It took me a while to sort out my thoughts on the passing of Steve Jobs. Steve truly reflects my generation, which is why I think so many of us techno-geeks who began our careers when the internet and world wide web were still being conceived feel his passing fairly strongly. But there is also this hesitancy to prop him on a pedestal above all the others.

All of us techno-geeks were embarking on our own unique lives as Reagan was being sworn into office. The personal computer was about to break on the scene, followed by the internet, cell phones, etc. Jobs and Wosniak were like many others (Gates for example) who tooled away in a garage, blazing a non-conformists path around big business (at the time most represented by rigid and slow Big Blue (IBM)). If you want to see why small business is the engine of America’s economy, realize Apple and Microsoft – two of the largest companies in the world with an immense world-wide presence – were only a couple of people throwing stuff together on their own in the early 1980’s. They had shunned big business.

Jobs and Gates are the most recognized of a generation of techno-geeks – some of us still blazing our own paths outside mega-corporate America. They did not achieve their pinnacles of fame in isolation. There are literally millions of people who made these wondrous companies successful. There were all the folks who invented object oriented programming and the concept of SW frameworks – ways to provide standardized solutions to all sorts of details working behind the screens of our ubiquitous communication devices.

Much of what we enjoy today from iTunes to video-on-demand to touch screens was envisioned in the 1980’s. The problem was always bandwidth. After decades of communications companies burying fiber, raising RF towers and launching massive telecommunications satellites the iPad, iPod and iPhone now have the infrastructure behind them to wow us. Without all this bandwidth, Jobs’ vision was never going to arrive.

So Steve Jobs was just one of millions who led this country and humanity to a whole new level of existence. As one of the leaders of that movement I applaud him and bid him a fond farewell. Yet I cannot put him much above all the rest of us who also played major roles (if not anonymous ones) in moving humanity to this new world of instant communication and banter.

We recently became close friends with an older gentlemen and his inspiring wife. He came of age at the dawn of the aviation age. He was born into a lower middle class family but went on to run a multimillion dollar company. Being around planes and flying his own is a major part of who he is.

He and his wife  once communicated their concern about how freely and quickly information flowed in the internet (especially wrong and/or bad information). They rightfully wondered if we as a species could handle it, or would it be used by a few for evil and to imprison us all.

I had a different take, being one whose life was intertwined with the dawn of the internet generation. I saw a progression spanning all of human history. A path towards something most people probably did not expect.

First ships – and then planes for our friends’ time – made the world small enough to visit if you had the time and money. It also led to the transmission of ideas and basic tenants – like democracy. The spread of democratic enlightenment happened because humanity could interact across distances. Along with the migration of people came the migration of humanity’s destiny. From the silk road of China to the transatlantic flights, humanity slowly coalesced around  basic truths. Along the way we fought pockets of socialistic and fascist darkness. But freedom of the individual to explore life and guide us into the future- like Jobs did – still remains a foundation of human existence. At least in America. As I see it, those like my father who fought the dark forces in World War II set the stage for  people like Jobs to do their thing.

What Jobs and Gates and the rest of us brought humanity in the internet age was something amazing. Now humanity’s individual souls are linked nearly instantaneously in a global mesh of binary thought and debate. The 24 hour news cycle is our collective synapses firing on input and producing initial and then lasting conclusions. The true legacy of Jobs is the fact he made very complicated technology accessible and useful to the most non-tech savvy amongst us. We are all tapped into the matrix.

Humanity has been rewired. We now have innumerable strong individuals who connect, interact and create pockets of consensus at a speed never before seen. The global human psyche is still trying to sort all this out. There is still a lot of pendulum swinging going on as we adjust to this new existence. But it will settle down and it will be the first step in an amazing new future. We are the world now.

If light is the force that breaks the chains of oppression, then the internet, with all its various forms of taps into that global conscience, is the laser of freedom. Since the internet the old news media monopolies and DC power trippers have lost control on how the masses deal with today’s issues. They no longer can guide voters with well placed spin and propaganda. They must deal with a much more aware and informed society. They rightfully feel buffeted and in complete reactionary mode.

No small group can control the ebb and flow of the human discussion on the internet. It is like a rampaging ocean with eddies, currents and storms brewing. Like a sailor of old, the true leaders find the stronger, more stable currents, avoid the stormy waters, follow the stars and bring us into a safe port of stability. Jobs was a very key element in this new future, and that is what he should be remembered for. Because he not only had the vision (many of us did), he kept it during tough times and finally, after a lifetime, saw it bear fruit.

To Steve Jobs, one of the true visionaries who led us all at the dawn of the internet age to where we are now.

Tags: Apple, Internet, Microsoft, Steve Jobs