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Heavens must have stood still as Steven Paul Jobs approached Heaven's Gate and I can almost visualise Apostles Peter and Paul summoning Alexander the Great to join the entourage that would welcome Steve to God's presence. I can almost hear Alexander the Great whispering to the Apostles, from this moment, I wish to handover my crown to this man, for he indeed was the greatest. If my vision was to bring Greek civilization to the whole known world populated by a couple of million people, this man was motivated by a vision to change the world of over 10 billion people, and he indeed succeeded. Enter Steve Jobs the Great.
Monk-like, he wore simple clothes - turtle neck, jeans and snickers. Abrasive, mercurial, ''he wore his demons on his sleeve, and was sloppy in dealing with them'', as Steven Levy commented in his book, Insanely Great. Indeed Steve Jobs believed in nothing unless it was insanely great, like the Mac. Commenting on Macintosh's tenth anniversary, Steven Levy described the Mac as being about how ''technology, serendipity, passion, and magic combined to create what I believe is the most important consumer product in the last half of the twentieth century. It has already set a process into motion that changed our thinking about computers, our thinking about information, and even our thinking about thinking. In terms of our relationship with information, Macintosh changed everything''.
Barely 21 when he co-founded Apple, with Steve Wozniak, Jobs realised more dreams in his brief existence than almost anyone had in longer lifetimes. According to Levy ''even his darkest side was not so imposing that it eclipsed his charisma. His charm was powerful mainly because it was reflective: working for Steve Jobs was not so much being in his service as it was sharing a special dream, a dream he managed to evoke in breathtaking hues''.
Though he stood on the shoulders of giants, his was just one bold dream, change the world. Sharing his dream about the Macintosh, Jobs painted an enthusiastic, sexy and candid canvas, ''Computers and society are out on a first date in this decade and for some crazy reason we're just in the right place at the right time to make that romance blossom''. And he set to achieve that dream, not for his personal aggrandisement, but for mankind. He was driven. One of Apple's earliest slogans proclaimed, ''It's better to be a pirate than join the Navy''. Indeed, the Mac designers actually flew a skull-and-cross-bones above their ''Manhattan Project'' site, named Bandley 3. The eye of the skull was replaced with Apple's logo. They were young, wild, and determined. Jobs himself explained to the Smithsonian Institution, ''Apple was this incredible journey. We were all pretty young. The average age in the company was mid to late twenties''.
He never tired of rallying his evangelists with grandiose dreams such as ''we are here to put a dent on the universe'', reflected in the half bitten apple that represents the Apple's logo. One of the most famous campaigns in Apple's history, aired on September 28, 1997, entitled ''Think Different'', let's us into the inner workings of Jobs' mind, and the Apple brand. As black-and-white images of famous iconoclasts, including Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Branson, John Lennon, Amelia Earhart, Muhammad Ali, Bob Dylan and others filled the screen, actor Richard Dreyfuss voiced the narration: ''Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square hole, the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the one thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And 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''.
Jobs' driving passion was to push the human race forward: Macintosh, iMac, iPhone, iPod, iPad, iTunes, Apple Apps. He instinctively knew that people don't care about a product. What people care about is solving problems and making their lives a little better. He pursued this vision relentlessly, and was more prescient than the majority of IT gurus and marketers in interpreting design. In 1996 he told Wired Magazine, ''Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works''. He started clarifying his purpose early in life, ''man is the creator of change in this world, as such he should be above systems and structures, and not subordinate to them''. He pursued this dream with passion and messianic zeal. He embodied the ''American Dream'', from rags to riches.
Jobs told Steven Levy, author of Insanely Great, ''I see myself as an artist if anything''. To his worldwide admirers, he was more than an artist, he could have been a messiah. Addressing a group of Stanford undergraduates circa 1996, Jobs summarised his world vision and outlook, as he set out to construct his roadmap to sainthood, greatness, enroute to joining the pantheons of legends. ''You know, we don't grow most of the food we eat, we wear clothes other people make, we speak a language other people developed, we use mathematics that other people evolved. I mean we're constantly taking things. It's a wonderful, ecstatic feeling to create something that puts it back in the pool of human experience and knowledge. I think actually one can influence things as much or more from private sector than the public sector. I'm one of those people who think that Thomas Edison and the light bulb changed the world a lot more than Karl Marx ever did. And we have this incredible chance to do that''.
He was insanely great. He came, he saw, and he conquered. With a company valued at $366bn, not a bad return for a once poor boy from Silicon Valley, given out for adoption before he was given a name, directionless until age 21, and driven by a burning desire to ''leave a dent on the universe''.
Paul Uduk is the Chief Executive Officer of Vision & Talent International, Nigeria's leading learning and performance consultancy, and the founder of Paradise Bookshops, Nigeria's largest bookshop chain. He has published and consulted actively in the areas of service quality and design, and teaches in these areas locally and internationally, including for the UNDP. He is the Creator of The Wealth Beyond Your Imagination Audio CD, and his best selling books include Bridges to the Customer's Heart, and The Gods of Quality Strike Back. Prior to setting up the Vision & Talent Group, he was a banker with one of Nigeria's top 10 banks. His current research interest is on forces that engender corporate enthusiasm, agility, and the will to prevail through excellence.
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