Soft Arts

Although I miss Steve Jobs tremendously, I think he achieved what he needed to do, in the sense that he undisputedly established that making something great is a viable business model, and he established what I believe is a sustainable design culture, where people believe that good design is important, and that it is possible, and even superior, to have a business model that is predicated on great design and making great things, as opposed to having some kind of short-term gain on the cheap.

One of the things that occurred to me was that, while Steve Jobs was alive, he embodied and personified that design sensibility so effectively that, although people could be said to subscribe to the same ideals, and to be followers of it, it was almost intimidating to imply that you were a source of that.

I experienced the same thing with my late grandfather, who was really, really assertive (I used to refer to him as “Il Duce”). When he was alive, there was no point to being that way, it was just ineffective. There was no reason to do it when he embodied those characteristics in our family. If there was a problem, he’d be on top of it. Really, it was easier to just try to differentiate yourself instead of trying to embody those characteristics yourself.

Once my grandfather passed away, I missed that about him. I came to realize that I shared a real connection with him, and that all my life, there’d been no point in being like him, because trying to do so with him around was like shining a flashlight at the sun - it just didn’t make any difference.

Now, I’ve come to realize that somebody needs to keep that spirit alive - somebody needs to be the protector of the family and make sure that things work out, and that people are alright. And so I decided to step up to the plate and embrace those qualities in myself instead of suppressing them, and ended up really coming into my own within our family.

I think it’s really the same thing with Steve Jobs. In a world with Steve, a lot of times I’d hear “Who the hell do you think you are, Steve Jobs?” and the answer was, “No, of course not.”

Steve left his stamp on all of us, in the sense that we are loyal to the ideals that Steve put forth, and now we’re free to express them ourselves, and be a voice for those things in the world, as opposed to being me-toos. He’s seeded the industry with people that have reached the point where they are fiercely defensive of these ideals. This is why Apple is going to continue to do well: because Steve left a culture there that really embodies these things. There are enough people there in various capacities to handle things like the business sense, and the strategic sense, and the design sensibilities.

But Steve’s work is done: he’s revolutionized multiple markets, and he has created an awareness and a culture that I don’t think is going to go away any time soon, because nobody wants to go back to the way things were before. He made something sustainable, and it’s not just the company, but its ideals. And I think that makes the world a better place.

So while I miss Steve, I think that now we are free to champion, really champion, the ideals that he put forth. And I think that instead of just one voice, now it will be many.

That sounds like a great world to be in.

Steve Jobs is dead. One of the top business minds of the last 150 years, as influential, world changing, and enterprising as Edison or Rockefeller, has now taken his place with them in history. I am really upset that he is gone.

I want to kick god in the nuts right now.

I was going to try and say something about how he has influenced my life, but I think it’s probably easier to just include the letter that I wrote to Jobs on the day that he announced his retirement. Knowing what I did about him, I was certain that the move implied that the end was close at hand for him.

Steve,

As a 42-year-old business owner, and developer, who has felt your influence almost my entire life, I would like to say “Thank you.”

Thank you for the Apple ]['s that were available in my junior high computer lab, that sparked my imagination and made me immediately realize that I wanted computers and technology to be a part of my life.

Thank you for defining the very industry in which we work. Thank you for the Mac, and thank you for creating NeXT, which blew me away in college.

Thank you for your triumphant return to Apple, and for bringing such vitality back into it.

Thank you for being such a titanic influence and inspiration when I struck out on my own and started my own businesses.

Thank you for refusing to accept mediocrity, and your iconoclastic victory over the carriers and smart phone vendors that were unwilling to make the deep investments and sweeping changes necessary to really make something great.

Thank you for dragging the world, kicking and screaming, into the future we were all promised by science fiction as kids, with beautiful computers, really usable flat screen computers, and video calls.

Finally, thank you for your body of work as a businessman and CEO. Your history is the richest, most insightful, and inspiring example of great leadership of our day, and very likely the greatest in history.

Thank you for really insisting on the best, and demonstrating that with hard work and good people, the best is possible.

I regret that I was never able to meet you, but I do not believe that a man of your caliber really would have benefited much from the introduction in any case.

I wish you peace, comfort, and happiness. You are my hero.

-Daniel Pasco, CEO
Black Pixel

The dent Jobs made in the universe is immeasurable, particularly once he started eyeballing the tablet and smartphone markets. No other company, and none of the carriers, were willing to do what it took to make this happen.

Jobs constantly reinvented himself: first during the Apple ][ era, then with the Macintosh, then at NeXT, then upon his return to Apple, then with the outrageous sprint of industriousness that produced the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, the iPad, and the Macbook Air.

What was unbearably tragic about Steve was that his period of greatest triumph was also marked by his struggles with the ravages of cancer and declining health. It seems so grossly unjust that the most powerful and important person in our industry would have his incredible career cut short, ultimately betrayed by a once-healthy body that could no longer sustain him.

Some people have wondered what Jobs could have done with another 20 years of life. I don’t know. I am certain that Jobs realized he had a finite amount of time left to accomplish some of the things he’d wanted to see happen. I think the clock started running after his first diagnosis and surgery: the last five years pretty much shout “this is a man checking off his life goals and pushing his company hard to get his unfinished affairs in order.”

This, to me, was the point at which Jobs made his biggest dent: the pace with which Apple produced and refined their hardware and software over the last five years was absolutely unprecedented.

I wish Steve was still alive. I am certain that there are others like him out in the world, but I don’t know if anyone with his unique blend of skills will ever meet a catalytic Woz to get the ball rolling. And, although his immediate successes were huge, it still took three separate times at the helm of several companies for Jobs to become the recognized giant he would ultimately be. Practically speaking, it just doesn’t seem likely to happen again in the next 50 years.

Thank you for everything, Steve. I am so sorry your time was cut short, but god damn, your candle burned bright.

From Aesop’s Fables - this pretty much nails everything about being indie to me. It doesn’t mean that you have to be starving, but it does mean that your prosperity is in your own hands.

–

The moon was shining very bright one night when a lean, half-starved wolf, whose ribs were almost sticking through his skin, chanced to meet a plump, well-fed house dog. After the first compliments had been passed between them, the wolf inquired:

“How is it, cousin dog, that you look so sleek and contented? Try as I may I can barely find enough food to keep me from starvation.”

“Alas, cousin wolf,” said the house dog, “you lead too irregular a life. Why do you not work as steadily as I do?”

“I would gladly work steadily if I could get a place,” said the wolf.

“That’s easy,” replied the dog. “Come with me to my master’s house and help me keep the thieves away at night.”

“Gladly,” said the wolf, “for as I am living in the woods I am having a sorry time of it. There is nothing like a roof over one’s head and a bellyful of victuals always at hand.”

‘Follow me.” said the dog.

While they were trotting along together the wolf spied a mark on the dog’s neck. Out of curiosity he could not forbear asking what had caused it.

“Oh, that’s nothing much,” replied the dog. “Perhaps my collar was a little tight, the collar to which my chain is fastened –“

“Chain!” cried the wolf in surprise. “You don’t mean to tell me that you are not free to rove where you please?”

“Why, not exactly,” said the dog, somewhat shamefacedly. “You see, my master thinks I am a bit fierce, and ties me up in the daytime. But he lets me run free at night. It is really very convenient for everybody. I get plenty of sleep during the day so that I can watch better at night. I really am a great favorite at the house. The master feeds me off his own plate, and the servants are continually offering me handouts from the kitchen. But wait, where are you going?”

As the wolf started back toward the forest he said “Good night to you my poor friend, you are welcome to your dainties - and your chains. As for me, I prefer my freedom to your fat.”

Moral: Lean freedom is better than fat slavery.

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race

-Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States

Oft-quoted to me by my stepfather, John Mattila. Probably the best advice anyone has ever given me.

Oh my god, I wish that someone could have told this to me when we were starting out. I was getting a sense of this a few years ago, but Ira Glass says it better:

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit.

Link

Via Daring Fireball