Thursday, August 25, 2011

Boston techies light up Twitter on news of Steve Jobs’ resignation

By Rodney Brown

After the markets closed yesterday, Steve Jobs sent to the Apple Inc. board of directors a letter stating he was resigning as CEO of the company effective immediately. Reaction in the tech community worldwide was a strong across social media, and no less here in New England.

In the letter to the board, Jobs stated simply “I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.” In a release sent out very shortly thereafter, Apple named the man Jobs chose as his replacement, Tim Cook, previously Apple’s chief operating officer, as the company’s new CEO.

Here is a top-five list of tweets from Boston-area innovators:

Cambridge-based Raizlabs, @raizlabs, a mobile app developer founded by Greg Raiz and initially focused on the iPhone, said on Twitter “Steve’s a modern day Da Vinci and our company would be so very different without him. Thank you Steve.”

In Providence, Saul Kaplan, @skap5, the founder and chief catalyst at the Business Innovation Factory, tweeted “Steve Jobs has inspired a generation of leaders to work harder & strive for excellence every day. #iconic.” Venture capitalist with Spark Capital Bijan Sabet, @bijan, reminisced “My first Mac: Mac SE. Got it in college. Remember ResEdit ?”

Young serial entrepreneur Mark Bao, @markbao, co-founder and CTO of OnSwipe, wrote “Steve, stay in good health and enjoy your time with family. Thank you for everything.”

In downtown Boston, Edward Boches, @edwardboches, chief innovation officer at advertising agency Mullen, posted, “Great clients inspire great advertising. Yet another contribution of Mr. Jobs.”

Mass High Tech All-Star in 2008 and social media expert Chris Brogan, @chrisbrogan, simply stated “Thanks, Steve Jobs. Great work.”

Jobs ended his resignation letter to the Apple board with “I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.”

Media everywhere has been racing to add background and context to the new of Jobs' resignation. Jobs, who had taken a leave of absence previously due to his failing health, gave an inspiring commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005 where he talks about the power of death.

The New York Times ran a list of Jobs' portfolio of design patents, and Fast Company created a "meta-mashup" made up of nothing but links related to Jobs' resignation.

Bloomberg posted a video with Apple's co-founder Steve Wozniak and his reaction to Jobs' resignation.