Koby’s Kaos

Five hundred years from now when someone, or some thing, sums up our civilization, the teacher may simply gloss over ordinary heroes, and step directly from Columbus to his logical successor, Steve Jobs. They are both personalities that made our future inevitable—we just don’t yet know what Steve’s future will become. Columbus was a megalomaniac, mystic and genius. Steve Jobs was, well, Steve Jobs. Columbus was known for sailing by “dead reckoning,” by reading sea, sky, and birds rather than relying on stars, compasses and maps. He tried for big things and sometimes succeeded. Opening up the New World was just one of his more successful failures.

For our times, Steve Jobs has launched a new New World. He had passion, creativity, a love of innovation, and an ability to make sense out of new possibility. When he was wrong, it may only have been that the technology fell short. But he learned from his mistakes, and when he was right, he became far more the CEO of a great technology company. He became a paradigm-crunching social movement.

Apple was far more than a logical extension of developing hardware—that was the role of IBM and is now continued by Intel and Microsoft. Over the last few decades, Apple discovered magic. Very personally led by Steve Jobs as its hands on visionary CEO, Apple created expensive, discretionary gadgets that somehow became the most necessary props to a knowledge charged society. It created a demand that technology could fulfill.

Perhaps radio, TV, and pop 45’s hastened the fall of the Berlin Wall, but social media was the engine of the lighting-quick Arab Spring. That social media weapon would not have evolved without iPhantasies and its clones. Facebook would still be a toy for the elites and I have no idea what the grass roots would be up to, other than a slow motion dunking of tea bags.

Okay, young people would still know how to spell, read, and do math in their heads, but then Columbus’ New World had collateral damage as well. Often brutal.

Steve Jobs’ vision was only mildly shown in the development of the Mac. Had his career ended then he would now be seen as a marketing genius who tended to overstep his capabilities. It was only after his return to Apple that a technological engine existed to support his quest for excellence, ease of use, and style. His products had a purpose. And in fulfilling that purpose they created a consumer vacuum that could only be filled by his next product.

Everything we do now, we seem to do through our always-new personal technology. Apps supervise business, hobbies, dreams and day-to-day necessities. Every industry has been touched. Every revolution inspired. In addition, every reaction strengthened. As a society we may not know much, but what little we suspect we shout from the rooftops with our thumbs and our finger gestures.

US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have already pronounced that Steve Jobs had changed the world. Tributes have been pouring in from friends, rivals, politicians, and everyone with a handheld. When Steve resigned as CEO in August, he wrote that he believed that “Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it.” The pack does live on, but the Alpha is gone.

We are still going somewhere, but yesterday’s maps, stars, and compasses will not be enough. Someone still needs to read the skies, the technology and the people, and point a course by “live” reckoning. I just don’t know when we’ll next find a practical leader out in front.