Steve Jobs' passing - Goodbye to a great man

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs passed away today at the age of 56. He had a rare form of pancreatic cancer called pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer, which produces islet cell of neuroendocrine tumors. This form is usually less agressive than pancreatic exocrine cancer and patients can usually live longer, with an average survival rate of more than 3 years.

While Jobs' legendary perfectionism and insistence on simplicity and elegance for Apple's products were the qualities of an aesthete, and led to his becoming something of a guru to all Apple employees (Fortune remarked that Apple employees' primary question was always "WWSD - What Would Steve Do?"). But his goal was to create products that could command premium prices and ensure rich profits.

The Apple CEO's unique combination of showmanship, eye for detail and instinct for business strategy may make it hard to identify his rightful place in business history. (He is the young man at left in this picture.)

Everyone knows Steve Jobs pulled off one of the outstanding corporate turnarounds in U.S. history, and he did it on the strength of cool products. Cool products like the Mac my kids use, the iPhone we all depend on, and iTunes, a dependable source of good music for our iPods. Clearly in Steve's case, the "i's" had it.

But coolness aside, Jobs was a master of bare-knuckled business strategies from the old school. Apple's reputation for nearly flawless manufacturing quality, not merely its svelte engineering, is what enables the company to make premium pricing look like a value proposition. Apple devices may cost more, but they always seem to work. In its most recent fiscal year, Apple's profit margin was more than 21%; at Hewlett-Packard, the world's biggest PC manufacturer, it was 7%.

Jobs' well-known control-freak ethos accounts for the closed approach binding Apple's mobile devices and their content — songs purchased from the iTunes store can't be played on competing companies' devices, for example. Although in the iPod's early days, many thought this would doom it to irrelevance, Jobs' strategy paid off. There was a method to his madness: He believed simplicity and consistency would draw customers to legal digital music downloads. And he was right. I used to have other music services on my computer, like Bear Share and another I can't remember. All that remains, is the iTunes store.

And the App Store, through which Apple kept a stranglehold on outside software written for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, is the ultimate expression of Jobs' desire for order. Programs can be distributed through the App Store only after they're approved by Apple, which takes a 30% cut of their revenue — another Jobsian exploitation of a very un-Zen business strategy.

Steve Jobs was a Buddhist. According to the press (much of which is quoted here), his business strategies were very much not in the Buddhist tradition. But all of that is nothing but nay-saying now. Instead, I would simply like to offer Mr. Jobs' family and friends my condolences, and express my gratitude for the miraculous contribution Steve Jobs' brilliance made in my life, and the life of everyone I know. He was truly a genius, a man whose work will continue to bless us for years to come.

Walk On

We all get discouraged sometimes. Tonight I was cleaning out some personal file cabinets and came across this poem. It's a good one to read when the chips are down:

If you think you are beaten, you are;

If you think you dare not, you don't.

If you'd like to win, but think you can't,

It's almost a cinch you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you're lost,

For out in the world we find

Success begins with a fellow's will;

It's all in the state of mind.

Life's battles don't always go

To the stronger or faster man;

But soon or late, the one who wins

Is the one who thinks he can.

Things that make you go hmmmm

There are self-proclaimed "Family Law Firms for Women" in Michigan that go by women's first names, and offer seminars and songs, claiming to have a true understanding of a woman's unique perspective. Why are they are owned, and managed, by men?

Making Sense of the Senseless

Problems are opportunities in workclothes.
Thomas Edison

When suffering through a divorce, it is easy to wish that someone else (like a new mate) would come along and "save" us. Going through trying times can be painful, and no one (least of all me!) enjoys them. Yet struggle is the opportunity God gives us to find our greatness, and this is amply demonstrated by this lesson from Nature:

A man is out walking one day and discovers a caterpillar tucked inside its cocoon. Intrigued, he takes it home with him so that he can watch the caterpillar become a beautiful butterfly. A few days later, he sees a small opening in the cocoon and watches, fascinated, as the caterpillar struggles to emerge. Try as it might, however, the caterpillar just can't seem to force its body out of the tiny hole.

Thinking there must be something wrong and wanting to help, the man takes his scissors and snips the cocoon open. The butterfly is freed immediately, its body large and swollen. Its wings, on the other hand, are tiny and shriveled. The man assumes that after a few hours, the wings will spread out into their natural beauty. But they never do. Instead of becoming the captivating creature that delights us all and symbolizes happiness, the butterfly is doomed to go through its short life dragging a swollen body and shriveled wings.

The struggle the butterfly goes through is Nature's way of forcing the fluid from the caterpillar's body into the butterfly's wings. Without the struggle, the butterfly will never fly. The man's act of "kindness" was in fact a death sentence.

It is the same throughout nature. For example, a diamond is simply elemental carbon, or coal. What makes a diamond the coveted, precious gem that it is, and coal a useful but homely rock we disdain? The same thing that makes a “man or a mouse” out of each of us; the ability to withstand heat and pressure.

Coal can withstand temperatures of 200-300 degrees Celsius. If the pressure or the temperature gets much higher, the host rock melts. Diamonds, on the other hand, are formed only under extreme geological conditions - when temperatures are greater than 800 degrees Celsius and pressure is 50,000 times atmospheric pressure. Such conditions exist only deep below the surface of the earth.

And so it is with us. No matter how difficult or painful the situation we are in, it is a necessary part of helping us grow into the unique person we are meant to be. The same is true for our children. In fact, when we continually bail our children out of their difficulties, we teach them to believe they cannot solve problems for themselves.

So embrace your struggles. Don't look for the easy way out. No matter how far afield life seems to take you, this trip is necessary. Be kind and gentle and patient with yourself as you bravely face the lessons you need to learn.

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