The girl or boy who will become the next Steve Jobs-like genius is already among us. Here’s the question: is America still capable of nurturing her or him to achieve the same explosion of world-changing brilliance?
Think about it. Jobs’ father was from Syria. If the same anti-immigrant fervor that grips the country now had existed in 1955, Jobs’ father may not have even been in the U.S. when his son was born.
Adoptive parents raised Jobs. They apparently didn’t try to quell his brash and inquisitive nature. Instead, they provided his early laboratory. It was in their garage that his first computer was built.
Jobs was a college dropout. But learning was important. He revolutionized the way computers type because of what he’d learned in a college class about calligraphy.
If Jobs was honest on a job application today, he likely wouldn’t get past the first cut with most employers. As a young man, he admitted, he experimented with LSD. Imagine trying to get that past a background check now.
In sum, Jobs was a diamond in the rough. But, lucky for him and for us, he grew up in America at a time when the country encouraged dreaming and doing big.
He was allowed to take a risk, to follow his curiosity, to fail but try again. It didn’t matter that he was the child of an immigrant, a little nerdy in school, caught up in the culture of his time. America then welcomed, encouraged, and supported ingenuity and uniqueness. Is that the country the next Steve Jobs will find now?
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