The monk who sold us iPads

The monk: Who came to India driven by a need to explore his spiritual self and met Neem Karoli Baba. He adopted Buddhism and even shaved his head and wore monk clothes even when he came back. Buddhist monk Kobun Chino Otogawa presided over his marriage in 1991.

The drug addict: His experiments with hallucinogens are considered by him one of the few important experiences in life.

The son: Who constantly was in search of his biological parents, even hiring detectives. He finally met his mom years later after finding his biological sister and learning about them, but somehow his contact with his dad did not go so well.

The brother: He finally met his sister in 1986, and kept in touch with her. He connected well with her.

The lover: Who let go of his girlfriend Chrisann Brennan even when she was carrying his baby. She had no money and lived 2 years on welfare support for her daughter.

The father: For 2 years he refused to accept that Lisa was his daughter from his relationship with Chrisann Brennan. His excuse, “I am sterile”. He named Apple Lisa after her, after he accepted that he is her father finally.

The programmer/circuit designer: He got Steve Wozniak to finish the design/program for on all projects for his first Job, promising to pay half of the money he got.

The friend: He tricked Steve Wozniak to believe that he had got less money for projects that they did together, so that he had a smaller amount to split with him, keeping the bulk of the money for himself.

The founder: He along with Steve Wozniak cofounded Apple Inc. which is now a multinational corporation. He later also founded NeXT. If not for Jobs the company would have never been formed. It was his passion, and he ensured he pushed everyone. He was instrumental in getting the right people for his company at the right time including convincing John Sculley from Pepsi to join him by saying the famous words “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”

The stinker: Being a fruitarian, he believed he did not require a bath.

The failure: He was removed from his own company in a power struggle.

The fighter: “The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”. After being removed from his own company, he started NeXT, which was bought by Apple which made him again a part of Apple this time as a CEO and later as a chairman. After being diagnosed of pancreatic cancer, he fought it, and till the last few months before his death, remained the chairman of Apple Inc.

The salesman: From Macintosh to IPads his presentations were loved by all. When he said the product is the best in the world, everyone belived him, (unlike Steve Balmer screaming “Developers, Developers”). Google “Stevenotes”, and you will know what I meant. If someone was carrying zune or any other mp3 player he was just another person on the street, but if it was an ipod he/she was accepted as a member of an unspoken cult.

The producer: The Toy Story we all love, well he was an executive producer.

The inventor: He along with Wozniak and few others created the first line of commercially available PC (Apple II series). Multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts is also something credited to him. NeXT frameworks were used to develop Apple and iTune Stores. He has 342 US patents or patent applications.

The perfectionist: His most important asset was he was a perfectionist, so much so that it would drive people mad. An example is his insistence during the early board design of Apple II that each transistor etc was soldered with perfectly straight legs. He wanted the Board to look visually appealing/beautiful

The opportunist: He understood the potential of the (failed and dustbin dumped) mouse-driven graphical user interface developed by Xerox. This was used when Macintosh was developed. Similarly, he grabbed the opportunity to buy The Graphics Group, from George Lucas’s (Yeah the Star Wars director) Lucasfilm. George Lucas needed the money for his divorce settlement and decided to sell this rather than touch his movie division. This later became Pixar which made movies like Toy Story, Monster Inc.

The earner: $1 per year was his salary as a CEO of Apple (yeah its true), but he had millions of shares of Apple and Disney. His net worth was $8.3 billion in 2010.

THE LEGEND: For all the above reasons..

 A tribute blog to Steve Jobs. I can just end it with the “Think Different” advertising slogan…

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

– Apple Inc.

I knew I had to create a blog on Steve Jobs, when he passed away. Showing his snap on his device (iPad) with candles in front seemed the best way.

1/30 sec, f2.8, 50mm, ISO 200