No one can ever accuse Steve Jobs of humility. His inspired drive and vision was the moving force behind the Apple enterprise and the innovative products that have improved the lives of billions of people, and he was rightfully proud of what he accomplished. Jobs was living proof of the falsehood of Obama’s mean-spirited “you didn’t build that” mantra. “If you were successful,” Obama driveled,
somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
Obama is right about achievers who came before you, from teachers to political revolutionaries to road and bridge builders. But he’s cynically wrong that they made your achievements happen.
No, you made that happen. If you didn make the effort, take the risks, do the thinking, it wouldn’t have happened, all of those prior achievers notwithstanding. They can bequeath to you their legacies. They cannot make your business happen.
But Jobs is on to something, as you’ll see. While we all individually DID build that, however great or modest our productive achievements, it is also important to recognize that, while doing our building, we stood on the shoulders of the prior achievements of many many other productive people, both living and long dead--and we should be grateful to them. Jobs expresses an incontrovertible truth: Progress is hierarchical, with productiveness built upon prior productiveness, which was itself built on prior productiveness, ultimately traceable back to man’s emergence from the cave. If some Stone Age thinker hadn’t discovered how to harness fire, where would we be today? Still in the Stone Age.
With that, here is the wisdom of Steve Jobs:
From the Steve Jobs Archive
This e-mail by Steve Jobs to himself right before his death, which I just discovered, captures the spirit of the sentiment I am expressing here. It is NOT an “I didn’t build that'' message of any kind. Knowing what I have learned about Jobs—according to his excellent biography Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader, by Brent Schlendler—Jobs is expressing rational gratitude to the many achievers upon whose shoulders he was enabled to do the great things he did. Indeed, no one could ever accomplish what Jobs did by any means other than his own initiative, effort, risk-taking, and thinking. We, all of us, inherit the legacies of those who came before us. But everyone doesn’t automatically become Steve Jobs, or anyone, other than what we make of ourselves. Jobs hits on something we should all remember and take to heart.
Related Reading:
Ayn Rand Anticipated Obama's "You Didn't Build That" Outrage
Obama’s Way vs. The American Way by me for The Objective Standard
Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice by Craig Biddle for The Objective Standard
“You Didn’t Build That”—Obama’s Ode to Envy by Ari Armstrong for The Objective Standard
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