Steve Jobs

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Remember when you last walked into that Apple retail store? It was really hard walking out empty-handed, wasn’t it? Why is that? What makes Apple so special? How does their market share keep escalating? Why do fanboys rave all day about them? What’s their secret? Apple consistently uses a handful of techniques to simply out-perform their competitors, both in the creation and the marketing of their products.

Today's news that the iPad sold 2 million units in its first two months - coming as it does right before Steve Jobs takes the stage at his only public conference appearance in years outside carefully scripted Apple launch events - led me to reflect on my prediction, in January of this year, that the "iPad would disappoint" (that'd be #5, scroll down).

...and I mean that. Watching Jobs work his way through nearly 90 minutes of interview and audience questions, I really felt, for the first time, a sense of how strongly the guy feels for his work and his products. Then again, I found myself angry, several times. Angry when he championed the press as crucial to democracy, and implied the iPad would save our country from "descending into a nation of bloggers" (my view: we started as a nation of bloggers - pamphleteers like Thomas Paine).

I’m not exactly sure when or where these photos of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates together on the same stage were taken but they’re being used for some extremely funny captions. If you can come up with a better caption, I would love to see it. My favorite caption is the one about flipping a coin. Which one do you like?

We're used to buzz around Apple, and in particular, we're quite used to buzz about how Apple goes to market. CEO Steve Jobs is widely considered the greatest marketer alive, and nearly every marketer I've worked with has expressed sincere admiration for the magic the man is capable of weaving. His products are brilliant, and the cult around Jobs and his work are extraordinary.