After first announcing his battle with pancreatic cancer back in 2004; today we reflect on the sixth anniversary of Steve Jobs’s death, looking back on “the source of countless innovations that enriched and improved all of our lives” and made the world “immeasurably better”.
Six years ago today, 5th October 2011, news broke that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs passed away “peacefully” surrounded by his family; with Apple quickly flying company flags at half mast outside their headquarters in Cupertino, California, with fans of the company leaving tributes outside Apple Stores around the world.
Born in San Francisco in February 1955, Steve Jobs was adopted by a Californian working class couple, launching his small start-up, Apple, with school friend Steve Wozniak in 1976.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg thanks Mr Jobs for “showing that what you build can change the world” while Sony Corp president and CEO Howard Stringer said: “The digital age had lost its leading light.”
According to Mona Simpson, sister of the late Apple co-founder, Steve’s last words were as enchanting as the products he created. Speaking to The New York Times, Steve apparently departed this world with a lingering look at his family and the simple, if mysterious, observation: “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”
“His tone was affectionate, dear, loving, but like someone whose luggage was already strapped onto the vehicle, who was already on the beginning of his journey, even as he was sorry, truly deeply sorry, to be leaving us,” she writes.
When she arrived, she found Jobs surrounded by his family – “he looked into his children’s eyes as if he couldn’t unlock his gaze,” – and managing to hang on to consciousness she said.