Steve Jobs, who passed away on Wednesday at the relatively young age of 56 years, was undoubtedly one of the greatest visionaries and outstanding business leaders of our age. He created products that we lust for, and he built a brand and company which are amongst the most valuable in the world today.
During the current year, full-year sales revenues of Apple, the company Jobs created and led, are likely to exceed $100 billion. Its market capitalisation stands at a fabulous figure of $350 billion — which is larger than the GDP of over 150 countries!
Amazing comparisons
What is amazing, however, is that several tributes to Steve Jobs have compared him not only with businessmen and industrialists who create financial value, but with legendary musicians, artists and magical figures who create immortal pieces of beauty.
Mr Marc Andreesen, investor and founder of Netscape, makes a stark statement — “Like Mozart and Picasso, Jobs may never be equalled.” From the other end of the world, Mr Masayoshi Son, founder of Softbank, Japan's third largest mobile phone service provider, has said — “He (Jobs) will be remembered alongside Leanardo Da Vinci.”
Only a few months ago, the Economist magazine had called Steve Jobs the Minister for Magic, drawing on a fictional character in the famous Harry Potter series.
Multifaceted
Indeed, Steve Jobs was artist and genius extraordinary, and not merely a businessman (though of course he was a brilliant business leader as well). Like Mozart and Picasso, he created new strains of music which no one had ever heard before, new forms of art which no one else had even dared to imagine. The Apple Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad…each of these products were not merely new, they were so refreshingly different that they immediately seduced millions of consumers such as ourselves, across the world.
Whenever Steve Jobs launched a new product, each of us was, to borrow a phrase from the poet John Keats, “like a watcher of the skies, when a new planet swims into his ken.”
Steve Jobs also elevated his business to a refined art form, because in each of his iconic products he seamlessly blended technology and design. This made the iPod and the iPhone not merely feature-rich, but sexy cool products which you could repeatedly die for.
Blending design, tech
It is rare to see the yin (design) and the yang (technology) sit so beautifully alongside each other in devices of everyday use, though this is indeed one of the hallmarks of great art, music, dance and cuisine. No wonder Jobs has been installed in the rarefied hall of fame of legendary composers and sculptors, far away from the humdrum world of business and commerce.
Like immortal men of art, Jobs was also driven by passion for his profession, and not merely by scientific rigour. Such passion led him to immerse himself in the diverse fields of popular culture and technology, and he gained from such study deep insights on what consumers may desire from his products.
When a journalist once asked Steve Jobs what market research went into the iPad, Jobs famously replied — “None. It's not the consumers' job to know what they want.” He relied on his insights and his intuition instead, as most artists do.
Also, much like Shakespeare and Da Vinci, Steve Jobs was prolific, yet so many of his creations rose to achieve iconic status. Over 20 years, he launched at least four big and iconic products: iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. These products transformed the lives of their users, and attained cult status.
(The author is Chief Operating Officer — Watches, Titan Industries Ltd. These are his personal views)