By Kang Hyun-kyung
There are many innovative products the late technology genius Steve Jobs (1955-2011) invented while he was alive. But inventions were not all in 56 years of life full of enthusiasm for and energetic pursuit of revolutionary technology.
Howard Rheingold, the author of the book “Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution,” noted Jobs empowered people to change the world, saying personal empowerment is one of his core legacies.
“Jobs always talked about personal empowerment not only in terms of what it could do for the individual but in terms of what empowered individuals could do to improve the world,” he said in an email interview with The Korea Times.
Rheingold, also an artist and community builder, cited the famous words of Jobs when he hired John Sculley, the former president of PepsiCo (1977-83), in order to highlight Jobs’ legacy.
Jobs asked Sculley, “Do you want to sell sugared water or do you want to change the world?”
Rheingold noted, “Personal empowerment, Steve Jobs-style, meant not only improving your own life, but improving the lives of others.”
Part of Jobs’ inspirations came from a magazine published by Stanford-educated Stewart Brand.
In the notable “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” speech at Stanford University in 2005, Jobs pointed to the Whole Earth Catalog, a counterculture magazine, as his inspiration in his life-long quest for innovative products.
Rheingold, also the editor of the Millennium Whole Earth Catalog, was there when Jobs delivered the unforgettable commencement speech.
“As I was editor of the magazine, I know that the motto of the Catalog is ‘access to tools,’” said Rheingold. “The idea is that individuals don’t have to be totally subject to corporations, governments, or religions if they have the tools to find their own information and make their own knowledge.”
The magazine, which listed all kinds of products including books, tools and machines, was published by Brand between 1968 and 1972 and occasionally thereafter including the millennium issue.
On the cover of the magazine’s final issue was the phrase “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” which was cited by Jobs in the speech delivered at Stanford.
Rheingold said, “The personal computer was not invented by the computer industry as it then existed, or by computer scientists at universities, but by mavericks who wanted an empowering tool, a personal information tool.
“Jobs was aware of the work that had been done by Xerox PARC and Doug Engelbart’s research center. He brought those older research prototypes to the people by the billions.”
In 1976, Steve Jobs, who died of cancer Thursday (KST), and Steve Wozniak unveiled the first Apple computer in Palo Alto, Calif.
Apple rose to become one of the world’s most valuable companies under his leadership. Jobs left Apple forever at the height of its power.
In a statement released after his death, U.S. President Barack Obama said Jobs was one of America’s greatest innovators.
“He transformed our lives, redefined entire industries and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history. He changed the way each of us sees the world,” said Obama.