RIP Steve.... my allusion in my previous post to his receding from the helm could not have been timed worse.

I first came across Jobs in a case study during the orientation week at the ISB where the Apple case study was used to illustrate the culture that Steve epoused within the Mac team at Apple, leading to his run-ins with John Sculley, whom he had famously hired and then his subsequent departure. Steve was painted as someone keener to leave a legacy, than make the right business decisions, and this could not be better defined than by the fact that Jobs and his Macintosh team  signed their names (engraved electronically, of course) on the inside of each monitor of the Macintosh that was sold at that time. This was seen as a final example of his narcissism and lack of business skill, even arrogance.

This was the year 2003, and Jobs had returned to Apple 1998. He had focused on setting things right but the company was yet to go anywhere. The English Professor had not yet formed an opinion on what he thought might happen or whether he was inclined to be optimistic. The iPod had just debuted, of course and it was a mp3 player with a small difference. The next 8 years, as they say, became history.

Following the ISB year I actually read Sculley's book, From Pepsi To Apple, to get his side of the story, and it wasn't exactly flattering to Jobs.

Over the years, I watched with amazement as the iPod, then the MacBook, then the iPhone and the iPad simply turned into category killers.

Finally, there is a lot of truth in Jobs' Stanford commencement speech, which I listened to at least twice.

There is a dark side to Jobs', but that simple outlines him as a human with very human frailties.

For the genius in him, it is so wonderful to see that he will be remembered as the winner that he was born to be, and not as the centerpiece of a case study that I read in 2002. Many geniuses have not had their due, and its wonderful when one comes along who does.