Steve Jobs: Profile of a Non-Geek Tech Icon

Do you know who Steve Jobs is? Well, you ain’t no genuine geek if you don’t know teh Apple kingpin himself.

Most of the people who have heard about teh sexy Macbooks and teh kewl iPodz have heard of Steve Jobs. He’s the guy behind the Apple logo, and the guy who has rights to all the powers behind it.

But despite his marriage to the personal computer industry, Steve Jobs is one “geek” that I don’t consider a geek. He is too kewl for geekness.

Steve Jobs is a class all on his own, actually. A lot of people say that he has built the “Cult of Mac” around himself. It is pretty evident, because in his absence from Apple Computer, Inc., the quality of the machines had suffered dramatically. Today, the Mac is viewed as an elite, must-have machine that is a cut above the rest.

If a degree of social ineptness is the mark of a geek, then Steve Jobs has none of that. Though Steve Wozniak, the designer of the Apple I reportedly claimed that Steve Jobs:

“...was the first person I met who knew more about electronics than I did.”

Though Steve Jobs is apparently brilliant when it comes to electronics, and he certainly has an eye for design, his strength does not lie in creating the machines and software himself. His strengths lie in overseeing the direction that his machine his taking and in providing directive feedback and in giving shape to the machine... By telling the designer and the software developer or computer engineer where to go next.

Steve Jobs is a man of charisma, that is why I do not consider him a true Geek. He can rally people behind him and make them passionate for his products and even company. He is the personality behind Apple Inc. Without him, Apple Inc. is just another computer company.

But the most important thing for me is that Steve Jobs is a man of vision. Back when the computer was still strictly for the corporate industry, Steve Jobs already had a vision to make the personal computer a household item. When he was booted off of Apple Computer, Inc., Apple lost its underlying vision of being a computer for the household. But when Steve Jobs went back on board, he was able to trim the company and drive it back to the main paradigm that it used to have: a company that built computers for the end-consumer.

So was Steve Jobs a Geek?

I am not sure. To me, he seems more like a Matinee Idol-Avatar-Geek hybrid.


For more lessons we can learn from Steve Jobs and Apple Inc:

Apple Inc: Style Borne of Vision
The Secret of Steve Jobs' Success
Lessons We Can Learn from Steve Jobs