delivering his eulogy:

Steve's final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times. Before embarking, he'd looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life's partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them. Steve's final words were: OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.

While the above-quoted essay does not represent either Steve Jobs' final words nor remarks he made (in either oral or written form) at any time during his life, his biographer Walter Isaacson did record Jobs' expressing regret at the end of his life about how he raised his children:

"I wanted my kids to know me," Mr Isaacson recalled Mr Jobs saying, in a posthumous tribute the biographer wrote for Time magazine. "I wasn't always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did." "He was very human. He was so much more of a real person than most people know. That's what made him so great," he added. "Steve made choices. I asked him if he was glad that he had kids, and he said, 'It's 10,000 times better than anything I've ever done'." It wasn't always thus. In the early stages of his career, Jobs, who was adopted, denied being the father of Lisa and insisted in court documents that he was "sterile and infertile". He acknowledged paternity when she was six, and they were later reconciled.

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Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.

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Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned Coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backward 10 years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down — that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film,  Toy Story , and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

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. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called  The Whole Earth Catalog , which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: It was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of  The Whole Earth Catalog , and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

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Discussion Questions

Isaacson draws attention to the complicated relationship between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates . Discuss the role of this relationship in Jobs’s trajectory at the helm of Apple, citing specific examples from the text to support your response.

While Isaacson highlights the many qualities of Jobs’s that made him a genius, he also accentuates his flaws and shortcomings. What does Isaacson ultimately convey about the cost of genius?

Which of Jobs’s products is the clearest representation of his own identity as an individual? Support your answer with direct evidence from the text.

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Steve Jobs, Essay Example

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Among all business leaders in recent times, Steve Jobs is arguably the best example of the fact that perseverance commands success. Steve Jobs was considered a difficult boss at Apple before he was ousted but when he returned, there was little change in his leadership style. This demonstrates that Jobs always remained true to himself whether others approved of his leadership style or not. Jobs might not have been a likeable person on a personal level but he was authentic.

Even though we often hear about the virtues of democratic leadership style as it motivates employees and improves communication between leaders and subordinates, Jobs ruled in an autocratic manner. No wonder, Fortune magazine called him one of the leading egomaniacs in the Silicon Valley (Williams, 2012). When Jobs started his second term at Apple, he was not happy with one of the shipping company. He asked them to be faster with delivery but they refused since their service was already in accordance with the agreed upon terms. He directed his manager to break the contract despite manager’s objection that it would lead to costly lawsuit which did happen eventually (Austen, 2012). Author Andrew Keen wrote in his book The Cult of the Amateur that there is not an ounce of democracy at Apple and without Jobs’ authoritarian leadership, Apple would be just another Silicon Valley outfit (Chaudhuri, 2012). Jobs would be involved in all the details and hired like-minded people (Branson, 2011). But he still drew admiration because he personally demonstrated what he said. He didn’t only preach innovation but practiced it himself.

Steve Jobs also subscribed to Herzberg’s ‘Theory X’ according to which workers are lazy and need guidance. This should not imply that Apple’s employees were lazy and incapable but only that Jobs’ approach reflected his pursuit for perfection. Jobs often reiterated that Apple’s mission was to build the best products in the industries it competes in. This is he micromanaged his employees and no product left the company’s door without his approval.

Steve Jobs was also a transformational leader. When he re-joined the company, Apple was waiting to join the list of extinct companies (Chakrabortty, 2011). Jobs didn’t only save the company but also made it into one of the most admired companies, with a loyal customer base that most other companies only dream of. Jobs’ subordinates believed in him because they knew he was passionate about the company and the products it delivered to the market. They also witnessed Jobs’ obsession with quality and, thus, became motivated themselves to deliver the best products to consumers.

Steve Jobs was not afraid to think outside the box and he encouraged his subordinates to do the same. In fact, the company’s original motto was “Think Different”. Steve Jobs was not only transformational but also visionary. Effective leaders scan the external environment to look for emerging trends but Jobs told the consumers what the trends should be (Verganti, 2011). He singlehandedly redefined several industries including smart phones, portable music players, and tablet computing.

Steve Jobs might not have been great at human relationships but he did believe in his people and pushed them to do their best. An effective leader understands that people are one of the company’s best assets and he invests in them. Despite Jobs’ cold treatment of his subordinates, one would rarely read about Apple’s best employees leaving the company which is a proof of the fact that Jobs’ subordinates also believed in their leader and admired his pursuit of perfection.

Jobs was also a successful leader because he understood the strengths of his company and focused on few things Apple could do really well instead of trying to be everything. Jobs knew that the reputation of the company is built on ‘innovation’ and ‘quality’ and Apple can only defend its reputation by doing few things doing them really well. On annual retreats, Jobs would ask his subordinates to recommend ten products and would eventually shortlist them to only three. When Google’s new CEO Larry Page visited Jobs, Jobs advised him to focus on only five products Google could do really well and get rid of the rest (Isaacson, 2012). This also teaches us that Jobs didn’t overestimate his own or Apple’s capabilities and focused on utilizing limited resources efficiently.

One of the most important qualities of an effective leader is to provide direction to their employees and ensure everyone is working towards the same objectives. Every employee at Apple knew where Jobs was taking the company and they also knew what Jobs expected from them. Apple’s employees were also willing to trust Jobs’ judgments and vision because he had proven himself right time and time again. Jobs didn’t only held legitimate power that came from being the company’s CEO but also expert power over his subordinates.

Steve Jobs might not have the most friendly communication style but his direct communication style did prevent miscommunication. Jobs was known to be blunt and straight forward and he himself admitted, “If something sucks, I tell people to their face, It’s my job to be honest.” (Pullen, 2012). Jobs got away with his abrasive communication style because he commanded respect and admiration from his followers but he did demonstrate the importance of clear communication so that there are no misunderstandings and subordinates know exactly what their leaders expect from them.

Another reason why Jobs was a successful leader is that employees at Apple were given roles that made the best use of their specific strengths and abilities. Thus, there was a good fit between their responsibilities and capabilities. In addition, Apple hired people who were a good fit to the organizational culture. As a result, the employee turnover was low because the new recruits also believed in the company’s mission (McInerney, 2011).

Steve Jobs has cemented his place as one of the most inspirational leaders of all times but that doesn’t mean his leadership style can be successfully adopted by anyone.  This is because Job’s leadership style was situational. When he returned to the company, it had no vision and proper strategy in place and everyone had given up on the company. Jobs not only provided everyone with a vision but also won their loyalty and admiration through passion for the company and its products as well as by delivering results. This is why his ordinates even kept up with his cold temper because they shared his vision and they trusted him (Henson, 2011).

Steve Jobs had unconventional leadership style but he still enjoyed high levels of loyalty because of his commitment to the company and his impressive track. Jobs also gave his subordinates a clear vision and made sure that everyone in the company was compatible with the company’s culture. He also understood his company well and demonstrated through commitment to few products that quality and innovation were central to the company’s mission. He pushed his employees to do their best and gave them responsibilities that suited their strengths and abilities. In addition, he was also straight forward with his employees so they also knew what their leader wanted from them and what he liked or disliked.

Austen, B. (2012, July 23). The Story of Steve Jobs: An Inspiration or a Cautionary Tale? Retrieved October 18, 2012, from http://www.wired.com/business/2012/07/ff_stevejobs/all/

Branson, R. (2011, October 7). True business leaders think differently . Retrieved October 18, 2012, from http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/blog/true-business-leaders-think-differently

Chakrabortty, A. (2011, January 24). CEOs like Steve Jobs style themselves as messiahs, not mere managers. But that’s just an excuse to rake it in . Retrieved October 18, 2012, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/25/chief-executives-coin-it-as-messiahs

Chaudhuri, A. (2012, April 26). Authoritarian leadership, the secret behind Steve Jobs success! Retrieved October 18, 2012, from http://www.thesundayindian.com/en/story/authoritarian-leadership-the-secret-behind-steve-jobs-success/33963/

Henson, R. (2011, November 1). Faculty Insight: The Leadership of Steve Jobs . Retrieved October 18, 2012, from http://business.rutgers.edu/news/faculty-insight-leadership-steve-jobs

Isaacson, W. (2012, April). The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs . Retrieved October 18, 2012, from http://hbr.org/2012/04/the-real-leadership-lessons-of-steve-jobs/ar/1

McInerney, S. (2011, October 7). Steve Jobs: an unconventional leader . Retrieved October 18, 2012, from http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/management/steve-jobs-an-unconventional-leader-20111007-1lcmo.html

Pullen, J. P. (2012, May 18). Jobs or Zuckerberg: Who’d Make the Better Boss? Retrieved October 18, 2012, from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223570#

Verganti, R. (2011, October 7). Steve Jobs and Management by Meaning . Retrieved October 18, 2012, from http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/10/steve_jobs_and_management_by_m.html

Williams, R. (2012, April 12). Why Steve Jobs is not a leader to emulate . Retrieved October 18, 2012, from http://business.financialpost.com/2012/04/12/steve-jobs-is-not-a-leader-to-emulate/

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Steve Jobs - List of Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Steve Jobs was a co-founder of Apple Inc and a significant figure in the technology and innovation realm. Essays on Steve Jobs might delve into his life, his visionary leadership, and his role in shaping the modern tech industry. Additionally, one might explore his management style, the culture he fostered at Apple, or his impact on other industries through his innovations. The legacy of Steve Jobs extends beyond Apple, and an essay could explore his enduring influence on entrepreneurship and innovation. We have collected a large number of free essay examples about Steve Jobs you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

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Fact check: Commentary on wealth is falsely labeled as Steve Jobs' last words

The claim: Steve Jobs' last words were a commentary on wealth

Steve Jobs’ last words were about his admiration of his family, not a critique of wealth, as a viral post claims.

A post that has been circulating in different forms since 2015 claims the Apple founder and billionaire died disillusioned with his wealth. 

“In other eyes, my life is the essence of success, but aside from work, I have a little joy. And in the end, wealth is just a fact of life to which I am accustomed,” the post claims Jobs said.

“At this moment, lying on the bed, sick and remembering all my life, I realize that all my recognition and wealth that I have is meaningless in the face of imminent death,” it goes on to say. “You can hire someone to drive a car for you, make money for you — but you can not rent someone to carry the disease for you. One can find material things, but there is one thing that can not be found when it is lost — life.

“Your true inner happiness does not come from the material things of this world. Whether you’re flying first class, or economy class — if the plane crashes, you crash with it.”

The post, made by Sergio Cardenas, then goes on to talk about the importance of seeking happiness, health and love in how you live your life over material possessions. The post has over 36,000 shares.

USA TODAY reached out to Cardenas for comment.

Fact check: Camping World CEO is misquoted in viral meme

What did Steve Jobs say on his death bed?

When Jobs died in 2011 from pancreatic cancer, his sister Mona Simpson spoke about his last words as part of her eulogy . 

She said, “With that will, that work ethic, that strength, there was also sweet Steve’s capacity for wonderment, the artist’s belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later.

Jobs' final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times.

“Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them,” she continued.

“Steve’s final words were: 'Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.'”

Fact check: Ernest Hemingway quote falsely attributed to Joe Biden

Where did the other speech come from? 

No one who was close to Jobs has ever said the often-circulated essay was ever written or said by Jobs, according to a fact check by Snopes .

Snopes found the speech didn’t start circulating until 2015, four years after his death. 

The version being fact-checked in this article contains slightly different language than the one Snopes checked, but there are enough similarities that there is a clear thread between them. 

Fact check: NBA legend Larry Bird did not tell players to 'shut up and play the damn game'

Our rating: False

We rate this claim FALSE, because it is not supported by our research. There is no evidence Steve Jobs used his final moments to deliver a speech against materialism. Instead, a relative has recounted that he looked at those he loved for a long moment before saying “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.” 

Our fact-check sources:

• Facebook post
• Snopes, Nov. 8, 2015,  "Steve Jobs Deathbed Speech"
• New York Times, Oct. 30, 2011, "A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs"

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

Home — Essay Samples — Business — Steve Jobs — What Is a Life Worth: Steve Jobs

What is a Life Worth: Steve Jobs

• Categories: Steve Jobs

About this sample

Words: 781 |

Published: Jul 17, 2018

Words: 781 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Works Cited

• Ebert, R. (2011). Life itself: A memoir. Grand Central Publishing.
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• Jobs, S. (2005). How to live before you die. TED Talk.
• Kastenbaum, R. (2004). The Psychology of Death (3rd ed.). Springer Publishing Company.
• Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On death and dying. Macmillan.
• Lucretius. (1995). On the nature of things. Penguin.
• Nuland, S. B. (1995). How we die: Reflections on life's final chapter. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
• Seneca. (2016). Letters from a stoic. Penguin Classics.
• Taylor, S. E., Kemeny, M. E., Reed, G. M., Bower, J. E., & Gruenewald, T. L. (2000). Psychological resources, positive illusions, and health. American psychologist, 55(1), 99-109.
• Twenge, J. M. (2019). iGen: Why today's super-connected kids are growing up less rebellious, more tolerant, less happy--and completely unprepared for adulthood--and what that means for the rest of us. Simon and Schuster.

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The second the credits started rolling at the end of “ Steve Jobs ,” I reached into my purse and did what so many other people in the theater did: I turned on my iPhone. Currently, I’m writing this review on my MacBook Pro. Later this afternoon, once I’ve brought my six-year-old son home from school, I’ll try to deflect his demands to play “Angry Birds Star Wars” on the iPad.  So yes, Steve Jobs has changed my life just as he’s changed many millions of others’ on the planet. The devices he devised do what he hoped they would do: They make our lives easier. They are aesthetically appealing. They are our friends.

Danny Boyle ’s thrilling film, which takes place behind the scenes at three key product launches during the late Jobs’ career, begins with the Apple co-founder freaking out minutes before introducing the Macintosh in 1984 because his team couldn’t get it to say “hello.” It was nitpicky and obsessive—qualities he was famous for—but he was also onto something, as we now know: this idea of technology serving as a constant and comforting companion.

All of which makes the fact that he was so coldly dismissive to the real-life people closest to him—the people who actually loved him—such a fascinating contradiction, one of many that Boyle, writer Aaron Sorkin and star Michael Fassbender explore with great ambition and élan.

He insisted on micromanaging the tiniest details of his presentations—making sure the console was a perfect black cube, down to the millimeter, at the 1988 launch of his failed company, NeXT, or cajoling underlings to ignore fire code by shutting off the exit signs in the theater in hopes of achieving a dramatic darkness for his unveilings. But he couldn’t control who was going to come at him in the moments before he took the stage, or what they would say, or what they would want, or how they would dare to invade his formidable brain to wreak havoc when all he wanted to do was maintain his carefully crafted façade of Zen cool.

They include Apple co-founder and old friend Steve Wozniak (played with great intelligence and pathos by Seth Rogen ); Apple CEO John Sculley ( Jeff Daniels ), the one-time father figure who would gain infamy for eventually firing Jobs; and Chrisann Brennan ( Katherine Waterston ), Jobs’ ex-girlfriend and the mother of his daughter, Lisa, whom he long refused to acknowledge as his or support financially. (All three actresses playing Lisa at various ages give smart, distinctive performances, by the way— Makenzie Moss at 5, Ripley Sobo at 9 and Perla Haney-Jardine at 19.)

And of course, there is Fassbender himself, who doesn’t really resemble Jobs in any physical way but rather embodies his drive, his restlessness. Fassbender has never shied away from playing damaged or difficult characters—“Shame,” “ 12 Years a Slave ,” even the “ X-Men ” prequels as a young Magneto—but here, he has the added challenge of playing a revered, real-life figure over the span of 14 years, from long hair and bow tie to glasses and dad jeans. He never flinches from the arrogant and repulsive elements of this man’s behavior, but there’s an intensity to his presence and a directness in his eyes that make him not just compelling but commanding. He doesn’t care whether you like him, and that’s exciting.

Through it all is Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman, Jobs’ calm yet forceful right-hand woman and a much-needed voice of reason. Winslet gets a couple of great speeches, which she delivers with convincing power, totally unsurprisingly. Her exchanges with Fassbender are the film’s high points and almost a high-wire act; it’s a tricky thing making such dense dialogue sound effortless, but both actors pull it off.

This a super-Sorkiny Aaron Sorkin script—full of the kind of well-timed zingers and clever turns of phrase that never occur to us in real life. Rogen gets the best line of all toward the end, one he levels at Jobs in a crowded auditorium before the 1998 iMac launch: “ You can be decent and gifted at the same time. It’s not binary. ” With self-conscious beauty and piercing insight, it’s a notion that defines the entire film.

The energy is relentless and the actors all more than meet the challenge of not only keeping up with Sorkin’s trademark, rat-a-tat patter but also making it sing. But because the movie takes place almost entirely within interiors, the non-stop walking-and-talking—back and forth through hallways, up and down stairways and in and out of doorways—almost plays like a parody of Sorkin’s style, the kind of thing we saw when “The West Wing” was at its peak.

Thanks to Boyle’s typically kinetic direction, “Steve Jobs” is certainly never boring. It rarely takes a breath and is crammed with high-tech jargon, but it never feels bogged down. Corridors come to life with imagery. Moments from the past crosscut seamlessly and inform the present, often with overlapping dialogue. And the glare of the lights and thunder of the crowds can be so all encompassing, they make you feel like you were there, too: on the precipice of the future.

And that’s sort of a fascinating contradiction in itself: that a movie about a guy who was obsessed with sleekness and simplicity should be bursting with verbiage and verve.

Having said that, if you don’t know a whole lot about Steve Jobs going into “Steve Jobs,” “Steve Jobs” isn’t about to go out of its way to help you. If you don’t know about the garage in Los Altos, CA where it all began, or his lengthy and tangled friendship with Wozniak, the potential for exploring the complexities of Jobs’ personality might be lost on you. An excellent companion piece would be Alex Gibney ’s recent documentary, “ Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine ,” which covers much of the same ground, but more thoroughly. (You’re welcome to ignore the 2013 biopic “ Jobs ” starring Ashton Kutcher , if you haven’t already. But it is rather telling that Jobs’ life has inspired three separate features in just a couple of years.)

Sorkin’s script is bold in choosing these pivotal moments in Jobs’ career and structuring them as a three-act play. Certainly it’s far preferable to the standard, superficial, cradle-to-the-grave biopic that tries to encompass too much. It’s easy to imagine “Steve Jobs” as a stage production, actually, for its theatrical talkiness and the minimalism of its set design.

It’s also easy to compare Sorkin’s portrayal of Jobs in “Steve Jobs” to his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in “ The Social Network ,” which earned him the adapted-screenplay Oscar in 2011. Both men are visionary geniuses who revolutionized the way people connect with each other, even though they are more than a little socially challenged when it comes to the people in their own lives. The irony may be too rich, but it’s delicious—even though the men in question can be so vicious that their actions leave a bad taste in your mouth.

The fact that he doesn’t try to redeem these flawed, fascinating figures—or even try to make you like them in the slightest way—feels like an innovation in itself.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Steve Jobs (2015)

Rated R for language.

122 minutes

Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs

Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman

Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak

Katherine Waterston as Chrisann Brennan

Jeff Daniels as John Sculley

Michael Stuhlbarg as Andy Hertzfeld

Sarah Snook as Andrea Cunningham

Adam Shapiro as Avie Tevanian

Makenzie Moss as Lisa Jobs (5 Years Old)

Ripley Sobo as Lisa Jobs (9 Years Old)

Perla Haney-Jardine as Lisa Jobs (19 Years Old)

John Ortiz as Joel Pforzheimer

• Danny Boyle
• Aaron Sorkin
• Walter Isaacson

Original Music Composer

• Daniel Pemberton

Cinematography

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• Bernard Bellew

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The Truth About Steve Jobs' Last Words Before He Died

There's no doubt that Steve Jobs was one of the most influential figures of his time. The products that he helped pioneer at Apple , from the Macintosh computer to the iPhone, changed the shape of society. His vision for the future of technology has, in many regards, become the look of the 21st century as we know it. 

While Jobs' name and legacy have been immortalized, though, the man himself was all too mortal. As made clear by Walter Isaacson's posthumous biography , Jobs was a harsh, demanding figure, prone to anger and depression, who couldn't help but be a complicated figure in the public imagination: as much as Jobs could be petulant, shortsighted, and childish, he was also an honest visionary, whose blunt attitude led to an unprecedented volume of earth-shaking products. As a flawed, real human being, Jobs was also prone to the weaknesses of the human body, and so he spent his last decade of life battling pancreatic cancer, according to Biography , and died in 2011. 

Since then, there has often been speculation — and outright fabrications — regarding what Jobs said on his deathbed. 

The meme-worthy 'deathbed speech' of Steve Jobs isn't real

Steve Jobs was an important figure in technology history, but he wasn't always a person who others looked upon favorably. He was a complex figure with many flaws , to put it mildly. However, back in 2015, an essay circulated across social media, claiming to be Jobs' final deathbed speech, whereupon he apologized for all of his past behavior, and cautioned others to not follow his example. In the speech, Jobs allegedly told anyone reading it to treasure their family and friends, and that, "Now I know, when we have accumulated sufficient wealth to last our lifetime, we should pursue other matters that are unrelated to wealth ... should be something that is more important: Perhaps relationships, perhaps art, perhaps a dream from younger days. Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me." The essay finishes with a sentimental treatise on how the only book that matters is the so-called Book of Healthy Life ... which, no, you won't find in stores. Duh.

It's all a bit soap opera-ish, to put it bluntly. Seriously, can you picture Steve Jobs saying this? Maybe at the end of a Disney movie, but certainly not in real life. Sure enough, Snopes debunked the whole thing soon after it arrived. That said, there should have never been a need to cook up a phony final speech for Jobs, because his actual final words are well-documented. 

Steve Jobs' final words were far more mysterious

When you're wondering what a famous person's last thoughts on life might've been, it pays to know who was in the actual room. As it happens, Jobs' sister Mona Simpson was there by his side, and she discussed the Apple titan's last statement when she was giving his eulogy, according to the New York Times . As she tells it, in Jobs' final moments of consciousness, he looked at his family, then stared past their shoulders into the great beyond behind them, and uttered the repeated phrase: "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow."

What did this mean? Honestly, there's no way to know. Depending on one's spiritual beliefs regarding the afterlife, there are many ways to read into these words. Nonetheless, it's fascinating to ponder the mystery.

The great beyond

Now, if one wants to prove what Steve's final words meant, you'd first have to prove what really happens after death. Good luck with that. Humankind has been trying to figure that puzzle out for the past, oh, 200,000 years or so, and cooked up plenty of fun theories.

That said, Jobs' final words do hint toward something wonderfully ethereal and fascinating, which can't help but get the mind buzzing. In that regard, understanding Jobs' own spiritual views may be helpful: looking back on his life, he once said that his experimentation with psychedelic drugs were a transformative experience, and according to CNN , his travels through India led to him eventually converting to Buddhism. His wedding to Laurene Powell was presided over by a monk, Kobun Chino. While his overall belief system was complex, it was perhaps best summarized when, in an interview with Time Magazine , he stated that, "I believe life is an intelligent thing, that things aren't random." He also once stated that his big goal in life was to "put a dent in the universe." Now, to be clear, there are many details about Jobs' life that didn't particularly line up with his philosophies, most notably his oft-stated lack of philanthropic giving. Nonetheless, his beliefs were a huge, guiding force in his life, and one can only assume whatever he saw at the end — whatever it was that made him repeat "Oh wow" three times — it was somehow connected to all this.

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• 23 FEB. 2024

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Steve Jobs Advice: “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”

With the above parting admonition, Steve Jobs closed his commencement address at Stanford University in 2005. No matter your age, there is a message in this for each of us. Jobs’ speech had three main points .

• Dots will somehow connect in your future.
• Find what you love.
• Death is the destination we all share.

Dots Will Somehow Connect in Your Future

You probably know that Jobs dropped out of college. He reasoned that he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, he didn’t see how college would play a role, and he didn’t want to spend his parents’ money foolishly. He trusted that it would all work out and, of course, his curiosity and intuition turned him into a successful entrepreneur.

I am nowhere near as successful as Steve Jobs, but I have made some drastic changes in my career that also supported my growth. My first job out of college was as a pricing analyst with Caterpillar Tractor Company. That was not the career I had in mind, but it served a purpose – it brought in a paycheck. I really wanted to be a banker.

As an economics major, my favorite course was Money and Banking. The role of the Federal Reserve in managing the money supply, their methods, and the daily ramifications in the financial markets intrigued me. They still do! After two years with Caterpillar (and a supervisor who thought women did not belong in the work force), I decided to leave and pursue my dream.

It happened that one of the banks I talked to had a position available in the trust department. The position was in investment trading, and that role began my love affair with investments . It also dropped my salary by almost half! I never regretted that move and through the years the financial world rewarded me financially, too.

Much later in my career, I left a company without another job because of human resource expectations that I did not feel were fair or ethical. I was a sales manager at the time, and it was painful for me to say goodbye to the staff I loved and the accomplishments we made. The steps leading to my decision happened quickly, I had no other job, had not started looking for a job, but I knew that this was the correct move for me. I could not continue to function in an unworkable environment.

As I reassessed my future, I kept in touch with my network. A professional acquaintance approached me about an open position in her company. That did not happen right away, however. I had to be patient, which is not one of my strengths. The time I was “forced” to spend in reflection was beneficial to both my personal growth and my career.

In my new role in a large wealth management firm, I once again worked directly with clients face-to-face, and I rediscovered my passion. The knowledge I learned about both exchange-traded funds and leadership from my former position was not lost. In fact, one way or another, I used everything I learned in all my previous financial jobs. The dots connect!

Find What You Love

Every position I held, including the first one at Caterpillar, taught me something that enhanced my life and my career. I went through excellent training programs at two top notch financial companies. I learned the ins and outs of bonds, money market instruments, stocks, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds. And I learned about asset and liability management of a bank as a senior officer. My career included roles in investment management, operations, trading, and sales functions. My professional activities taught me leadership skills and gave me opportunities to practice them.

As I mentioned above, I found my passion in working directly with clients to help them solve financial problems, make their lives better, and support their goals. Some of their financial lives were simple and others were complicated. I used many resources from my collection of experiences and training and loved every minute. I especially liked working with and teaching beginners in the world of investments.

When I reached my retirement goal and stopped working one-on-one with clients, I knew there was something left for me to do and COVID gave me that opportunity. I wrote a book for women who are beginning investors. It is called, How to Dress a Naked Portfolio: A Tailored Introduction to Investing for Women . My passion to help others continues in my blogs as well.

Death Is the Destination We All Share

What did Jobs mean by this? He was challenging us to live each day as if it were our last and to be true to ourselves. That especially had meaning for him as he had been diagnosed with cancer, but remember he said this to a group of college graduates.

I am now retired and once again have time for reflection. COVID also gave me time to think about what is important to me. My partner of five years and I discussed our separate priorities and together decided what would be workable for our life together. We are frustrated that some of our plans have not worked out, but we trust that, in time, the dots will connect. In the meantime, we continue to discover what we can live with and without.

Family, friends, spouses/partners, children, and work associates all have expectations that affect us and, at times, weigh heavy. It is sometimes difficult to honor ourselves and deliver a difficult message in a respectful manner. I struggle with setting relationship boundaries and continue to work on that. I expect it will be a project for the rest of my life. In the meantime, I celebrate the dawn of each new day and wonder what I will learn in its course.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What from Steve Jobs’ address hit home to you? Have you found what you love? What was, or is, your journey like? How do you make the most of each day?

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The best investment one can make comes through regularly investing in a company of no-load funds (both stocks and bonds) in a company such as Vanguard. I believe it is bad advice to tell young people to only do what they love professionally. There are very few jobs out there to passionately love, and with the invention of AI, there will be even fewer in the future. Even professional jobs are being taken over by AI. Training for a profession about which one believes would satisfy one’s passion, might very well become something very different when you have worked at it for a few years. The reality of day to day work often bumps up against the fantasy of living 40 hours a week of “bliss” in the work place. Training for a passion filled career also often clashes with the reality of limited jobs in that field (as in a huge number of high school boys being passionate about a career in making video games when few jobs exist). Something else to remember is that our passions change as we grow up and grow older. How reasonable is it to spend $100,00 or more taking out college debt only to find out that jobs are scare in that field or to discover that the reality of the workplace doesn’t match the fantasy one had in one’s head. Passion can be explored in one’s spare time while one is working a practical job that not many apply for because it isn’t considered glamorous or exciting. Even Steve Jobs worked at other jobs while developing his computer ideas in his garage in his spare time!

Seriously? Steve Jobs – a horrible excuse for a human? He destroyed lives, was abusive. Clearly, the writer has read nothing about him.

Will you profile Hitler’s achievements next? OMG. Shocked

Thank you for commenting, DeeDee. It would make sense to read an article and understand the point it makes before sharing negative thoughts. All human beings are imperfect and cause harm to others (knowingly or otherwise). When they do achieve something and inspire something good, why not point it out?

Thank you for such a timely article; I think it was written with me in mind!

I am turning 60 this year and quit my job 1 month ago with no prospect in the works. Being a nurse working with end of life Geriatric patients (& my mother dying 11/29/23) I think about death more than most. I love this article because it distilled into words the thoughts & emotions I have been feeling.

I am taking time to feed and repair my soul (healthcare is draining). I am looking to repair my relationships with others (i have been an equal opportunity neglecter – both myself & my loved ones).

I believe finding what makes my heart sing will direct me to have a fulfilling, not straining, life’s ending.

This comes at a time when I really needed to read it. My ex just called to proudly tell me how well he is doing with investments from his half of our divorce settlement and I feel like I don’t have a grip on finances. I ordered your book. And Steve Jobs–I think the statement that dots will somehow connect in your future resonates most, as at the age of 73 I can look back and see how that has happened–all the things I wanted in my life did not occur spontaneously when I asked for them, but now more and more dots are connecting later in life when I am better able to accomplish some of my goals. Thanks for your article!

Dear Marian, Your comment resinates with me. My father navigated my mother into asking him for a divorce after 43yrs of marriage). He died 4 yrs ago, and she went 7 mo ago. She always felt he got the best in terms of finances & relationships (he remarried asap following divorce). I think she got her freedom. She was too hurt by his rejection [i cannot even fathom how that hurt] to see any upside as long as he still smiled. When he died after his 2nd wife died, she still could not focus on gratitudes of her own.

I wish you beauty in all you see, health, happiness, and hope.

PS – im not faulting my mother (whim I miss so muc), but I am hoping to share her story so others can look for happiness in their own lives.

It’s not so much what Steve Jobs wrote as much as what you wrote about your career life journey that touches my heart.

It’s a clone of my own experiences, frustrations in the workplace, lessons learned, corporate training, and utilizing transferrable skills learned along the way.

All of this led to divorce from an emotionally abusive 30 year marriage to the dream I always had of living in a shore based warm climate.

Twenty years ago I moved to Florida without a job, lots of unknowns, but plenty of determination. I succeeded in finding small but adequate income opportunities. Oh, the people I met and exciting experiences I had. It’s the “start-over” state for sure!

I moved residences 4 times, till I got it right for me. I created a social singles group and ran it for 8 years ( 5 marriages and many long term relationships resulted for some of the 2000 members) I volunteered as a beach ambassador for 18 of those years. I just celebrated my 77th birthday and good health withstanding hope to do some travel.

I have a significant partner of 2 years, we live apart, and both know it’s best!

What will be next? I’m excited to know and delighted to have the opportunity to share my experiences.

Tags Finding Happiness

Beverly Bowers

Beverly Bowers is a retired financial planner who has been solely responsible for her financial life over 25 years. Her passion is to make investments understandable – dispel the mystery and simplify the process. In 2021 she self-published a book, How to Dress a Naked Portfolio, a Tailored Introduction to Investing for Women . She relishes questions from all levels of investors. You may submit questions and sign up for her blogs on her website.

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The iPad lost. Smartphones won.

Steve Jobs predicted iPads could become as widespread as cars. Instead, they’re a niche.

When Steve Jobs introduced the first iPad 14 years ago, he said there was a place for a third device that was between a laptop and a smartphone — as long as that in-between gadget did some essential tasks better than each of the others.

For some of you, the iPad is exactly that. It’s more comfortable than a phone or computer to watch YouTube videos, dash off an email or distract your kiddo.

On Tuesday, Apple released updated iPad models that the company expects to perk up its sagging sales . Apple also boasted about the company’s artificial intelligence capabilities, an area where Apple is under pressure to prove itself.

But the iPad has not become as widespread as computers and, especially, smartphones. As the iPhone and other smartphones became more capable, larger and globally ubiquitous, they made the iPad irrelevant.

Many of you love your iPads. Great! Even technology that doesn’t reach its hoped-for potential can still be useful. The iPad might have changed your habits but it and other tablets didn’t have a broad impact.

The iPad’s history shows that technology founders like Jobs who are revered for seeing the future can get it wrong sometimes. That’s a useful lesson when executives like Elon Musk or OpenAI’s Sam Altman blare predictions about the future of transportation or AI .

Sales of iPads peaked a decade ago

Months after the iPad debuted in 2010, Jobs made an analogy involving cars and trucks.

Personal computers, he said in an interview , would still be useful for many people but would increasingly become a niche, as trucks did once Americans moved to cities and fewer people needed a workhorse vehicle on farms.

(Jobs probably didn’t mean the light trucks like pickups and SUVs that dominate America’s consumer vehicle market.)

Shira Ovide

Jobs said it was tough to predict the future, but he believed that the iPad could become a mass-market device as cars became for personal transportation.

Not so much.

Smartphones, including his own iPhone creation, became the way that billions of people got online and scroll, talk, read, watch, listen and socialize.

The smartphone is the car. The laptop and the iPad are more like trucks.

You can see it in the numbers.

Each year, there are about 1.1 billion new smartphones sold globally. There were about 260 million computers sold last year, according to research firm IDC. There were nearly 130 million iPads and other tablets sold in 2023, IDC estimates.

IDC research manager Jitesh Ubrani says that thanks to a pandemic-related purchase binge for iPads — which also affected computers — slightly more people own iPads today than they did when new iPad sales peaked a decade ago.

Still, billions of people use smartphones. At most a couple hundred million people have iPads. IDC expects the number of people using iPads to increase at best marginally from here.

The iPad is replacing tasks, not devices

Walt Mossberg, the pioneering personal technology journalist formerly with the Wall Street Journal and Recode, told me that the best way to measure the iPad’s impact is in stealing time that people, including him, would have otherwise spent on laptops.

(Mossberg and Kara Swisher led the 2010 interview in which Jobs made the cars and trucks analogy.)

Mossberg said long before he retired from his day job in 2017, he preferred his iPad for many tasks other than taking notes and writing. He estimated he used his laptop at least 50 percent less because of his iPad.

Still, Mossberg said, the smartphone is “the true personal computer” for him and the world.

He estimates he uses his Mac laptop a couple of times a week, his iPad a couple of times a day — and his iPhone many times a day. He used his iPhone to email me as he waited for a doctor’s appointment.

Jobs’s missed prediction about iPads feels relevant now, as technologists bet that AI will turn the smartphone into a more niche device.

Altman is among the people imagining you’ll use your smartphone less and shift more tasks to AI-specialized voice assistants in devices you wear like glasses or brooch-style clip-ons .

We’ll see. I find it instructive that Jobs didn’t say in that 2010 interview what came true: that the smartphone — not the iPad or the laptop — became the first computer used by billions of people.

That calls for all of us to be careful about predicting what could be the next technology hit or niche.

Steve Albini Was Proof You Can Change

To a certain kind of listener, it sometimes felt like he was the last honest musician in the industry.

Nearly 20 years ago, my high-school calculus teacher introduced me to a book that would, although I didn’t realize it at the time, permanently reframe the way I thought about music. Written by the journalist Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life was a study of the 1980s independent-music landscape—of bands that had unconsciously responded to the commercialism found on MTV and mainstream rock radio by going underground, and by getting very weird. The book introduced me to groups such as Black Flag, Dinosaur Jr., and the Replacements , the last of which had beer-drunk songwriting and electric punk-rock hooks that soon made it my favorite band. These groups never became traditionally successful, Azzerad explained, but their careers represented a romantic and uncompromising approach to making music, which could too easily become cheapened by external forces.

And, in fact, many of the bands in the book had attempted to move up a level by signing to major labels, only to hit an artificial ceiling once it became clear that they couldn’t look or sound a certain way. But some of them had not even attempted this—they had recognized, as their careers were taking shape, that their personal beliefs were permanently at odds with the idea of participating in a notoriously predatory and corporate music industry. Among them—and the group that left the strongest impression on me—was a band called Big Black. Big Black was, even by the standards of its contemporaries, particularly abrasive; its serrated riffs and pummeling drumbeats sounded like they’d been recorded on the floor of an automobile factory. And the band’s philosophical stances were just as belligerent as its sound: It was led by a guitarist and singer named Steve Albini who seemed to take particular joy in broadcasting how he thought artists should behave, and denigrating everyone who did not live up to his standards. As Azerrad put it, “This was a band with policies .” Proving its ideological commitment, Big Black broke up in 1987 right after its best record came out—partly because one of the members wanted to attend law school, and also because the band was becoming a little too popular, which meant it was attracting the wrong kind of fans.

But Albini, who died yesterday at the age of 61 from a heart attack, did not stop making music. Over the next few decades, he continued to perform in his own bands and struck up a second career as a recording engineer (his preferred term, over producer ), where he worked with hundreds of artists—among them Nirvana, the Pixies, PJ Harvey, Slint, Joanna Newsom, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the Jesus Lizard, and many, many, many more. It’s no exaggeration to say that Albini changed the trajectory of rock music for the better. He was especially good at capturing an artist as though they were playing right in front of you, a product of chemistry and ability rather than studio-driven artifice, and hiring Albini became a way for bands to signal their interest in being “realer,” both in sound and in attitude. His own outlook was perhaps best crystallized in his 1993 essay for The Baffler , “ The Problem With Music ,” in which he meticulously sketched out all the reasons making music on a major label was a sucker’s game. This idea, and its attendant aesthetic principles, felt just as important as the records themselves; to a certain kind of listener, it sometimes seemed like Albini was the last honest musician in the industry, though he would’ve shaken his head at such mythologizing.

I feel confident saying this because, in the summer of 2022, I had the opportunity to profile Albini for The Guardian , and I interviewed him on multiple occasions in Chicago, where he spent most of his life. I did not approach this task lightly. Foremost was the fact that I had been listening to his music for the past 20 years and didn’t want to seem like some fawning kid. But Albini had also incurred a reputation for being personally combative—which is saying something, given that inveterate punk rockers are not always known for their social graces. Over the years, he’d become infamous for saying a tremendous number of insulting things about other people, including bands he’d worked with. (“Never have I seen four cows more anxious to be led around by their nose rings,” he once wrote about the Pixies.) He seemed terribly smart, and suspicious of any nonsense. This is a bit of a broad statement, but allow me to say it: Anyone who has spent time around people who are really into music has met the type of person who seems totally obstinate, and borderline caustic, about why the bands they like are better than the bands you like. These people can be pretty irritating—I don’t want to be yelled at just because I like some Taylor Swift songs—but they inspire a shard of dread that perhaps their obstinacy is justified , that they have latched onto some way of thinking about art that the rest of us are too dull to perceive.

From afar, Albini seemed like the final boss of this mindset. Yet the Guardian profile had been assigned because Albini, in recent years, had begun to soften some of his adversarial instincts, at least in public. He still got worked up about bands he hated (especially Steely Dan ) and about right-wing politicians—but he had explicitly apologized for the numerous offensive things he’d said throughout his life, which included using racial slurs and denigrating women. “A lot of things I said and did from an ignorant position of comfort and privilege are clearly awful and I regret them,” he wrote in a 2021 Twitter thread that went viral. This felt notable because it’s become popular, in recent years, for people to complain about the rise of cancel culture and the shifting standards for public speech. In the past, Albini had always claimed that his offensiveness was attached to some underlying principle, no matter how arbitrary it seemed to others, but he’d since become suspicious of the people who reveled in offensiveness for its own sake. “When you realize that the dumbest person in the argument is on your side, that means you’re on the wrong side,” he had told me about recalibrating his feelings.

So this was one dimension of the Albini I met: a man who, although still razor-sharp and hilarious, was clear-eyed about why he felt he should shed some of these more reactive traits of his former self. “It’s me owning up to my role in a shift in culture that directly caused harm to people I’m sympathetic with, and people I want to be a comrade to,” he said of why he had decided to be open about his evolved thinking. When I published the story, quite a few readers, and particularly men of his generation, said they were personally inspired by Albini’s perspective and growth—that if someone with his cutting reputation could be this reflective, then perhaps nobody else had an excuse for staying rude.

Just as striking, to me, was the way he talked about his job. Earlier in his career, he had been more insistent about how a record should sound, and had freely offered his opinions in the studio. Over time, he sloughed off this tendency and became more comfortable with recording musicians as they were and as they wanted to be. His rates remained affordable, and he was always personally available to record a band; for a reasonable fee, a local artist could get the guy who’d laid down Kurt Cobain’s guitar on “All Apologies.” He relished working with musicians “beneath the professional level,” as he put it to me—people for whom making music was part of a necessary impulse rather than any means of getting rich or famous. He was decidedly not sentimental about the famous artists he’d worked with (though he got a little giddy when we talked about Iggy Pop and the Stooges, whose reunion record he’d recorded). Instead, it was the everyday work of going to his studio and producing physical evidence of a band’s existence—no matter how big or small—that mattered the most. His greatest contribution to music, Kim Deal of the Pixies told me while I was reporting for the profile, was “every single person who has walked through that door and been treated with respect about their ideas.”

Albini did too much to be neatly summarized in any profile; I didn’t have the space in mine to dive too deeply into his most recent band, Shellac, which in a terrible coincidence is releasing a new record next week. But as I drafted, two things kept coming back to me: The first was that Albini had been unafraid to own up to his past rather than wave it off or double down on his positions. The second was that he talked about music not as some expression of ego but as a creative practice worth maintaining because it enriched your life. To hear this—and in such an unpretentious way—was no small thing. This was not mere plate-spinning from a guy who liked to hear himself talk; these were tightly reasoned, directly stated beliefs that he’d stress-tested in his own life and were reflected in how he carried himself.

Unlike many of its peers, Big Black never really reunited, other than for a single performance at an anniversary show for its former record label. “I’m not a nostalgic person by nature,” Albini had told me. “I don’t think about the past very much.” I believed him, but one of my final questions was how he hoped his work would be regarded, should he have to retire tomorrow. I’ll reproduce his answer in full, because I was struck by it at the moment, and I feel heartened thinking about it now:

“I don’t give a shit. I’m doing it, and that’s what matters to me—the fact that I get to keep doing it, that’s the whole basis of it. I was doing it yesterday, I’m gonna do it tomorrow, and I’m gonna carry on doing it. Other people can figure out if they were happy about that, or not. I don’t care what they say; I’m doing it because I find value in it. I find value in being part of this culture, and preserving my peers’ artistic output. I find value in that, as my role: being the person responsible for making the record that someone will hear in 50 years to find out what some band sounded like. How will people know what our culture was like now , in 50 or 100 years? Well, they can read what survives the great digital void, and they can listen to what music survives. And I just want to make sure that I do a good job on the music that survives, you know?”

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Steve Wozniak Just Shared His Formula for Happiness in a Graduation Speech, and It Couldn't Be Simpler

T he Apple co-founder cited his working relationship with Steve Jobs and a simple math equation while advising graduates on how to be happy in business and life.

While speaking at the University of Colorado at Boulder's 2024 commencement ceremony , Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak emphasized the importance of approaching problems with a constructive mindset. In true Woz fashion, he did it in the form of a math equation.

There's a formula for creating happiness , Wozniak said, and it couldn't be more simple. Happiness equals smiles minus frowns. Woz acknowledged that in life and business, you can't stop things from going wrong, but you do get to decide how to react in those situations. The tech pioneer told the graduating students not to waste time assigning blame when bumps in the road appear, and instead to focus on what constructive steps can be taken. "If my car gets dented," said Wozniak, "I'm going to take it to the body shop to get it fixed."

Another way to reduce frowns is to avoid arguments with your collaborators. In most arguments, it's incredibly rare for one person to be fully right and the other person to be fully wrong, Wozniak said, likening the dynamic to lyrics from Dave Mason's song "We Just Disagree": "There ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy. There's only you and me and we just disagree."

Wozniak and his Apple co-founder Steve Jobs famously argued very rarely. In a 2022 appearance on Jackass star Steve-O's podcast, Wozniak said that he and Jobs "might've had differences of opinion," but he rarely ever told Jobs "You're wrong," other than in extreme circumstances.

Wozniak also recalled the fateful 1971 day when he met a then-16-year-old Steve Jobs. Woz invited Jobs over to his apartment, where Jobs sifted through Woz's complete collection of all of Bob Dylan's work up to that point. Woz still remembers watching Jobs obsessively read the liner notes and lyrics of those Bob Dylan albums, which contained a piece of advice Woz would use while working with Jobs and others over the course of his 50+ year career: "You're right from your side, I'm right from mine. We're both just one too many mornings, and a thousand miles behind."

This post originally appeared at inc.com .

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Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Speech Essay

Steve Jobs was invited to speak at Stanford University’s commencement exercise. He delivered a powerful speech that connected with the audience. There were many reasons why Steve Jobs succeeded and delivered a memorable speech. He came prepared and talked about a topic that was very interesting.

He analysed his audience and utilized what he knew about campus culture using his experience as a former college student. He was mindful of the elements required for an introduction. But more importantly Steve Jobs spoke about something that can help future graduates navigate the real world.

The introduction only contained three out of four parts discussed in class (Jaffe 90). The speaker did not provide a clear preview of the major points. But this omission did not weaken the speech because there was a good reason why he did not provide an overview of the topic.

The modification was made to adjust to the core message of the speech. The core message talked about the inability to see the future and yet there is no need to worry. Although he omitted the last part, Steve Jobs was able to draw the attention of the audience to the topic. He was also able to relate the topic to the concerns of the graduates and finally he was able to link himself to the subject.

The strength of the speech can be explained through the careful disclosure of the proposition. Steve Jobs was able to connect to the audience by letting them know that he was in their shoes when he was young. The second reason for the powerful delivery was that the overall organization was clear and well thought out. Steve Jobs knew the anxious thoughts in the minds of the graduates. He also knew the struggle that they went through to get their diploma.

Another important feature of the speech was the use of transitions. Jobs demonstrated his skill as communicator by providing transitions from one sub-topic to the next. He was able to accomplish this by dividing the speech into three short stories. But even if the stories were different there was a unifying thread.

He talked about the uncertainty of life. He talked about setbacks and problems. He encouraged the graduates that more often than not they will experience failure. But he told them that even failures can be used as stepping stones towards success.

The effectiveness of the speech was enhanced further when the speaker delivered a definitive ending. He clarified the correct mindset needed to succeed in the real world. There is only one minor weakness. Steve Jobs was dependent on his notes all throughout the delivery. He was actually reading the speech and was unable to add words in an extemporaneous fashion.

The effectiveness of Steve Jobs’ speech can be explained through the proper use of audience analysis and selection of topic. The speaker knew that he was tasked to speak in the presence of graduates. Thus, he developed the speech to cater to the needs of the audience.

Although organization and careful development of the speech was made evident during the delivery, it can be said that the main reason for its effectiveness is the content. Steve Jobs did not talk about a topic that was boring. In fact, Steve Jobs talked about something that was important for the listeners. As a result they listened attentively and they learned so much from the speech delivered

Works Cited

Jaffe, Clella. Public Speaking: Concepts and Skills for a Diverse Society . CA: Thomson Learning, 2007. Print.

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IvyPanda . "Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Speech." September 3, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/steve-jobs-stanford-commencement-speech/.

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