Steve Jobs RIP 1955-2011

To my knowledge, the only tech conference Steve Jobs regularly appeared at, the only event he didn’t somehow control, was our All Things Digital conferences, where he appeared repeatedly for unrehearsed, onstage interviews. We had one rule that really bothered him: we never allowed slides, which were his main presentation tool.

One year, about an hour before his appearance, I was informed that he was backstage preparing dozens of slides, even though I had reminded him a week earlier of the no-slides policy. I asked two of his top aides to tell him he couldn’t use the slides, but they each said they couldn’t do it, that I had to. So I went backstage and told him the slides were out. Famously prickly, he could have stormed out, refused to go on. And he did try to argue with me. But, when I insisted, he just said “OK.” And he went on stage without them, and was, as usual, the audience’s favorite speaker.

For our fifth D Conference, both Steve and his longtime rival, the brilliant Bill Gates, surprisingly agreed to a joint appearance, their first extended onstage joint interview ever. But it almost got derailed.
Earlier in the day, before Gates arrived, I did a solo onstage interview with Jobs, and asked him what it was like to be a major Windows developer, since Apple’s iTunes program was by then installed on hundreds of millions of Windows PC. He quipped: “It’s like giving a glass of ice water to someone in Hell.” When Gates later arrived and heard about the comment, he was, naturally, enraged, because my partner Kara Swisher and I had assured both men that we hoped to keep the joint session on a high plane.

In a pre-interview meeting, Gates said to Jobs “so I guess I’m the representative from Hell.” Jobs merely handed Gates a cold bottle of water he was carrying. The tension was broken, and the interview was a triumph, with both men acting like statesmen. When it was over, the audience rose in a standing ovation, some of them in tears.

looool

alright, yeah, read mossberg's piece y'all

this is how i learned

http://i.imgur.com/KiVvm.png

Ha! One of my friends got her news from Weezy too.

steve ballmer: http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2011/oct11/10-05statement.mspx

WOW, that IIc manual!!

So his mausoleum will be bang in the middle of his new spaceship, right?

SalmanRushdie Salman Rushdie
I have been in love with the world Steve Jobs made ever since my first Apple Mac. He was one of the great architects of the real. RIP.
7 minutes ago

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/47/136114411_539b143e74_z.jpg

The fact that this ever needed to be illustrated.

RIP

assuming it eventually comes out, i'm interested in knowing how he spent his last few months, like whether or not he was trying out experimental treatments & what not

his official bio, which he was interviewed something like 40 times for, is out next month, so some of that might be in there

"official" isn't the right word . . . what will become the canonical bio is out next month

of the real.

read this as 'on the real' initially

so I guess now we know for sure why the biography was brought forward nine months

nobody posted death notices on facebook when henry ford died

TimDraper
Tim Draper
With the possible exception of George Washington, Dung Chow Ping and Columbus, we lost the greatest man that lived on the planet today.
5 minutes ago

huge lol @ dung chow ping

woooow

i wonder what mow say tong would think of that

lol wut

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Tim_Draper.jpg

ABigBagOfKeys Ultimate Fear Spider
what is brostep. steve jobs could have told me… sigh
1 minute ago

Not only am I old enough to recall a time when the personal computer did not exist, I am about a year older than Steve Jobs was. The Apple II was a major inflection point in 20th century life. I saw it happen. It was huge.

I hope Tim Draper is an NBA player

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4056/4517610446_7779718cf5_o.jpg

rip

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2010/01/jobs15.jpg

Hey I just realised Jobso's realisation of capacitive touchscreens on handheld devices is the actual reason I am learning Chinese now.

For most first-world people I don't think there's any getting away with the "Jobso didn't change my life in some way" line.

the top 30 stories on my facebook are all about steve jobs.

i am sorry, i'm gonna change my mind and join amateurist here. this is friggin' absurd.

mine r all abt #occupywallst

Compared to Sarah Palin and her media presence, memorializing Steve Jobs death at 56 is not friggin' absurd.

well, at least there's humor value in that

the top 30 stories on my facebook are all about steve jobs.

So 30 different people are dealing with the news on a personal level. That you perceive it to be overkill is your own problem.

RealSoonYi Soon-Yi Previn
rip Steve job
22 seconds ago

satan's poking his bony ass with double pitchforks right now

Exchange between two F'book friends:

"Maybe Steve Jobs' death will inspire the young Wall Street protesters the same way Judy Garland's death inspired the Stonewall drag queens."

"Maybe it will inspire people to go out and take a walk"

lmao

oh soon-yi no

SE>LCII>Duo>Duo>Centris 660AV>PowerMac G3>Powerbook G3>Power Book G4> Couple of MacBook Pros>Mac Mini+MacBook Air+iPhone

Add a work owned Dell, Samsung and Lenovo (plus a dim and distant Acorn Electron) and you have my computing life. Dominated by products Jobs had a hand in (Centris was pretty awful but was from the wilderness years).

A truly unique man; created a business that could sustain hardware margins in a cut-throat race to the bottom. Software gave people a reason to keep buying the hardware. I've always said that the Mac was the best copy protection dongle, Steve never seemed to care if your Final Cut was hacked because Apple made money on the hardware. Later on Apple seemed to work out a way of making money everywhere from a slavish devotion to network effects and not being first or most advanced but by providing "it just works".

A truly great man.

So 30 different people are dealing with the news on a personal level. That you perceive it to be overkill is your own problem.

Right, thanks.

ONCE AGAIN STEVE JOBS AINT DEAD!!!!!!! IM SMOKIN A FAT ASS KUSH JOINT RIGHT NOW!!!!!!

Oh man, Charles Napier died too.

That'll be a fun party at the pearly gates

http://trialx.com/curetalk/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/2011/04/gcelebrities/Charles_Napier-3.jpg

Start a new RIP thread, remy.

http://www.google.com/

the napier news definitely hit me harder

Sporadic cheering and celebrations were reported throughout mainland China earlier today, following news that former Apple CEO Steve Jobs had passed away.