The Legacy of Steve Jobs

One of the first trips I took after becoming editor of TIME was to see Steve Jobs in Silicon Valley. We talked about technology and media, about which he was deeply interested and very opinionated. He also lectured me on how I should do my job. He pretty much thought he could do everyone’s job better than they could, and he was probably right. He had definite views about our covers, and I like to think we made the right call with the classic black-and-white image of him that graces this issue. Steve loved simplicity.

This is Steve’s seventh TIME cover, which puts him in the category of Presidents and other world leaders. Steve himself will take his place in the ranks of great American businessmen and inventors like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. TIME has had a long relationship with Steve. He thought he was going to be Person of the Year in 1984, the year he introduced the Macintosh, and was greatly disappointed when he was not. He thought of us as an iconic American brand, not unlike Apple.

Over the years, we’ve done our best to track the life of a man who changed all of our lives irreversibly and for the better. But no one has tracked Steve’s life better than the man who used to have my job, Walter Isaacson. With Steve’s cooperation, Walter has written what will now be the last word on Steve–a biography, titled Steve Jobs, to be published Oct. 24. When I heard about Steve’s death, my first phone call was to Walter. Within two hours, I had Walter’s poignant, insightful appreciation of Steve’s life, including his memories of Steve’s final days. Walter writes that Steve was the modern creation myth writ large and that he revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing and digital publishing. We are honored to publish this piece, along with intimate photographs by Diana Walker; they will give you a better sense of Steve Jobs–what inspired him, what incensed him, what made him tick–than anything else you can possibly read.

Richard Stengel, MANAGING EDITOR