Steve Jobs and Apple: The crazy one who changed the world

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the rebels, the troublemakers, the ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” Those words launched Apple’s 1997 Think Different campaign. It came shortly after Steve Jobs returned to the company that he founded, and it marks that beginning of one of the greatest comeback stories in corporate history. Sadly, it also makes a fitting eulogy for the tech visionary. Steve Jobs is dead at age of 56. Steve Jobs did change the world. When Bill Gates said that he worried about the future of Microsoft because of some guy in his garage in Silicon Valley, college drop out Steve Jobs was one of those guys. He and his friend Steve Wozniak, an engineering, wizard, helped launch the personal computer revolution, building what would be the first Apple computer in Jobs’ parents’ garage. [caption id=“attachment_100698” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Steve Jobs holding the mac mini in this file photo. New York Times.”]  [/caption] In 1977, before many people had their first computer, they launched their second, the Apple II. It’s widely seen as one of the first commercially successful computers. It was four years before IBM created the familiar computer we now all refer to as the PC, and you could still find Apple II computers in US classrooms into the 1990s. Jobs was not first to market, but he can rightfully claim to be the first to bring so many things to a mass market. Yes, there were computers that used a graphical user interface before the Macintosh in 1984, but the Mac was the first to bring the ease of point-and-click to the masses. More often, his Apple didn’t create markets as much as define them. The iPod and iPhone joined crowded markets for digital music players and mobile phones. Now iPod is synonymous with digital music, and the iPhone has completely up ended the market for smartphones. Since the iPhone launched in 2007, it has grabbed 18% of the worldwide smartphone market. Steve Jobs was not only a technology visionary, but also a design and entertainment visionary. In terms of design, Apple stands out in a thicket of identi-kit PCs and laptops. He was legendary in some of his obsessions. It was said that he hated the noise of fans. It led him to push to create the Cube, a radically different design that was one of the few times when his sense of design was too far ahead of the market. It was said that he wanted sign off on the tiniest details, down to the screws that were used in the computer cases. Like all creative geniuses, he could be volatile. To create the Mac, he created almost a company within the company. The Mac team literally flew a pirate flag, and Jobs told them that it was better to be a pirate than to join the navy. His pirate band raided other teams at Apple. It gave the world the Macintosh, a computer far ahead of its time, but it was launched just as the computer industry was hitting its first soft patch. With sales declining and his volatility perceived as a liability instead of an asset in1985, he was pushed from the company he helped create. Steve Jobs life story has many themes of the mythical hero, complete with the fall from grace and a second coming. Occasionally, he was guilty of stunning hubris, but he was not a static tragic figure but one who learned and grew. That’s what makes his story so compelling. After Apple, he launched NeXT computers, which was never successful selling its expensive computers, and he bought a computer animation company from George Lucas, Pixar. Both floundered, but after Pixar released Toy Story, the studio has never looked back. Its films gross on average $600m, the highest level in Hollywood. In 1996, Apple bought NeXT, and the second coming of Steve Jobs began. When he returned, the company he founded was on the brink of collapse. It was rumoured that Sun Microsystems tried to buy Apple three times, but with Jobs back at Apple, its fortunes turned around. Jobs launched the colourful iMac, the first in a series of i-branded products. The company moved on from computers to sell a range of gadgets. Apple is now the biggest music retailer in the world with its iTunes music store. In a little more than a decade, Apple went from a takeover target to the most valuable company in the world. However, as Apple’s fortunes rose, Steve Job’s health declined. By earlier this summer, it was clear that he was a very sick man. At his last product launch, he was gaunt and thin. Technology journalists took a sharp intake of breath at his skeletal appearance. It was not a surprise that he stepped down as CEO in August, but the technology world is still grieving at how quickly cancer has taken his life. Bill Gates, once seen as the arch enemy of Steve Jobs and Apple, paid possibly the best tribute to his fellow technology trailblazer. Referring to another of Jobs favourite lines, he said that working with the Apple founder had been “insanely great.” He was insanely great, a creative visionary who grew into an iconic figure. Sadly, the last chapter of this great story — of rise, fall and redemption — has come far earlier than most people expected, but it is not too grandiose to say that he was one of the people not only crazy enough to think he could change the world but did. Watch Youtube video of Steve Jobs announcing the crazy ones Apple campaign