Steve Jobs and Warren B had to Regulate

That title doesn't have all that much to do with this entry. I scribbled it on a post-it next to my computer two weeks ago; it just popped into my head and I thought it might be fun someday to use in a parody rap of Nate Dogg and Warren G's G-Funk anthem "Regulate." I would replace their names with those of the aforetitled billionaires in this line. It would have been a satire about the strange backlash facing Warren Buffet and other ultra-wealthy folks who have spoken up about closing tax loopholes benefiting many of their status. Since I find it unlikely I'll ever actually get around to doing this however, I figured I would just share that little tidbit here.

This entry is actually about the other party mentioned in the title. Although I can't say I ever heard Jobs himself speak out about the tax code, I just planned on writing around that later. No, this is a post about my thoughts on the recent passing of that titan of industry. Overdone? Absolutely. Cliche? Probably. But I feel like my perspective is significantly different than most and thus bore sharing.

You see, I have never owned any Apple product, nor do I plan to. No iPod, No iPad, No iPhone, No iMac. More than that, with the exception of my laptop (and I'm not going to give Jobs credit for inventing the freaking laptop) I don't even own any rival products of his brainchild line. I have never owned an MP3 player, a tablet, or a smart phone. Nor do I really want to (though I feel like eventually I'll need to get a smart phone out of sheer necessity). So in that regard I don't even feel like I owe Jobs for creating or revolutionizing the field of any type of product I currently or previously have used.

More than that, my father, and the parents of about 40% of my high school friends and 5% of my entire hometown are employed at IBM. Unsurprisingly, I was raised on IBM and Windows products, while Jobs and Woz had a different view of Big Blue, and their feud with Bill Gates is even better publicized. Thus, I was actually predisposed to dislike Mr. Jobs and Apple itself.

Through high school and the early years of college I actually didn't have any strong opinions of the guy. I knew who he was, but since I didn't have any Apple products or interest in purchasing any, I never learned much about him. I sort of just thought he was a glorified front-man. Then, curious to know more about the origins of the computer industry, I received in the mail a few summers ago as my very first Netflix disc The Pirates of Silicon Valley. I was fascinated by it and learned a lot, but more than anything what I remember taking away from it was a seething disdain of Steve Jobs. Gates came off as a conniving geek, but Jobs was depicted as an arrogant pompous genius who verbally abused and physically intimidated his employees, wrecked his relationships with friends, and worst of all, abandoned his own daughter even as he became a millionaire. At the film's conclusion I began telling myself, "Okay, don't get carried away, you're letting your preconceived IBM/Windows bias taint your vision, some of that must have been dramatized for the sake of making an interesting movie right?" Wrong. I looked it up and the accuracy of every scene that takes place in the movie was verified by two or more involved people. (Before you get as outraged as I was, Jobs later did reconnect with and support his daughter).

After that, I would boil every time I heard some apple nut or hipster praise Jobs as a visionary. Clearly they must not know the whole story, I thought, but how had Jobs succeeded in sweeping such glaring personal flaws under the rug? Was society so shallow that they were distracted by his sleek products and minimalist philosophy to the point that they completely overlooked his highly checkered past? Even today I still wonder at this, people very rarely, if ever, talk about this period other than to quickly say things got contentious and he was kicked out of the company, only to ride high in return a decade later.

Then, something happened. Less than a week before I was to graduate college, my dad sent me an e-mail with a link to a Youtube video. It was Steve Job's Commencement Address to the 2005 graduating class at Stanford. In the days since Job's passing, clips of this have been played repeatedly on news broadcasts, and for good reason. With my view of Jobs, I was obviously skeptical going in, but I felt I had to give it a chance since my dad, yes that same one who worked at IBM, was the one who had sent it to me. I noted the video to be pretty long, so I pulled up a comfortable chair and sat back.

Within minutes I was silently sobbing. Partially out of happiness as he told his story of trial by fire success, inspiration, and staring death in the face. Partially out of regret and fear that although I believed much of what he said to be true (To paraphrase if you don't watch the whole thing: You can only find true happiness if you follow your heart and trust it all works out, and why wouldn't you? Because life is short, death is a great motivator), that I wasn't heeding his words and knew that I probably wouldn't really take them to heart going forward. I'd heard and thought about similar things before, and had momentary bursts of action in the wake of such moments, but I never kept them going, it was always just too difficult or scary. I know I've stated it on here a number of times before, but I love feeling settled. I hate having stress and pressure and the weight of possible failure hanging over me. And in some ways I feel like I've beaten the system a bit, as I actually did pursue a degree and find a career I find at least somewhat interesting, and I am quite settled. But I know there are risks I didn't take, paths that were scarier or harder, yet offering more potential fulfillment, that I did not pursue, and probably won't going forward because leisure is hard to give up, and the memory of the incredible stress and fatigue of school is never far away.

As it reflected Jobs though, well, my opinion of the man certainly changed. Does it alter what he did in the past? Absolutely not. Clearly being fired at 30 had humbled him though, and it was at this point he describes rebuilding his life, finding out what was really important, and becoming even more successful down the road. While the white-washing of his past still did and does bother me, I could appreciate him now. I instantly Favorited the video, one of only five clips I'd given such a designation at the time, and to this day one of only seven. (If you're curious, the others include two Carolina Panthers tributes, the best World Cup goal I've ever seen, "They Both Reached for the Gun" from Chicago, the opening credits to High Noon, and the single most personally moving performance I've ever seen or heard). Anyway, although I've watched snippets and pieces of the Jobs video again in the 17 months since my own graduation, I never had the heart to watch all the way through again; it was too painful to face my own continued shortcomings. So finally today I sat down and watched it straight through once more. It's still pretty great. While it's honestly not anything that original, the message is sound and the delivery is impeccable, while the weight behind the words is enormous based on Jobs personal story.

More importantly, once more it's making me reexamine myself. I don't know if the message will finally stick this time, but even if it doesn't I know it's a worthwhile activity, and perhaps, after enough self check-ups, I will finally step up to the plate. That's what Steve Jobs has meant to me.