Former Apple design chief Sir Jony Ive has written a remembrance of the late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs.
Tomorrow, October 5, will mark ten years since the death of the former Apple CEO. In observance, former Apple design guru Ive penned a piece in the WSJ Magazine remembering his final days with Jobs.
Ive notes that while he hasn’t spoken publicly regarding his friendship with Jobs since he delivered a eulogy at his funeral in 2011, he says that he thinks about him everyday:
I have barely thought about Steve’s death.
My memories of that brutal, heartbreaking day 10 years ago are scattered and random. I cannot remember driving down to his house. I do remember a hazy October sky and shoes that were too tight. I remember afterwards Tim and I sat quietly in the garden together for a long time.
Since giving Steve’s eulogy I have not spoken publicly about our friendship, our adventures or our collaboration. I never read the flurry of cover stories, obituaries or the bizarre mischaracterizations that have slipped into folklore.
But I think about Steve every day.
Ive writes that he has maintained his friendship with Jobs’ wife Laurene over the decade since his passing:
Laurene and I are close. Our families have been close for nearly 30 years. We have endured deaths and celebrated births. We talk all the time, often about Steve but rarely about my work with him. Mostly, we talk about the future and her extraordinary and inspiring work with Emerson Collective.
Ive reflects on what it was like working with Jobs over the years, noting that Jobs was always on the hunt to learn more rather than be right:
In larger groups our conversations gravitate towards the tangible, the measurable. It is more comfortable, far easier and more socially acceptable talking about what is known. Being curious and exploring tentative ideas were far more important to Steve than being socially acceptable.
Our curiosity begs that we learn. And for Steve, wanting to learn was far more important than wanting to be right.
Our curiosity united us. It formed the basis of our joyful and productive collaboration. I think it also tempered our fear of doing something terrifyingly new.
Steve was preoccupied with the nature and quality of his own thinking. He expected so much of himself and worked hard to think with a rare vitality, elegance and discipline. His rigor and tenacity set a dizzyingly high bar. When he could not think satisfactorily he would complain in the same way I would complain about my knees.
Ive also touches on his decision to leave Apple and start his own design collective LoveFrom, allowing him to work closely with Jobs’ wife Laurene:
When Steve left Apple in the eighties, he called his new company NeXT. He was very good at names.
After nearly 30 years, I left Apple, driven by my curiosity to learn and discover new ways to make a useful contribution. It is Steve’s powerful motivation that informed the name of my next adventure, LoveFrom.
While I am absurdly fortunate that I still collaborate with my dear friends at Apple, I am also terribly lucky that I get to explore and create with some new friends.
Laurene and I at last are working together. In truth, we have been working together for decades.
Read Ive’s entire remembrance over at the WSJ Magazine.
