Thank you Steve Jobs, where ever you are!

Argus Insights would not exist if not for Steve Jobs, period.

He made user experience the focal point of our lives and brought the speeds and feeds of nerdom into the hands of every child, woman and man on the planet willing and able to.  When I was finishing up my PhD research on connecting good design to good business Apple was one of the inspirations for my research.  Imagine my surprise at my graduation from Stanford in 2005 when I found out that Steve Jobs was our commencement speaker.  His speech is the most listened too bit of audio on my iPod.  Thank you Steve.

When I made the choice to move into industry, I was lucky enough to land at one of Apple’s suppliers, Synaptics, the creator of the capacitive scroll wheel that defined the iPod experience for so long.  As the fortunes of Apple rose, so did those of Synaptics so that when I made the decision to leave SYNA my options provided the initial seed capital to chase my own entrepreneurial dreams.  Thank you Steve.

The catalyst for starting Argus Insights came from trying to help companies

like Nokia and Samsung compete against Apple.  The data and information these big firms were using to guide their decisions lead to countless, now infamous, dead-ends.  Argus was founded to help companies measure what matters, the user experience, so they could be less like Bill and more like Steve.  Without the genius of his leadership and vision, we wouldn’t have our purpose or market to chase at Argus Insights.  Thank you Steve.

His final words that June in 2005 were “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”  They have stayed with me ever since.  His hunger for perfection combined with his foolishness to attempt the impossible has give the world gifts we will never understand the full value of.  To me his biggest lesson and legacy is that through hard work, patience, and conviction, the American dream is attainable without our lifetimes even though his was cut short too soon.

Our heart goes out to the family and friends he leaves behind.  We promise to honor his legacy by staying hungry and staying foolish all the days of our lives.

Thank you Steve.