And I think your interpretation is far more likely. As much as I know everyone wants to believe that Steve was involved until the very end; I've seen people in the final week (and final minutes--my grandfather) of pancreatic cancer. They're not "working" on much of anything other than taking their next breath.
It makes for one hell of a story; but, I think the better story is to think of a man who spent his last 24 hours alive with those closest to him--his family.
Precisely. While I'm sure Steve communicated with Cook the day before he died (he knew he was dying - the PA police had been notified), and I don't doubt he expressed his last ideas for the future of Apple, I'm sure he was far more concerned with more transcendent things than the pixel density of the iPhone 5. Steve was not a shallow man.
Given that Cook no doubt knew Steve was about to die, I don't think it's reasonable to think he would tell the truth. Just imagine what he might have said if he had.
If I know steve, he is a buddist.
If one know buddism, he should not work for the world.
If steve really worked till his last moment, he tried his best to enjoy his own life, and his life is a nature harmony, a beautiful flower.
Being a flower is much more important than being great, and most of the time works better than being charitable.
If you get downvoted then probably for the tone rather than the content of your post. I do share your general feeling though: Jobs didn't know he would die the next day. Apparently he was feeling well enough that day to talk to Cook on the phone, so why wouldn't he? If he died two days later, no-one would make such a big fuzz about it. But now all of a sudden this call is presented as an almost heroic act. Strange.
Spoke to someone at Apple the day after Jobs' death and he said he was surprised as his team was getting product feedback from him on the Monday - 2 days prior.
I think it shows how dedicated he was to his own cause, to create great products for those who followed apple. Do I think he done it for the money? Definitely not. As pointed out already he could have retired a rich man when he first left apple, instead he went onto to create next & pixar and eventually took apple from being what they were to one of the biggest companies in the world. Despite the fact he was a billionaire he lived rather modestly and never rested on his laurels.
The only thing I could say he gave in charity was his time, I know that after diagnosed with cancer the last thing I would have done is keep working, especially if i was in the same financial bracket as him. Regardless tho he worked on until the day he died, that alone gets my respect regardless of the great things he done prior to his death......RIP
Regardless of whether this story is true or not, it's sad to see dedication to work and devotion to the company over all else idolized to such a degree. The only other place I've seen this is in Japan.
I'm pretty sure someone's taking the piss, but I won't be completely certain until I start hearing reports to the effect that his last words were "I wish I'd spent more time at the office".
Dennis Ritchie was working almost until he died as well. But I don't see HN posts about him on the frontpage anymore.
I'm so tired of all these Steve Jobs posts. Please stop with them. Dennis Ritchie did far more than Steve Jobs for hackers. And if this really was Hacker News we would be talking about his contributions instead of Steve's.
Is it because Jobs was rich while Ritchie was just a researcher? Is that why you folks care about him more? Is it because he was more visible and presentable?
These aren't very Hackerish reasons in my opinion. But they probably explain why this community is more interested in Jobs than in Ritchie.
I don't know why some people keep trying to compare Steve Jobs and Dennis Ritchie. One created an extremely successful, ubiquitous, and powerful programming language and OS. The other was a driven, successful, visionary, leader, and businessman.
It's mainly people claiming that Dennis Ritchie did not get the attention he deserved. But I have also seen Steve Jobs' fans defending the attention he got because of the ways he changed the world.
To both parties: STOP TRYING TO CHEAPEN THE DEATH OF ONE OF THESE MEN BY COMPARING THEM TO THE OTHER.
And please stop whining about Steve Jobs getting more attention than people you happen to respect more. You don't get extra votes by posting complaints here.
I've not seen very many articles about Ritchie, period. While his work was significant, he was not quite the public figure that Jobs was. Many people who are not programmers were aware of Jobs; not so with Ritchie. And even among programmers, there just weren't that many public details of Ritchie's life to weave into blog posts, at least not compared to Jobs. So it stands to reason that lots more articles will be written about Jobs than about Ritchie.
We can't vote up what isn't submitted, and we can't submit what doesn't exist. If you're aware of more articles about Ritchie than what you've seen here, please submit them!
Someone recently mentioned that Hacker News was originally Startup News, the name change made to catch more eyeballs. So it's more a 'business + tech' place than a 'tech infrastructure' place, so it's less surprising that Jobs carries more weight than Ritchie.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on this matter. Things are truly just like you stated them. But the truth (as sometimes the case is) has this property of being at least a bit inconvenient to some.
Steve Jobs could have retired when forced out of Apple in 1985. He had $140million (or so, that's the figure I remember) in Apple stock. More than enough to live very well for the rest of his life. He could have even blown some of it on US festivals with Wozniak and still lived well.
Instead, he built NeXT, Pixar and then later, rebuilt Apple.
I think that his continuing to work is the most charitable act I've observed in my lifetime. He touched billions of people and made their lives better.
Sure, he got richer doing it, but it seems he never did it for the money. (I think he did it for the pleasure, personally, but the end result was massive human good.)
> I think that his continuing to work is the most charitable act I've observed in my lifetime.
Really? I doubt he did any of the stuff for our express benefit. Steve had a personal drive to produce good products, to achieve his personal goals, and he did that really well and is rightly admired for pursuing his internal drive and making it such a success.
Was his drive mainly for altruistic reasons? For the benefit of mankind? Come on - I'm all for admiring the guy, but let's not fawn over him. He's not a saint. If he is, I guess all those mega-rich CEOs of the Samsungs, Ford, General Electics of the world are also so admirable because they 'charitably' continue to work when they financially don't need to.
Not to criticize, though, but the underlying premise that industrial scale "charity" is necessarily good deserves a critical reassessment.
Investment works and turns countries and companies into net producers. That's the story of countless Asian Tigers. At the largest scale, aid did not fix China and India, capitalism did.
This is because charity/aid doesn't scale. It's zero sum, it does not teach the guy on the other side of the transaction to catch a fish, to determine what they can produce which is worthy of trading in the global market.
I understand that Gates, Buffet, and now Zuckerberg had to throw their money away to buy respectability, in the same way people in olden times gave money to the church for various mumbo jumbo rituals. But I often wonder what could have happened had more of those billions been channeled into genuine positive sum activities like Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus' Grameen Bank.[1] Entities not necessarily focused on absolutely maximum profit, but which are at least self sustaining like Craigslist and hence not infinitely dependent on yet more infusions of cash from third parties.
[1] I'm sure that with all the billions spent, at least some has gone into real social entrepreneurship, meaning profitable standalone organizations. But it's hard to escape the fact that Gates, by his own admission, wasted literally billions on education with little to show for it.
The goal instead should be to identify the next Craig Newmark, Jimmy Wales, Salman Khan, or Mohammed Yunus and back them. Have them create a few billion in value and capture enough to remain afloat, and maybe dial up the next few efforts of this kind.
Touched billions of people ? Massive Human good ?
I love Apple, but cmon. Steve built awesome products for the industrial countries to solve luxury problems, shaped the computer industry and thats awesome, but saying he made billions peoples lives better is some steps too far.
In fact, Bill Gates probably did alot more good to humanity by being one of the most generous philanthropists on the planet.
>He could have even blown some of it on US festivals with Wozniak and still lived well.
Woz had a near-death plane crash and lost his memory for several weeks prior to the festival stuff. Kind of hard to judge him comparatively like this, maybe he wasn't capable of the type of work he did at Apple prior to the crash anymore.
[+] [-] JeremyBanks|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcrescimanno|14 years ago|reply
It makes for one hell of a story; but, I think the better story is to think of a man who spent his last 24 hours alive with those closest to him--his family.
[+] [-] aneth|14 years ago|reply
Given that Cook no doubt knew Steve was about to die, I don't think it's reasonable to think he would tell the truth. Just imagine what he might have said if he had.
[+] [-] jayfuerstenberg|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] happypeter|14 years ago|reply
Being a flower is much more important than being great, and most of the time works better than being charitable.
[+] [-] slowpoke|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kleiba|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goatforce5|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jritch|14 years ago|reply
The only thing I could say he gave in charity was his time, I know that after diagnosed with cancer the last thing I would have done is keep working, especially if i was in the same financial bracket as him. Regardless tho he worked on until the day he died, that alone gets my respect regardless of the great things he done prior to his death......RIP
[+] [-] kstenerud|14 years ago|reply
I'm pretty sure someone's taking the piss, but I won't be completely certain until I start hearing reports to the effect that his last words were "I wish I'd spent more time at the office".
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] intour779|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] smutticus|14 years ago|reply
I'm so tired of all these Steve Jobs posts. Please stop with them. Dennis Ritchie did far more than Steve Jobs for hackers. And if this really was Hacker News we would be talking about his contributions instead of Steve's.
Is it because Jobs was rich while Ritchie was just a researcher? Is that why you folks care about him more? Is it because he was more visible and presentable?
These aren't very Hackerish reasons in my opinion. But they probably explain why this community is more interested in Jobs than in Ritchie.
[+] [-] jamesrom|14 years ago|reply
It's mainly people claiming that Dennis Ritchie did not get the attention he deserved. But I have also seen Steve Jobs' fans defending the attention he got because of the ways he changed the world.
To both parties: STOP TRYING TO CHEAPEN THE DEATH OF ONE OF THESE MEN BY COMPARING THEM TO THE OTHER.
[+] [-] mcav|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tlrobinson|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tjr|14 years ago|reply
We can't vote up what isn't submitted, and we can't submit what doesn't exist. If you're aware of more articles about Ritchie than what you've seen here, please submit them!
[+] [-] vacri|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kds|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rphlx|14 years ago|reply
Will it be loved by millions? Probably. But, seriously, it's just a phone.
I guess I don't get it.
[+] [-] nirvana|14 years ago|reply
Instead, he built NeXT, Pixar and then later, rebuilt Apple.
I think that his continuing to work is the most charitable act I've observed in my lifetime. He touched billions of people and made their lives better.
Sure, he got richer doing it, but it seems he never did it for the money. (I think he did it for the pleasure, personally, but the end result was massive human good.)
This is why I honor Steve Job's life.
[+] [-] tobtoh|14 years ago|reply
Really? I doubt he did any of the stuff for our express benefit. Steve had a personal drive to produce good products, to achieve his personal goals, and he did that really well and is rightly admired for pursuing his internal drive and making it such a success.
Was his drive mainly for altruistic reasons? For the benefit of mankind? Come on - I'm all for admiring the guy, but let's not fawn over him. He's not a saint. If he is, I guess all those mega-rich CEOs of the Samsungs, Ford, General Electics of the world are also so admirable because they 'charitably' continue to work when they financially don't need to.
[+] [-] ramanujan|14 years ago|reply
Not to criticize, though, but the underlying premise that industrial scale "charity" is necessarily good deserves a critical reassessment.
Investment works and turns countries and companies into net producers. That's the story of countless Asian Tigers. At the largest scale, aid did not fix China and India, capitalism did.
This is because charity/aid doesn't scale. It's zero sum, it does not teach the guy on the other side of the transaction to catch a fish, to determine what they can produce which is worthy of trading in the global market.
I understand that Gates, Buffet, and now Zuckerberg had to throw their money away to buy respectability, in the same way people in olden times gave money to the church for various mumbo jumbo rituals. But I often wonder what could have happened had more of those billions been channeled into genuine positive sum activities like Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus' Grameen Bank.[1] Entities not necessarily focused on absolutely maximum profit, but which are at least self sustaining like Craigslist and hence not infinitely dependent on yet more infusions of cash from third parties.
[1] I'm sure that with all the billions spent, at least some has gone into real social entrepreneurship, meaning profitable standalone organizations. But it's hard to escape the fact that Gates, by his own admission, wasted literally billions on education with little to show for it.
The goal instead should be to identify the next Craig Newmark, Jimmy Wales, Salman Khan, or Mohammed Yunus and back them. Have them create a few billion in value and capture enough to remain afloat, and maybe dial up the next few efforts of this kind.
[+] [-] kayoone|14 years ago|reply
In fact, Bill Gates probably did alot more good to humanity by being one of the most generous philanthropists on the planet.
[+] [-] cma|14 years ago|reply
Woz had a near-death plane crash and lost his memory for several weeks prior to the festival stuff. Kind of hard to judge him comparatively like this, maybe he wasn't capable of the type of work he did at Apple prior to the crash anymore.
[+] [-] teyc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheDroids|14 years ago|reply
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