Chris Preimesberger, in an article on the work and genius of the late Steve Jobs in eWeek magazine, encapsulated in one sentence why Jobs was so successful:
"Though he had no formal business education or training, Jobs was one of the savviest people ever to run an American company because he understood what customers wanted."
How successful would this country be if lots of other American business leaders thought like Jobs and hired people with smarts enough to "understand what the customers wanted." I love it when I find a company that understands their customers and what they want. They're all too rare.
There are other reasons too, as Preimesberger points out in his article, Millions Held Deep Respect for Jobs and the Products He Helped Build for Apple: "He was able to take the highly technical task of aggregating digital files of all kinds and make them accessible in an intuitive, nontechnical way for Apple's customers."
Couldn't agree more. Jobs and his software developers led me into desktop publishing and I fought the "high priests of the mainframe," who didn't like the PC, let alone another computer platform, to install a Macintosh network within the communications department I was running. The Mac put us on the cutting edge of desktop publishing, and we never looked back.
In 1995, when Microsoft brought out Windows 95, offering its best graphical user interface to that date, I converted to that platform; however, I couldn't switch the graphic artists who, to this day, work on and love their Macs. Excellent article, Chris! Of all the things being written about Steve--and we sorely miss him--you brought a unique perspective to this tragic loss.
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