All Things D Is Haunted by the Man Who Isn't Here

The ghost of Steve Jobs haunts All Things D.
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Steve Jobs in 2007//Photo Credit: Acaben/Flickr

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, California -- This year, as with the last 10, several hundred top digerati have flocked to Southern California for the All Things D tech conference. As in previous years, the roster of speakers, interviewed by conference runners Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, is an all-star list of tech execs, along with figures from Hollywood and other sectors of modern industry. This year’s luminaries include Apple CEO Tim Cook, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Spotify investor Sean Parker, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. The sessions are entertaining as ever, and the audience networking reliably ferocious. But a shadow hangs over the festive intentions of a well-deserved 10th anniversary celebration.

It’s the first D Conference since Steve Jobs died last October.

That’s huge. After all, the D conference was the only non-Apple event where the late Apple CEO deigned to appear. He was on stage for six of the previous nine iterations, including a legendary co-appearance with Bill Gates in 2007. You can even argue that this is the conference that Steve built: A key reason that the then-unfamiliar contender for the hotly competitive conference dollar became a must-attend event was the announcement of Jobs’ presence. True, Bill Gates was a fantastic get—but Jobs was the Holy Grail of speakers. Getting both was like hitting the daily double at long-shot odds. And Jobs’ regular appearances made D special.

So it’s no wonder that his ghost haunts the proceedings.

Mossberg and Swisher haven’t planned it this way—they scheduled a single tribute session in the middle of the three-day event, where Jobs’ close friend Larry Ellison and Pixar president Ed Catmull would share their remembrances of the late visionary. But it seems that almost every session has some reminder of the man who isn’t here.

Certainly, this was to be expected in the case of the first slot of the conference, Mossberg and Swisher’s pre-dinner interview with CEO Tim Cook on Tuesday evening. Since Cook has not sat for such a public colloquy since assuming Jobs’ role, the session was hugely anticipated.
Cook is impressive, breaking down the details of the company’s extraordinary success. He also explains his consummately sensible decision not to try to style himself as a replacement for Steve Jobs. He makes the astonishing promise that Apple is doubling down on secrecy about its products. (I guess that means no more leaving prototype phones in bars.) He discusses patents, promises improvement in Siri, all but condemns Ping to the chopping block, and skillfully ducks questions about future products.

But the most memorable parts of the interview dealt with Cook’s former boss and mentor. Jobs’ last days, Cook says, were the saddest in his life. He recalled that in the months before Jobs died, Apple’s co-founder discussed what happened at Disney after its founder died. Disney executives agonized over decisions asking, “What would Walt do?” Jobs made it clear to Cook that this was not to be tolerated at Apple. “He told me never to ask what he would do,” says Cook. “Just ask what’s right, and then do it.”

No surprise that a session with Apple’s leader dealt with his legendary predecessor. But it is somewhat unexpected that on Wednesday, the first full day of sessions, Jobs continues to be evoked.

On his turn on stage, Aaron Sorkin talks about his concerns that he’s entering “a minefield of disappointment” as he undertakes the task of writing the movie adaptation of Walter Issacson’s Steve Jobs bio. It’s like writing about the Beatles—there’s a huge contingent of people who are emotionally attached. The screenwriter admits that he still doesn’t have a handle on Jobs—whether he should be, like most Sorkin characters, an aspirational hero or, like the fictionalized Mark Zuckerberg in the Social Network, somewhat of an antihero.

In the next session, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner makes a point by recalling a presentation by Jobs in one of his All Things D appearances, where he described the chronology of the iPhone.

During the audience Q&A session with Spotify executives, an attendee asks Sean Parker if he might be a spiritual successor to Jobs. Parker notes Jobs was “a totally unique human figure.” And while Parker does feel he shares certain traits with Jobs, he would never claim to be his equal, excepting “occasional moments of megalomania.”

After Mossberg's interview with Ed Catmull, Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis asks a question about his favorite speech in a Pixar film by the character Anton Ego in Ratatouille. Calacanis says he always felt that it was inspired by Jobs’ poem about “the crazy ones,” and Catmull doesn’t disagree.

Tuesday afternoon’s last session is the one explicitly devoted to Jobs. Even the music is fitting—Bob Dylan as the audience enters, the Beatles as they leave. Just like a Steve Jobs keynote. At D, the memorial begins with a video showing snippets from all of Jobs’ All Things D appearances. In each one Jobs wears his trademark black turtleneck, but depending on the year he fills it out less and less. Mossberg announces that starting today, videos of the full sessions will available on iTunes for free.

Ellison and Catmull swap memories of Jobs—how he learned from his experience at Next and Pixar to become a better executive, how he worked tirelessly to solve problems, how he became softer and more empathetic in his later years.

My favorite story is Ellison’s, about how he accompanied Jobs frequently to the prototype Apple store in a nearby warehouse, set up so Jobs and his team could constantly tweak the experience to approach perfection. Ellison noted how contrarian the effort seemed. “Don’t you read the newspaper?” he would ask Jobs. “They’re saying bricks and mortar are dead.”

“We’re not using mortar,” Jobs replied. “We’re using glass and steel.”

The memorial session evokes the character of Ellison’s friend—his single-mindedness, his creativity and his humanity. But the most significant tribute is that Steve Jobs is everywhere here.