Steve Jobs built his reputation around creating technology that changed how millions of people lived, worked and communicated.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!But little over a year before his death, the Apple founder wrote something remarkably personal about all the things he hadn’t created.
On September 2, 2010, Jobs sat down with his iPad and sent an email to himself.
The message, written at 11:08PM, was a reflection on just how dependent his own life was on the achievements, work and creativity of other people.
The email has since been made public through the Steve Jobs Archive, offering a deeply personal glimpse at the man behind Apple and some of the world’s most influential consumer technology.
Rather than focusing on his own accomplishments, Jobs used the message to consider how much of his everyday existence had been made possible by people who came before him — and those living alongside him.
He began with something as fundamental as food – something so many of us can take for granted.
“I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow,” he typed. “I did not breed or perfect the seeds.
“I do not make any of my own clothing.
“I speak a language I did not invent or refine.
“I did not discover the mathematics I use.”
The theme continues throughout the email.
Jobs reflected not only on physical necessities such as food and clothing, but on language, mathematics, music, medicine, technology and even the laws and freedoms surrounding his life.
“I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive
of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate.
“I am moved by music I did not create myself.”
It is a striking message from someone so closely associated with innovation.
Sadly, Jobs would die from pancreatic cancer on October 5, 2011, at the age of 56. That timing makes one section of the email particularly poignant: “When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive.”
Jobs was one of the most recognisable figures in technology, yet the email shows him looking beyond individual achievement and towards the enormous network of human contribution behind everyday life.
Even when addressing the field that had defined his career, he focused on what others had created.
“I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor,
object oriented programming, or most of the technology
I work with.”
Rather than presenting himself as someone operating independently of those breakthroughs, Jobs explicitly acknowledged his reliance on them.
The email eventually arrives at a conclusion that brings all of those thoughts together.
“I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am
totally dependent on them for my life and well being.”
And underneath it all was the familiar sign-off: “Sent from my iPad.”
The message was later released by his widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, and features prominently on the Steve Jobs Archive website dedicated to preserving his legacy.
Speaking at the archive’s launch, Powell Jobs explained an idea that she said had long been important to her husband.
She said the archive is “rooted in Steve’s long-held notion that once you understand that outside of the natural world everything in the built environment and all the systems that govern our life on the planet were built and designed by other humans.
“Once you have that insight, you understand that you as a human can change it, can prod it, can perhaps interrogate it and stretch it.
“In that way, human progress happens.”
That philosophy can be seen throughout the email Jobs sent himself.
It wasn’t a list of achievements or a celebration of his own legacy. Instead, it was an acknowledgement of dependence.
The full email reads:
From: Steve Jobs, sjobs@apple.com
To: Steve Jobs, sjobs@apple.com
Date: Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 11:08PM
“I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow
I did not breed or perfect the seeds.
“I do not make any of my own clothing.
“I speak a language I did not invent or refine.
“I did not discover the mathematics I use.
“I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive
of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate.
“I am moved by music I did not create myself.
“When I needed medical attention, I was helpless
to help myself survive.
“I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor,
object oriented programming, or most of the technology
I work with.
“I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am
totally dependent on them for my life and well being.
“Sent from my iPad.”
Featured image credit: YouTube/TheSteveJobsArchive (screenshots)
