By
Michael E. Gerber
I am sure there are countless remarks about Steve Jobs’ retirement on the internet, and elsewhere. I am sure mine are neither original, nor necessary, but I thought to share them with you in any case. I was there, in Northern California, starting my company, The Michael Thomas Corporation, in 1977 when Steve Jobs and his buddy, Wozniak, were, just down the street from us, about to get inspired by their revolutionary idea of creating the world’s most ambitious venture, the birth of the true personal computer. That was the time when if you used the word, computer, you meant IBM. If you thought the word, computer, you thought Big Blue. And, as I was reading yet another column about Steve Jobs yesterday about how he brought fame to the name ‘business’ in the otherwise colorless world of commerce, how he brought music to an otherwise notably unmusical endeavor, how he brought youth to the old, and play to the playless, I thought to myself, well, I never really got it before, but that’s what we did, Tom and I, in our new venture, MTC, when we wrote our first song about entrepreneurship, walking down the streets, knocking on doors, talking about entrepreneurship in a way it had never been talked about before. Reading about Jobs, It was like coming back home, and appreciating for the first time how important what we had done, way back then in 1977, was, and how important it still is, to the millions we’ve touched all around the world. And no, I’m not a rock star, like Steve Jobs is. And no, ours was no Apple. And no, we didn’t become the world’s largest company on the face of this earth, but, I’ve got to say it before it strikes me dumb, we were two extraordinary guys, Tom and I. How come I never saw that before? So, thank you Steve Jobs, for being as outrageous as you’ve been. And thank you Apple for being the product of his eye. And thank you, Tom, for inspiring me to go where I’d never gone before. And thank all you good folks, for seeing the magic, the music, the mystery, in these wonderful things we’ve done. And love to you all.