I believe it was early 2010, when I started developing a genuine interest in what Steve Jobs had to say. I don’t know the exact reasoning why. But I found myself searching and perusing everything that Steve had to say. Almost everything that Steve would say made rational sense. I realized that this guy was using clear, simple language to define concepts, that if applied properly would create powerful constructs. One could clearly tell that Steve knew exactly what he was talking about, he knew very well what he wanted and he knew exactly how he wanted to get there. Mind blogging depth of perception, combined with a sense of intuition that was perhaps, unparalleled. Steve was shrewd, he calculated and weighed in on every single word he uttered in public, he was precise, to the point. He did not believe in waste, and you can tell that from his speech to the products he helped envision and bring to the market.

So much has been said and written about this man. People who have directly worked with this man, have characterized him as being brilliant, a visionary, an enigma to being a dictator, a jerk, utterly ruthless.The list goes on and on on both sides of the spectrum. Yet, almost everyone unanimously agrees that Steve was and will be one of a kind. It’s not everyday that the world produces a Leader like Steve. If you ask Steve himself, he’d simply characterize himself to being a dreamer or more precisely, an artist.

I am still going through the biography and I am getting to learn more about this man. Mostly it’s a feeling of awe. But there are pockets where you really begin to wonder what was really going on in his brain. It’s almost as if this was a human being who was in search of something. And he wanted to express what he was searching for. And how he chose to do it was to help make great products. He was not in it for the money. Looking at his simple attire, it doesn’t look like he was in it for the glory or the fame. But going back to his childhood, specifically the abandonment by his biological parents. I almost don’t want to make this correlation at this point, but maybe it had something to do with that? Maybe all he had been looking for all this time was love, true happiness and acceptance. Although he did clarify from time to time that he wanted nothing to do with his biological parents at the very least. Fate can be cruel and twisted, but very few  have the ability to take a negative experience and turn it into something positive. I think that is what he was really trying to do all this time and the so called “weirdness” he exhibited were symptoms. Things seem to have gotten much better during the later part of his life. But I think he still set the bar up quite high for almost everyone he worked with and off course himself.

Well I figured I would start with a little bit of an introduction. I am still learning about this man. He truly was an enigma. But at the same time Steve was a guiding light for the rest of us. And as Jeff Bezos would say, Steve was a great teacher to anyone who was willing to listen.

Enough has been written about Steve, so it’s redundant for me to pen an entire narrative about him. But going back to where I started, and that would be the title of this blog-post , here are two observations that I have picked up after watching, reading up on Steve Jobs. These principles are powerful and they will continue being relevant for a long time:

1. Design: First and foremost on the list would be the concept of design. Now Jobs was an artist and the products he helped design were a testament to that fact. Taking calligraphy would’ve obviously helped a little, as it really is the small things that add up and make a big impact. But if you listen to what Jobs had to say, his core definition of design was “how things work” and not necessarily how they look. It’s as if the Dieter Ram’s principles were invisibly etched in every product that Apple had ever manufactured. It’s a very simple concept, but applied with a little bit of thought this can prove to be very very powerful stuff. Good design is almost like a process. A process itself can be categorized as a technology. Dieter Ram’s would say, that the element of design is apparent in everything and not just products. Rams goes to state that the element of design is apparent in our systems. The very systems we have created to define our reality as it makes sense to us. So think about that for a second and imagine how you can apply that concept. Jobs understood this and he understood this well.
2. Democracy: Based on what I have read, there is a very strict command and control structure in place at 1 infinite loop. There is a culture of secrecy, of employing psychologists, of spreading rumors to see how and which circles they travel in. I think you get the point. It’s so Orwellian, isn’t it? If true, this is ironic, because Apple has turned into the very company that it tried to cast in a certain light in it’s early days. That company was IBM, and sure enough I am referring to the famous advertisement link that showcased Apple as being the saviour. Of Apple saving the world from a dark, totalitarian environment. At the time, Apple denied any correlation to Big Blue, perhaps trying to play it safe and not risking litigation. But on other separate occasions Jobs was clearly seen/heard as referring to IBM as that Orwellian company (although he didn’t exactly use that choice of words).  You know, in spite of all of that, and in spite of everything that could potentially be occurring inside the firewall at Apple today. Jobs himself was a big believer in the principles of freedom and democracy. From artistic freedom for it’s employee base. The fact that Designers are sitting at the top of the caste system that Apple has created within it’s fortress, is a testament to that fact. Democracy, ok let’s talk about that. I mean there are so many different references to how passionate Jobs really was about the principles of freedom and Democracy. The rights of man, the rights of a human being. Jobs went out of his way to help out institutions that he believed were fundamental for these “concepts” to flourish. I mean this was a man who was had a plan for reinventing the Technological field. But going back to what I was referring to earlier on about the depth of his perception. Jobs knew very well that reinventing certain areas and unleashing these groundbreaking inventions would have an impact on some of the traditional business models. News, print, schools, other education systems. Jobs was cognizant of all of this and did everything in his capacity to make sure that these institutions can suffuse and grow with the coming shift. It was either genuine goodwill or  he clearly took a page out of the Godfather at that point. Where he systematically went to these industries and told them that he was doing them a favor and someday he might “call on them”. Whatever it was, it was brilliant. He went out of his way to help support and sustain editorial content. Apple started building linkages with the education industry in the US a long long time ago. (80?s). There was a master plan at play here, a web that  you couldn’t help but get entangled in. The principle of design was at play outside of the firewall. It begets the question, why care about these industries? Why care about anything outside the framework of the Enterprise? I mean who cares if the principles of freedom, democracy, good editorial content, robust education systems. I mean how many Enterprises out there really think about these kind of things. Not many. Enterprises and individuals might pick and choose, but I have personally never witnesses such depth and breadth of perception. I personally think that Jobs was cognizant of the fact that what he was building was much bigger than Apple itself. He set out with a vision and that was to build an ecosystem that could last and sustain itself. And he wanted this entire ecosystem to become more resilient. He definitely did not want one part of the ecosystem to end up cannibalizing the other. I think deep down inside Jobs knew that, he was who he is, because a certain framework was present. I think it started with him growing up in Los Altos or was it the Home Stead High in Cupertino (I forget), anyway the entire area was a hot bed of innovation and creativity. I mean for a kid to be able to just call Bill Hewitt and ask them for spare computer parts. Wow…. just wow. If the framework was not in place for Jobs to direct his curiosity in a certain direction, then he would have never gotten a chance to be passionate about technology. Which entails, that the Steve Jobs we know of today would never have existed. Gasp! Wait, but isn’t this happening all over the United States right now. Where the quality of education is deteriorating day by day, decade by decade. I don’t live in the United States, but based on everything I am reading there is a crisis of sorts brewing on all levels, from primary, secondary, post-secondary to all other levels of academia. The financial crisis has a lot to do with it as there is just not enough funding anymore. Falling standards of education will decrease the probability of the system producing yet another genius or another Jobs. That’s why education is so important. It’s the incubator for the nation and US is ignoring this falling standards. Very scary for North America if not the world. Secondly, the concepts of freedom and Democracy. I personally believe that there is a strange, intricate and perhaps yet to be defined connection between freedom of thought and innovation. I mean it isn’t just related to that alone, otherwise we would have seen a lot of innovation come out of Europe or say India (which is beginning to occur btw, in India at least). But Jobs understood that, and he worked hard to help support the institutions that are the indirect bastion of Democracy. I am a geek when it comes to this kind of stuff, I run brain experiments hypothesizing what would really occur if you took out some key elements that we take for granted. So I can go about this forever, and I probably will in another blog-post. The very freedoms we take for granted were the result of enormous struggles by hundreds if not millions before us. And for that reason alone, the freedoms that we do enjoy are sacred. The resultant of these struggles is what allows us to live our lives the way we intend to. Jobs understood that well and that is why he worked hard to protect and strengthen the ecosystem. In the absence of such a system, all logic, “rationale”, way of thinking eventually ends up following a strict path. That path in almost every instance leads to a dark place as it allows corruption and totalitarianism to flourish automatically. It also kills all forms of resistance, of defiance, of challenges. Forget good, useful, groundbreaking innovation to ever come out of this place. It’s a slippery slope and the history of man is pages full of warnings and examples. Overall, this here is my personal interpretation of what Jobs did and why he did it. I could be way of  target here, specially now that Apple will soon hit the 1 Trillion dollar evaluation.

There are tons of other observations that I might have made after watching/reading up on Jobs. But the two observations mentioned above are  more important considering what is going on in the world today. Concepts such as freedom and liberty are slowly becoming archaic.

So staying true to the Jobsinian way of doing things, I want to keep it simple, with a wish and a conviction that our children will be able to enjoy the same saner surroundings that we did. That our generation will not live a life of lie. We will not slide into a mindless totalitarian reality. But rather, we will understand and fix the underlying design that drives our reality. With an eventual desire of continuing to think  free thoughts. Continuing to innovate and so that many more Steve Jobs could flourish.

May you rest in peace, Steven Paul Jobs. You truly have been a great teacher.