Steve Jobs and Saving the World

In the mid-eighties, ICL was part of a regional project for which a handful of western conservationists were flown to Cupertino, California, to learn how computers could help save wilderness and then the world. Not just any computer, but the new Apple Macintosh. Save the world. That’s what Apple told us.

I grew up in an IBM family. My stepfather was a traditional engineer in a white shirt and tie who invented groundbreaking internal workings of mainframe computers. When I rebelled as a kid, the IBM culture of conformity and suits was part of what I pushed back on. Computers bad; outdoors good.

In 1985 or so, I found myself sitting under a tree on the Apple campus. Compared to the giant IBM facilities I was familiar with, the Apple campus was total coolness. I still use the mug they gave me. Everyone talked about Jobs. No ties or white shirts at Apple. We were there to be trained—not just to use a Macintosh—to think about networking across the region, to think about sharing information over phone lines. They talked about building power. This was before the public internet or web. We were fiddling around with new tools, but mostly we were exploring new thinking. It felt a bit revolutionary and that was intentional.

I’m typing on an Apple right now. ICL has only ever had Apples, and in a few of those dark days that wasn’t easy. Starting with that trip to the Apple campus in 1985, a few of us became evangelists for the then-quirky computer company. I’ve never actually used anything else in a serious way.

In the early 1980s, I was working at the Idaho Mountain Express newspaper, typing into an Apple II, being trained by a complete counter-cultural geek who, late at night, introduced me to the obviously growing power of computing for positive social change. I was the first of my friends to have a computer at home, a KayPro in a metal box. My IBM stepfather was amused.

At the time, the Mountain Express was still creating issues by hand, cutting with scissors and pasting with wax. Once pages were made, they were driven to the printer. The leap to desktop publishing was practically days away. A program called Pagemaker coupled with Macs to forever change how newspapers—and groups like ICL—would create tools to communicate.

Pagemaker was created by Paul Brainerd. Paul later created the Brainerd Foundation, one of ICL’s longest and most impactful financial supporters. I’ve known Paul for many years, and have even served on a board with him, but I’ve never talked to him about the impact of his innovation. I once saw a note in his office from Gorbachev saying more or less the same thing, so what can I add?

But the passing of Steve Jobs is a reminder of what innovators do and how deep their impact can be. Steve Jobs made cool things. I’ve bought a lot of them. But to me his—and Paul’s—impact was new thinking more than new things. Here are some tools for good. Use them. Like for saving the world.

In his extraordinary Stanford commencement address Jobs said, “When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”

Living today like it could be my last, today my task is to make sure Paul knows the impact he had. There are innovators who changed the world, in part, so we can all help save it.

“I’m an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals. As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what’s happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don’t seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids," Jobs said

Goodbye, Steve. Thank you, Paul. We’re still working. We will keep working. For good.