Oct. 5, 2014 marks the third death anniversary of Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and the man responsible for launching a series of devices that changed how the world communicated.
Naturally, Jobs' successor as CEO of the world's wealthiest corporation Tim Cook took a brief moment to remember the genius at their company's helm. In a note sent to all Apple employees last week and obtained by iClarified, Cook calls on all 13,000 of all Apple's workers to pause and reflect on the legacy left behind by Apple's iconic founder.
"I hope you'll take a moment to appreciate the many ways Steve made our world better," Cook writes. "Children learn in new ways thanks to the products he dreamed up. The most creative people on earth use them to compose symphonies and pop songs, and write everything from novels to poetry to text messages. Steve's life's work produced the canvas on which artists now create masterpieces."
"Steve's vision extended far beyond the years he was alive, and the values on which he built Apple will always be with us," he adds. "Many of the ideas and projects we're working on today got started after he died, but his influence on them - and on all of us - is unmistakeable."
It's not surprising for Cook to cherish Jobs' memory. The two, after all, worked in the same company and shared the same vision. But Cook isn't the only high-ranking executive in a technology titan who looks up to Jobs' genius. Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, who has recently exchanged barbs with Cook in the last couple of weeks, says he considers Jobs as his own personal hero.
Speaking with Google senior vice president of products Jonathan Rosenberg at an event promoting their new book "How Google Works," Schmidt didn't hesitate telling a room full of 400 people who his hero in the technology industry and outside it was.
"For me, it's easy. Steve Jobs," Schmidt said. "We could all aspire to be a small percentage of Steve."
This he said amidst the overheating rivalry between Google and Apple since Jobs' passing. Last month, Cook posted an open letter panning rival giants Google and Facebook for their lack of regard for user privacy, and Schmidt fired back saying the new Apple head didn't really have a clue about how Google works. When asked on an interview on Bloomberg about what he thought about Apple's runaway profits, Schmidt retorted that "you can make a small market share with a lot of profits or you can make the same amount of money with a much larger market share with less profits."
Nonetheless, Schmidt took a break from the word wars with Cook to honor his old friend Jobs, whom he met in 1993 after Jobs was booted out from Apple and Schmidt was president of Sun Microsystems. They met at a presentation Jobs made of a new computer language called Objective-C. According to his book, Schmidt wasn't all that smitten with the new language but was convinced by Jobs' magical influence nonetheless.
The two eventually became friends, with Jobs inviting him to be part of Apple's board in 2006. Schmidt's place on Apple's board was helpful in incorporating Google Search and Maps into the first-generation iPhone; he even appeared onstage at an Apple event to introduce those features. However, as Google released Android a few years after, the rising tension between Apple and Google forced Schmidt to step down from the board in 2009. Jobs reportedly was furious, telling his biographer Walter Isaac that he was waging a "thermonuclear war" on Android.
Despite the technical and legal battles between Apple and Google, Schmidt still considers Jobs "the best CEO in the world today" and greatly admired the man's "reality distortion field." In his book, Schmidt and Rosenberg calls Jobs the ultimate "smart creative," or the type of person with in-depth technical knowledge and creative passion.
"Exceptional people are worth hanging out with," Schmidt said. "Because there is a good chance they are going to change the world."
