The passing of Steve Jobs and the release of the iphone 4s really got me thinking about my career in the tech industry. While I have had some phenomenal experiences and met some outstanding people along the way, I was given the opportunity to work for Apple early in my career it shaped the way that I think about technology.

Back in 1988, as a new Apple employee and being part of the newly formed Apple Research Partnership program, 5 newbies including myself, were flown to Apple Canada’s offices in Markham Ontario for the indoctrination to the Apple way. I was excited and nervous, as I was 1/2 way through my university career, and it was pretty cool to think we were going to meet up with a bunch of other newly minted “software evangelists” and learn about what it meant to be an Apple employee…

We learned lots (can you say “drink the Apple Kool-Aid from a firehose”), but what I really remember (it was 23 years ago this week), was the initial presentation video from Steve, and the 2 knowledge navigator presentations, here’s one of the videos that we saw….

I find the Ipad 2 and the introduction of the Siri Voice Command software are even closer steps to a realization of the vision that Steve had in 1988, see my blog post about this last year here).  But I am really sorry that Steve didn’t get a chance to see his vision realized.

Thank you Steve, for creating a company that gave me a start in this industry and allowed me to experience and meet so many great individuals, provide for my family and learn about and share some amazing technology.