"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life."

— Steve Jobs, 2005.

Even though many knew that it was coming, the news that Steve Jobs is stepping down as C.E.O. of Apple still comes as a surprise.

Is it because we're suddenly forced to confront the very real possibility that this might be a man dying? (Especially considering that it was announced recently that the publication of his much-anticipated authorized biography has been moved up.)

"The resignation suggests his death is sadly imminent," comments Reddit user istara ina discussion within the site's Apple community. "[Although] staying on as chairman suggests he has considerably longer."

As pundits continue to muse as to how his exit will affect Apple — especially given that the company's shares dropped this morning following his resignation — perhaps it's appropriate to take a step back and take into account his great legacy as a C.E.O.

Steve Jobs's Legacy

Here is a Zoomer who tripped on LSD (he called the experience "one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life"), and dropped out of college to build Apple Computers out of his family's Silicon Valley garage in the late 1970s.

As the company grew to be a 1980s juggernaut in personal computing, he was forced out by the board, and then came back in 1997 to save it. He invented the iPod, iPhone & iPad — revolutionary devices that have redefined industries, art, and even social behavior.

(The New Yorker's Michael Specter sums it up best when he compared Jobs' 2007 introductory keynote for the iPhone as being akin to "Dylan at Newport", and noted how Jobs' "I just take my finger, and I scroll" explanation of the newfangled device's navigation was like Bacall's "Just put your lips together and blow" instruction to Bogart.)

So it has been sad for tech watchers to see the increasingly gaunt black turtleneck-and-jeans appearance of a man who has faced serious health problems through the years, including a bout with a rare form of pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant.

Steve Jobs & Death 

"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

— The Beatles, 1969.

Death is imminent for everyone. It is the great equalizer. So why, in all the news coverage that has spun out since Jobs' resignation letter has the possibility of his death been avoided? 

At Stephen Garrett's ideaCity 2011 talk, the author and speaker discussed how we need to change the conversation surrounding death from fear and denial to love and embrace. He argues that we should create a life worth dying for — and a death worth living for.

Indeed, this isn't too far off from Jobs' own ethos:

"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like, 'If you live each day as if it were your last, someday you most certainly be right.' It made an impression on me, and since then for the past thirty-three years, I've looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

 

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to death is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

— Steve Job's 2005 Stanford University commencement speech

Separating The Man From The Brand — The Questions We Ponder

• How do we feel about the speculation of death with regards to a man so connected to a brand?
• A human being is possibly dying — and yet we talk of stocks, money, and corporate successions.
• Can you really separate one from the other?

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