Tributes to Steve Jobs From Brian Lam, Walt Mossberg, President Obama

Steve Jobs has passed away, but his legacy will live on forever. After following the outpour of emotion on twitter, it’s been a strange night. Let’s remember him for what he truly was–an amazing human being that only comes once in a lifetime.

Here are some of my favourite tributes I’ve read about Steve Jobs, in particular ones from Brian Lam, Walt Mossberg, and a word from President Barack Obama. You really need to read Brian Lam’s detailed account of his interaction with Steve over the lost iPhone 4 prototype. It’s incredible stuff.

Brian Lam, former Gizmodo editor on his interactions with Steve over the lost iPhone 4:

I was on sabbatical when Jason got his hands on the iPhone prototype.

An hour after the story went live, the phone rang and the number was from Apple HQ. I figured it was someone from the PR team. It was not.

“Hi, this is Steve. I really want my phone back.”

He wasn’t demanding. He was asking. And he was charming and he was funny. I was half-naked, just getting back from surfing, but I managed to keep my shit together.

“I appreciate you had your fun with our phone and I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at the sales guy who lost it. But we need the phone back because we can’t let it fall into the wrong hands.”

I thought, maybe its already in the wrong hands?

He continued, “There are two ways we can do this. I can send someone to pick up the phone–”

Me: “I don’t have it”

“–But you know someone who does…or we can send someone with legal papers, and I don’t want to do that.”

He was giving us an easy way out.

I told him I had to talk to my dudes. Before he hung up, he asked me, “What do you think of it?”

I said, “It’s beautiful.”

Walt Mossberg, from All Things Digital:

The Product Unveilings

Sometimes, not always, he’d invite me in to see certain big products before he unveiled them to the world. He may have done the same with other journalists. We’d meet in a giant boardroom, with just a few of his aides present, and he’d insist — even in private — on covering the new gadgets with cloths and then uncovering them like the showman he was, a gleam in his eye and passion in his voice. We’d then often sit down for a long, long discussion of the present, the future, and general industry gossip.

I still remember the day he showed me the first iPod. I was amazed that a computer company would branch off into music players, but he explained, without giving any specifics away, that he saw Apple as a digital products company, not a computer company. It was the same with the iPhone, the iTunes music store, and later the iPad, which he asked me to his home to see, because he was too ill at the time to go to the office.

President Barack Obama, The White House Blog:

The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented. Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to Steve’s wife Laurene, his family, and all those who loved him.

Wired.com has a nice front page tribute page to Steve Jobs. Lastly, I leave you with the 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech giving by Steve–they are words to live by:

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