Steve Jobs, Co-Founder of Apple/Computer Genius, has left this world for another as of yesterday, October 5th, 2011. He left this world after a great deal of success and some amazing products. Someone to live like as an example. Immediately, many people were posting up quotes from this Silicon Valley success story and the main theme was about living life outside the realm of what people say is possible but rather following your heart and mind to achieve everything that you can. Great words from a man who proved it to be true.
The thing that I stumbled upon that struck my interest enough to add a post to my blog about Steve was the fact that "Steve Jobs Is a Biker". I understand that I put is when it really should be was but to me when you are a biker (someone who has found his place amongst the "dreamality" of 2wheels), you never stop being a biker. All information about Jobs' riding has him riding sans helmet and even sans socks in his ADIDAS shoes and jeans and Plaid shirt. Riding appears to be his preferred means of transportation during the early periods of his success.
Here is the section out of a
National Geographic Article that pertains to Steve Jobs:
Steve Jobs is pleased with the falling prices. He hopes that his computer will become the Volkswagen of the industry, the computer every family can own. The 27-year-old co-founder of Apple Computer, whose typewriter-size instrument is pioneering the incorporation of the computer into daily life, bristles a little, too, as he reminds, “We’d rather call the Apple a personal than a home computer.” Although 1981 and 1982 have been the “years of the personal computer,” with giants like IBM jumping into the market and about two million now in use in the United States, predictions that computers would be the nerve centers of our homes by the early 1980s have proved premature.
“It’s no more difficult than learning to cook, but people are afraid they can’t handle it,” says Jobs’s Silicon Valley neighbor Dan Fylstra, whose VisiCorp software packages are simple enough for use in the home. The machines are just not yet “user friendly” enough. Though research labs all over the valley are struggling to solve the elusive problem of speech recognition, we are a long way from marketing a computer that can respond to ordinary conversation—the ultimate friendliness.
So Jobs and his growing host of competitors have directed their sales efforts to office uses. But the Apple has inspired a dedicated cult of hard-core enthusiasts who trade new uses for the computer in the columns of Apple magazines; one engineer has programmed his Apple to activate a small motor that rocks the crib when his colicky baby cries or wriggles. And Jobs has become a potent role model for a new breed of bright kids who are writing and selling software programs and, with their arcane computer skills, gaining the prestige formerly tasted only by the high-school football team.
Over herb tea in a vegetarian restaurant, Jobs explained to me, “For us, computers have always been around. That’s what separates us guys from you guys. You were born B.C.—Before Computers. And it’s because of this place. I was born here. When I was 14,1 was asking famous computer engineers here questions. Apple came out of the microprocessor, created in this valley just five miles from here.”
Jobs’s passion has paid off handsomely. With Steve Wozniak he built his first Apple in 1976 in his parents’ Los Altos garage because they couldn’t afford to buy a computer; now he owns Apple Computer stock worth 100 million dollars. While the chip companies suffered this spring, Apple’s revenues soared 81 percent over last year’s. Apple now occupies 22 buildings in Silicon Valley and plants in Texas, Singapore, and Ireland, which is bidding to become Europe’s Silicon Valley.
Although Jobs drives the requisite Mercedes, success seems not to have spoiled the first folk hero of the computer age.
In plaid shirt and jeans, he still prefers, as a friend said, “to drive his motorcycle to my place, sit around and drink wine, and talk about what we’re going to do when we grow up.”
I think that's very cool. Also, I'd like to say that, not being a fan of Apple, that the first part of this section in the article says that Jobs wanted his Apple to be the "Volkswagen of the industry, the computer that every family can own." For me Apple was always too expensive, therefore, it was more of the "BMW" of computers and that's not a bad thing. Great Job Steve, I will definitely have to ride with you on the "Great Road in the Sky" one day. Till then I will strive to follow your quotes to attempt similar success.
James
