[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I don’t know why but considered himself an artist

I'm not sure that artist is the right term, but he had taste. Some people do, and when you see what they specify, you realize the rightness of it.

So maybe the people who worked for him were artists, or at least "illustrators" - but someone has to recognize their talent and has to judge when those artists have accomplished a design which suits the function. Otherwise you would go off half-cocked, with the first thing the artist came up with - or you might keep on redoing the design and never commit to an actual product until the opportunity for selling the product was gone.

What Jobs did was to foresee what technological functions would sell, and discern when he had a design which provided those functions in a package which he could sell. And sell. And sell.

[Revolting cat!]

There is an excellent article in today's WSJ about Apple's chief designer for the past 15 years, named Jonathan Ive. It may be available to non-subscribers online, I'm not sure, but it sounds like he's been the artist (in industrial design) and visionary behind many of Apple's products of the past decade. A low key dude nobody has heard about.

And in the same WSJ, Walt Mossberg, who apparently knew Jobs very well, and spoke to him often (Steve calling him regularly) said this about a conversation they had when the first Apple Store opened:

I teased him by asking if he, personally, despite his hard duties as CEO, had approved tiny details like the translucency of the glass and the color of the wood. He said he had, of course.