bye, Steve!

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Photo from: http://www.apple.com/

He's one of the people I regard very highly because he's a great leader (and I've mentioned him as an example in the leadership course I attended a month back). He had a vision for Apple, Inc. and he cleared a path for the rest of the people in the company so they could share in his vision. 

Leadership skills aside, I look up to him because I think that he's one of the most gifted communicators around. True, there are a lot of accomplished scientists who publish in high impact journals in their specific fields; but their so-called impacts are not as tangible as Steve Jobs': despite being a computer science genius (a nerd, if you will), he achieved pop icon status in his lifetime, something not every published scientist accomplishes. He did this by effectively sending a clear message every time via uncluttered slides and an engaging story. He never talked in tech-laden sentences during the expos; his focus was always how to make the people understand and want the product. Behind each product presentation, he rehearsed a lot and worked really hard to get everything just right (including the lighting, the timings, etc); by the time the audiences were watching him, each inflection and each statement appeared to be effortless.

After watching his "Stevenote" about Macs carrying Intel inside, I was hooked. Since then, I want to do technical presentations the Steve Jobs way: clean, understandable, minimalist.

On the day his passing was announced, my sister, a few friends, and some of my classmates from the leadership course said that they remembered me when they heard the news. I must have been very vocal in class and in the lab about being a fan of Steve Jobs.

Bye, Steve! Have fun on your next big adventure. 

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