Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Lord Acton said that most great men are not good men

Steve Jobs was a great man.  By some measures, perhaps no one is good, so the ones who do great things are special.

He might have been mean, but the word creative should have his picture next to the definition in the dictionary.  Creative in art, technology, science, engineering, process, manufacturing, supply chain, retail layout, genius bar.  One of a kind.

Thomas Edison is a mere Jack of innovators, to Nikola Tesla's King.

And Jobs is the Ace.  I'm not even in the deck, but that's how I see it.  Just as I believe that Fischer Black helped Goldman Sachs become #1 on Wall Street, posthumously at that, I would not be surprised if Apple Computer overtakes Exxon Mobil as the largest public company.  $AAPL at a $350 billion market cap as of yesterday's close; $XOM at $360 billion.

I was fortunate to be one of the first people to ever use a Mac, programming Pascal on it in 1984, in my first semester of college.  That first crop of machines had 56K of memory.  In high school before that, I had a blast playing Olympic Decathlon on my friend's Apple IIe.

Although I doubt Jobs and I shared much theology in common, I can't help but remembering an old song from church that starts:
I will never be the same again,
I can never return, I've closed the door.
I will walk the path, I'll run the race
And I will never be the same again.
as I sit here reflecting on his life.

I think he lived up to his name.  Jobs created jobs, many jobs, and good ones at that.  My condolences to his family.

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