I awoke this morning to the sad new that Steve Jobs had died. Of course, I was shocked but as Charlie Stross points out, I shouldn’t have been
Once his illness became public knowledge his level of activity,
already frenetic, became that of a man desperate to complete his
life’s work. People like that don’t go gently into the dark
night. They don’t leave the office unless they’re dragged away on a
stretcher. When he resigned as CEO of Apple in August, I expected him
to be dead within a week; I’m surprised he lasted this long.
That sounds right to me. Although he was by all accounts a devoted family man there was always “just one more thing.”
There’s been much twaddle in the technical press and blogosphere lately about Steve Jobs being this generation’s Edison; Steve Jobs not being this generation’s Edison and so on. I don’t know about any of that but I do know that he was a visionary unparalleled in his time. A man obsessive about attention to detail and a man who would accept nothing but the best from himself and those around him.
Steven Levy, technology’s biographer, has a touching obituary of Jobs over at Wired and the New York Times has a lengthy story on his life and accomplishments. Like most people, I never met Jobs but his work touches me on a daily basis and I will miss him.
Update: except → accept