Thoughts on Steve Jobs’ passing and his 10 best presentations of all time
With Steve Jobs’ passing, I first want to extend prayers and condolences to his family and loved ones. I also wanted to pause for a moment to reflect on some of his and his greatest company’s greatest hits. I personally want to thank Steve Jobs and the crew at Apple for helping me in my career.
I often tell people in an interview when they ask me about Apple and how I bought it at and told my subscribers to buy it at $7 back in March 20003 that without that call, I’m not sure I’d even be in the studio with them. Apple’s wild success and the ride it took me and my investors and my readers on helped build my entire career and even in this column, that continues to this day. Thank you, Steve Jobs.
Two other notes about Steve Jobs that came into my mind as I reflected upon him and my relationship with him as such a long-term investor in Apple. The first being that Steve Jobs, while passing on nearly $3 billion in Apple stock to whomever he’s left it all to, would have left them nearly $15 billion had he not traded in his stake for a slightly smaller stake with lower strike prices back in 2003 when I was buying the stock.
And that leads me to the one issue I always had with Steve Jobs and the Apple board, that of backdating Steve’s and other executives’ options prices without telling me and the other shareholders after they’d made that share/option switch that they did tell us about. This is not the time nor the place for that though.
Like most analysts I’m reading, this sad ending to the stewardship and chairmanship of Steve Jobs at Apple doesn’t change my overall stance or bullishness for the stock. I’m holding my Apple steady. That said, I was probably looking to add to my position before earnings this quarter and I don’t think the risk/reward there feels quite right any more, so unless the stock drops dramatically from its current levels, I’m an Apple holder for now.
And without further ado, here’s the Top 10 Best Apple Commercials of All Time. To watch the Top 5 Best Steve Jobs Presentations of All Time, please click here.
Share your favorite Steve Jobs and Apple memories in the comments section below. God bless.
Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address
The Lost 1984 Video: young Steve Jobs introduces the Macintosh – The Original 1984 Macintosh Introduction: the magic moment, when Steve Jobs unveils the Macintosh and releases it from its bag.
Steve Jobs: “The press and the stock price will take care of themselves” – In a rare Q&A at the first WWDC since his return to Apple, Jobs talks to developers about saying “no,” killing OpenDoc and taking his lumps in the press and on Wall Street.
CNBC Titans: Steve Jobs (Part 1) – Irrepressible, irascible, and iconic, Steve Jobs has reigned as the undisputed king of Silicon Valley for the better part of three decades. From his parents’ California garage he launched the personal computer revolution and built Apple into the most envied, and valuable, technology company in the world.
Apple Music Event 2001-The First Ever iPod Introduction – Here we see Steve Jobs introducing the very first iPod at a low key event in 2001.
Steve Jobs Oldie but Goodie – Steve Jobs, back in the day, telling us how simple brands really need to be.
Steve Jobs describes iCloud — in 1997 – A clip from his famous 1997 WWDC Q&A in which he lays out his vision of cloud computing.
Steve Jobs at the D: All Things Digital Conference 2010 – A compilation of Walt Mossberg’s interview with Steve Jobs at the eighth annual D: All Things Digital conference (hosted by The Wall Street Journal) on June 1st, 2010.
Steve Jobs early TV appearance – Steve Jobs prepping for his first TV appearance. He’s amazed when he sees himself on a nearby monitor.
Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmer – “The problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have no taste and I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way”
Apple CEO Steve Jobs Interview – “I hired the wrong guy…” – Here is the extended version of where Steve Jobs talks about Apple, how he came up with the GUI from Xerox, his fall out with Steve Sculley.
