America could use another Steve Jobs
When Fortune magazine picked Steve Jobs as 鈥淐EO of the decade鈥� in 2009, it pointed to his outsize impact on four industries: music, movies, mobile telephones, and, of course, computers. 鈥淩emaking any one business is a career-defining achievement; four is unheard-of,鈥� it raved.
After Mr. Jobs鈥� passing on Oct. 5, many will be raving about how he revived Apple by rolling out 鈥渋nsanely great鈥� consumer products like the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, and created iTunes, the biggest music store in the world.
But there is an older incarnation of Jobs that was equally important for Americans, if not as consumers, then as citizens. It was the very beginning of the 1980s, after the United States had suffered an unprecedented decade of self-doubt and crisis: Watergate, the loss of the Vietnam war, the Iran hostage crisis, two oil embargoes, stagflation, Detroit鈥檚 plunge in the face of Japanese auto imports, and (what came to be known as) malaise.
As bad as things were, Americans nevertheless could point to the exciting things coming from the computer industry: the microprocessor from Intel, the DOS operating system from Bill Gates and Microsoft, and the Apple II from Jobs. Mr. Gates and Jobs, in particular, defined a prototypical kid genius, working out of a garage, and creating whole new industries that could take over industrial leadership from General Motors and US Steel.
Entrepreneurship entered the national conversation in a major way. America had something transcendent and innovative that Japan could not reproduce.
The rest is history. Jobs and Gates went on to create industrial titans. In recent years, Jobs eclipsed his longtime rival with his series of 鈥渋nsanely great鈥� computer products. By 2011, Apple would rival Exxon as the world鈥檚 most valuable company.
And America finds itself, again, having endured a decade of crises: 9/11, two wars, the near melt-down of the financial industry, and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Amid these blows to national self-confidence, America could use something positive to point to.
It鈥檚 out there. Thousands of kid geniuses are laboring away in garages and labs, classrooms and cubicles, on the cusp of creating the next big thing that will revive America鈥檚 economy in a way that no government program or spending cut can.
Trouble is, we don鈥檛 know who those entrepreneurs are or what they鈥檙e working on. Americans could use a face for its entrepreneurial genius.
Americans could use another Steve Jobs.
