Remembering Steve Jobs. 1981. 1984. 2000. 2007: the iphone. 2011: last keynote. The Steve Jobs I Knew - Walt Mossberg - Mossblog. AllThingsD marks the anniversary of Steve Jobs’s death with Walt Mossberg’s memories of the man, originally published Oct. 5, 2011. That Steve Jobs was a genius, a giant influence on multiple industries and billions of lives, has been written many times since he retired as Apple’s CEO in August. He was a historical figure on the scale of a Thomas Edison or a Henry Ford, and set the mold for many other corporate leaders in many other industries.
He did what a CEO should: Hired and inspired great people; managed for the long term, not the quarter or the short-term stock price; made big bets and took big risks. He insisted on the highest product quality and on building things to delight and empower actual users, not intermediaries like corporate IT directors or wireless carriers. And he could sell.
Man, he could sell. As he liked to say, he lived at the intersection of technology and liberal arts. Even in his death, I won’t violate the privacy of those conversations. The Phone Calls The Slides.