Steve Jobs RIP

So, Steve jobs died today.  I was at a concert and the opening act mentioned it - something about Steve Jobs being the only reason he had been able to do the things he did.  At first I thought it was a poorly thought out joke, I turned to my buddy that I was with, and he said: "Is that true?  Cause if so I would expect that my phone (iPhone) would be blowing up..."

I googled it.

It was true.

Let me say here that when a guy dies in the prime of his life (professional life in this case) it's unnerving.  Jobs was a guy who changed the tech industry.  He fostered the release of products that literally changed the way we communicate.  A friend, and coworker, of mine has on her email signature from her phone "iphoned".  Super cute and gets down to the fact that the iPhone (among Apple's many other innovations) was a game changer, and in this case a verb unto itself.  So I think anyone would be remiss in not recognizing that Steve Jobs was a cultural icon that will be sorely missed by investment bankers and hipsters alike.  Kudos to him.

What I take issue with in the story - and you know I need to take issue with something - is that throughout my twitter feed I saw comparisons of Jobs and Edison....ya, the Edison who invented the lightbulb.  Now, as I have said above, Jobs was a giant of a CEO in the tech industry and was likely a driving force behind the smartphone revolution.  But, what we miss from this, and are misled into thinking by comments comparing him to Edison is that he didn't INVENT these innovations, just helped them through the corporate red tape to bring them to the market.

Are we so blinded by business success that we confuse CEOs with inventors?  There are very few CEOs who have invented something of use in modern society.  The people who invent new products and create groundbreaking innovations are frequently engineers and scientists who are grossly underpaid and under appreciated.  Businesses help to provide the funding and bring visionaries together to create new products, subsequently they own the rights to the patents for those products, but PLEASE, let's not forget, the Steve's Jobs of the world (or Eric Schmit's) don't create innovative products, they work with people who do.

Something to keep in mind while setting up your shrine to Jobs this week.