I met Steve Jobs nearly a quarter of a century ago when he had left Apple and was working on building his NeXT computer and I was working on building the first version of our Mathematica software system. Our first meeting was classic Steve Jobs. He explained that he expected that what he was doing would change the world and, by the way, make a lot of money too. And he told me he was picking all sorts of bold new hardware and software technologies for his computer and he wanted one of them to be Mathematica.
Steve took a great interest in the development of Mathematica; in fact, it was he who suggested the name. Although the NeXT was not a commercial success, it was a shrewd move that led to the batch of computers at Cern on which Tim Berners-Lee first developed the web.
One of the things I always admired about Steve Jobs was his clarity of thought. Time and again, he would take a complex situation, understand its essence and use that understanding to make a bold and unexpected move.
There was a human side to him as well. I remember visiting him once in his swanky offices in Redwood City. We were talking about technology strategy, when suddenly he apologised for being distracted. He said he was going out that night on a date with a woman he'd met the day before and suddenly all his confidence as a technologist and businessman melted away. Happily, the date worked out and the woman he met became his wife for the rest of his life.
Over the years, Steve encouraged me in many ways, like when I asked him for a back-cover quote for my book A New Kind of Science that I'd spent a decade writing and he responded: "Isaac Newton didn't have back-cover quotes; why should you?"
He'd always push us to make use of his latest technology, be pleased when we did, and even after he was quite ill, occasionally intercede with remarkably detailed emails and phone calls.
When the iPad came out, he was instrumental in the success of our Touch Press interactive book publishing company.
And just the day before Steve died came the announcement of the iPhone 4S, and Siri, which uses our Wolfram|Alpha knowledge engine. The timing was so tragic. But it was a quintessential Steve Jobs move. To realise that people just want direct access to knowledge on their phones, without all the extra steps that people would usually assume have to be there.To those of us who spend our lives striving to build great technology, Steve Jobs will always be a remarkable inspiration, not only for his own technological achievements, but also for his great tenacity and dramatic ultimate success – upon which so much more will yet be built.
