Tim Cook remembers Steve Jobs on what would’ve been his 68th birthday

If alive, Apple’s founder Steve Jobs would turn 68 today. Jobs, who died in 2011 due to a respiratory arrest related to a tumor, changed several industries with its revolutionary products and ideas. To celebrate his life, current Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote a message on his Twitter:

People with the most to teach live like they have the most to learn – and Steve loved learning. He was the most curious person I’ve ever met, which made him the best teacher I’ve ever known. Happy birthday, my friend.

In 2022, Steve Jobs was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is the US’s highest civilian honor, “presented to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public, or private endeavors,” said the Biden Administration in a press release at the time.

Besides all the products that will always keep Steve Jobs’ memory alive, last year, Laurene Powell Jobs, Jony Ive, and Tim Cook teamed up to launch the late’s CEO Archive. And to celebrate his life, today, the Steve Jobs Theater shared a photo memory of him with the Mac in 1984.

The photo was shot 39 years ago, in February 1984, a month after the original Macintosh was introduced. The Executive Director of the Archive, Leslie Berlin, shared in a newsletter the story behind the image of Jobs spotting this Mac in an office.

“Steve’s friend Jean Pigozzi, who calls himself a “serious amateur photographer,” took the image and told me the story behind it,” Berlin writes. “Although Jean did not work in tech, Steve invited him along to a software conference in New Orleans. One evening after the event, as they were walking down O’Keefe Avenue looking for dinner, Steve—a notoriously fast walker—pulled to a halt. Someone in a store window was working on a Macintosh.”

“He had to take a closer look,” Berlin continues. “How was this person using the Mac? Steve is so curious, so lasered in on trying to understand, that he is bent nearly double.”