

With Time Running Short, Jobs Managed His Farewells - credo
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/technology/with-time-running-short-steve-jobs-managed-his-farewells.html?pagewanted=all

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eob
This is a sweet story, but I just wanted to point out that this is pretty
common for someone with terminal cancer. Jobs was a private, controlling man,
for sure, but I feel like this reporter is unfairly stretching the narrative
to fit this caricature.

The endless stream of visitors to the house can be absolutely exhausting for a
person who already only has enough energy to stay awake and active a few hours
each day. A big part of the family's responsibility, and burden, is
prioritizing and intercepting visitors.

I'm sure many of you here on this board have had the misfortune to experience
this yourself, so you know what I'm talking about.

It's not a big deal; it was a good article. But for once, Jobs' behavior
didn't stem from being some larger than life cartoon figure of a business-
genius-prophet-dictator.. he was just really sick.

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jballanc
Every summer Steve had a talk with the Apple interns. In 2008, I was there (at
what, as far as I know, would end up being his last intern talk). One question
came from the audience: "What is your dream?"

After a beat, his dead-pan response: "To not be asked questions like that."

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johnyzee
> "I once asked him if he was glad that he had kids, and he said, ‘It’s 10,000
> times better than anything I’ve ever done.’ "

Take note guys, this is coming from the guy who practically invented modern
computing.

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gigawatt
That was the line that got me. At the end, after everything he had
accomplished and all the billions of dollars he had made, all he wanted to do
was spend time with his family.

I might never be anything more than someone who's pretty good at his job and
is appreciated by the people he works for, but I get to do the exact same
thing that Steve Jobs held most dear — spend time with my wife and son.

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swombat
Amazing that so many people knew, and no one leaked it... Most famous people
who died suddenly of an illness like that (e.g. Freddie Mercury, Bill Hicks)
kept it secret except to a circle of close friends. Presumably, hundreds or
even thousands knew about this illness, yet not one of them peeped about it.

Of course, it would have been an incredible lack of decorum to do so, and
that's probably what stopped them. And yet, it seems fitting that news of
Steve's rapidly declining health were even more leak-proof than the average
Apple product release.

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maigret
His death didn't come unexpected to me. Tabloid pictures from this summer
showed how bad his health was. I wouldn't consider it a kept secret.

~~~
pavlov
My girlfriend's father died of the same illness as Jobs. When she saw Jobs
giving a keynote in June, she was amazed that he was still working when it was
so obvious (to her, having watched her father fade away) that the end was
near.

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rjknight
I have to admit, when I first saw this I wondered why Jobs was managing
firewalls at all. I think I need better glasses.

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brudgers
> _"10,000 times better than anything I’ve ever done."_

That's perspective.

~~~
SimHacker
That's two orders of magnitude less than the usual cliche of 1,000,000, coming
from a guy with a reality distortion field,.

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acangiano
"Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And
most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."

I'll print this and place it in my office at home.

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enjo
Something about this is just heartbreaking. I can't put my finger on it...

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adrianwaj
“His tone was tenderly apologetic at the end. He felt terrible that he would
have to leave us.”

So much sadness.

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hzay
I'm sad that Steve has died and do not mean to be disrespectful. That line
touched me too, and a moment later I realized that his sister said it and she
is a writer.

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smackfu
It's odd that the article didn't mention that he gave a pretty big part of the
WWDC keynote in June, in the middle of the period mentioned in this article.

But I guess that doesn't fit with the tone of a retired champion receiving
visitors for the final time.

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0ffw0rlder
Hes not giving away any of his money, and people still worship him?!?

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delinka
And this is why all my personal donations are in cash and anonymous. It's no
one else's business, I'm not going to be pretentious about it, and receiving
"services" from an organization will not be predicated on how much I give.

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cbr
I think there's value in giving money away publicly if it makes other people
more generous.

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jballanc
How do you know it wouldn't have the reverse effect, and make others think,
"Oh, now I don't need to bother, Gate's has this..."?

I don't have the source handy, but I remember reading about when Gates and
Buffet went to Germany with their giving pledge. One of the German
billionaires they approach replied something to the effect of: "Why should I
give money to support life-saving research or to feed the poor? Isn't that the
job of the government? If I give the money on my own, then that removes the
incentive for government to figure out how to take care of societies ills."

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cbr
It seems unlikely that by giving $X we reduce the government's giving by even
1/4 $X. There's a huge amount of room for funding, and I don't think the
apparent need the government sees decreases much as private charity increases.

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adnam
Is there an app for that?

