It was a rainy Wednesday. That 5th of Oct 2011, I was driving to work, stuck in the traffic, while the radio announced it: Steve Jobs was died.
I was shocked. For me and more than one generation, he was the iconic leader, whom fame and success went beyond his tech career.
“Can I achieve the same?” I thought.
Since that day, we self-proclaimed visionaries, we tried to emulate his attitude. For some of us it’s the stupid game of being mean with employees, for others, it’s to found startups to try to “disrupt” tech industry with the “next big thing™”.
For me, it’s to fuel the burning fire inside. The obsession of beautifully designed systems. The consuming passion for tech that keeps me awake at night. That is the inspiration and the ultimate legacy that Steve Jobs left inside of my thoughts.
In the last ten years I’ve been involved with Open Source. And I often asked myself why. It’s the chance of being helpful for other people, to serve a community, to solving interesting problems, to be recognized for my efforts. Yes – it’s a mix of altruistic effort and narcissistic attitude that will drive me to “stay hungry” for the next ten years. What’s yours?
Accept who you are. Work hard. Really hard. And even harder than that.