By John Romano

(YBH) – Steve Jobs probably has more to do with how you and I spend our days than anyone else currently on the face of the planet.

The Bell Curve dictates how most data is distributed for any given set.  Mr. Jobs is to the far, far, right of that curve.   The excellent part.

From co-creating the Atari game Breakout to the Mac operating system (which Microsoft stole from Apple after Apple lifted it from a unit of Xerox) to iTunes to the iPhone and iPad, Mr. Jobs’ imprint is deep in American life. Without Mr. Jobs’ ingenuity, it is impossible to know where modern computing would be today.  I doubt we’d be as far as the iPhone.

Steve Jobs in the early 1980's

The National Enquirer is running the headline “EXPERTS: APPLE FOUNDER STEVE JOBS HAS 6 WEEKS TO LIVE!” this week.  If that is the case, I’d like to take this time to thank Mr. Jobs for the life he has led.  A modern Thomas Edison combined with the vision of a marketing genius. Critics can knock Apple and Mr. Jobs all they want, but the truth is the truth:  Apple rules the computer industry because they deserve to.

This was not always the case.  After a string of failures in the mid-eighties, Steve Jobs was once fired from Apple by the very man he hired to run the company.  While some folks would relegate themselves to the dust bin of history and enjoy their considerable wealth, at this point Mr. Jobs fought back, founding both animation studio Pixar and Next (the latter’s research formed the basis of Apple’s modern products architecture from OS10 to the iPad), before riding to Apple’s rescue in the late 1990′s.  His story is one of character and faith.

To get a sense of who Steve Jobs is, spend 15 minutes watching (or re-watching, as the video has been watched over 3.5 million times on YouTube) his 2005 Commencement Address at Stanford University:

I will most likely never meet Mr. Jobs in this lifetime, but he will surely be missed by me and a multitude of others around the globe.  In advance, thanks Steve.  Your work has made America and the world a better place to be.  It is with the greatest hope that I am retracting this essay in three years when you take the stage at MacWorld to premiere the iPhone 9.  That would be a great thing to retract indeed!

John Romano is the publisher and editor of Yes, But However!, a musician, a former political correspondent for BBC Radio London, and a serial web entrepreneur. Follow him on twitter: twitter.com/yesbuthowever

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