Steve Jobs: the Man who Thought Different

Over the summer I read Steve Jobs: The Man Who Though Different, by Karen Blumenthal. The book was a biography of Jobs, from his childhood to his death, in 2011.

Jobs' adopted father, a carpenter, once told Jobs that if he made a bureau with really beautiful woodwork he could never put a piece of ugly plywood over the back, even if no one would ever see it. He taught Jobs that all parts should be handled with the same amount of care and beauty. This is a lesson Jobs would carry with him his entire life.

Perfectionism, for Jobs, went hand-in-hand with stubbornness and his need for everything to go just right, and just his way. He had an almost unbreakable focus for any task at hand. No matter how he made people feel or how reckless he acted, he got the job done, perfectly.

Jobs acted in a way that some people might consider obsessive. He would send back and recall Apple devices if the interior of them weren't organized and structured perfectly. Even if it still worked and no one could see it. He made sure all his devices were created just so.

These quirks and these acts of stubbornness made Jobs the successful man he was. I think his extreme focus drove him to his fame,  but also prevented him from relating to people. Jobs was given up for adoption before his young parents married. They then went on to have a family without him. When Jobs met his biological sister, Mona, at age 30, she told him about his real father, who was working at a popular restaurant in Silicon Valley, near Apple Headquarters.  A restaurant where Jobs ate often. He quickly decided not to visit the restaurant, nor his father. He would not allow himself to be distracted from his work. Maybe this attitude and his self control and focus were what made him such a huge business mogul.

But this was the type of person Jobs was. A go-getter, who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. He was a perfectionist who would keep fighting and producing technology used by millions of people everywhere, until the day he died. And still, his legacy will continue. Apple will continue to grow, even with out him. The question is, will the quality and precision of Apple products start to diminish without his vision and standards of perfection? Only time will tell.