Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and one of our era’s most influential entrepreneurs, died yesterday at the age of 56 after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer.
I don’t think it’s really my place to recount Jobs’ life here. There are plenty of journalists and pundits doing that this morning. And we’ve talked previously about Jobs’ influence in the world of entertainment—how the stuff we watch, listen to and play on was either directly or indirectly shaped by the iMaster. As an innovator, Jobs was arguably the equal of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford: His gadgets, whether you liked them or not, bought them or not, revolutionized the world as we know it.
But all that said, I don’t think that really explains why, when I heard of Jobs’ death late last night, I felt so strangely sad—sad for the passing of a man I’d never known.
This was more than news for me. It was personal.
When I was editor of my high school paper, we wrote the thing on already-archaic Apple II’s, the world’s first real personal computer and Jobs’ first claim to fame. I wasn’t much of an editor, but I wrote some killer humor columns (or at least I thought so then). It was around that time when I started wondering whether I could make a living at this sort of thing—whether someone might pay me to peck away at a keyboard.
My college newspaper was written and designed on Apple Macintoshes—box-like machines with itty-bitty screens. Since my grandmother’s maiden name was MackIntosh (she’d sometimes lie to me and talk about our ancestrial home in Scotland), I had an immediate affinity for the machines. As the paper’s editor, I spent more time with those computers than I did with my friends. I remember the unfortunate night when I apparently had been dragging my feet across the carpet more than normal, generating a ball of static electricity that erased a disk containing the issue’s front-page story. And I remember hanging out with my future wife, Wendy, when she was “working” in the computer lounge: We wiled away an afternoon using the Mac to design the most misshapen digital picture in history.
Years later, when Wendy and I could finally afford to buy a computer of our own, we bought a Macintosh. It was my idea, and I justified the outrageous expense—$1,800, from what I recall—because I needed it to start my writing career. I couldn’t very well pound out the next great American novel without good equipment, right? And so my Mac and I launched into a short and unsuccessful freelance career … one where I got really good at playing Might & Magic III, but didn’t write much of anything.
It wasn’t a total loss, though. I remember sitting at the Mac, my 2-year-old son, Colin, on my lap, playing with the computer’s recording function. We recorded Colin’s voice on the thing: “Hello, Daddy,” he said—his voice locked in time, as if in a block of amber.
We’ve never been without an Apple computer in our home ever since. They’ve grown as our kids grew, their memory capacity expanding as our own memories did. My life is on my iMac. Vacation pictures. Financial records. The songs I listened to in high school. A column I wrote about my daughter, Emily, when she tried to learn to fly. A slideshow I put together for Colin when he graduated from high school. Letters and stories and memories still in process.
So in a weird (and maybe not altogether healthy) way, Steve Jobs feels a little like family.
When we lose someone close to us, we often treasure the things they left behind: a piece of jewelry or a family Bible. It helps us to remember them somehow.
Steve Jobs left behind a lot of stuff. And whether you loved him or hated him—whether you thought the gadgets he helped bring about were awesome innovations or overpriced toys—we’re not likely to forget him anytime soon.
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