Apple recently posted video from the celebration of Steve Jobs’ life. The video is worth watching if for nothing more than Jonathan Ive’s speech (48:30). The enthusiastic and genuine manner in which he spoke of his friend and colleague I found most touching.
He used to joke that the lunatics had taken over the asylum as we shared a giddy excitement spending months and months on a part of a product that nobody would ever see, well not with their eyes. But we did it because we really believed that it was right, because we cared. He believed there was a gravity, almost a sense of civic responsibility, to care beyond any sort of functional imperative.
Now while hopefully the work appeared inevitable. Appeared simple, and easy, it really cost. It cost us all, didn’t it? But you know what? It cost him most. He cared the most. He worried the most deeply. He constantly questioned, ‘Is this good enough? Is this right?’
And despite all his successes, all his achievements, he never presumed, he never assumed, that we would get there in the end. And when the ideas didn’t come, and when the prototypes failed, it was with great intent, with faith, he decided to believe we would eventually make something great.
But the joy of getting there. I loved his enthusiasm. His simple delight. Often, I think, mixed with some relief. Yet, we got there, we got there in the end and it was good. You can see his smile can’t you? The celebration of making something great for everybody. Enjoying the defeat of cynicism. The rejection of reason. The rejection of being told 100 times, ‘You can’t do that.’
So his I think, was a victory for beauty, for purity. And as he would say, ‘For giving a damn.’