Steve Jobs, CEO, meet Odysseus, Greek. Both had the same idea but in different times. Odysseus, you see, had the idea to build a wooden horse. The horse, a symbol of the city of Troy, was left outside of the city’s impenetrable gates. The same gates which had kept the Greeks at bay for ten years. The people of Troy – Trojans – seeing it and thinking it a gift of conciliation from the Greeks, couldn’t resist bringing it inside the gates as a trophy.
The rest, as they say, is history. The Greeks had craftily built the horse large enough to contain 30 soldiers, who emerged at night and opened the gates, allowing the army – which had appeared to the Trojans to have sailed away earlier – to enter the city. The Greeks took over the city and to this day a “Trojan Horse” evokes a sense of something benign, even treasure-like, containing something powerful, even nefarious, with powers allowing it to subsume or dominate its host.
Mr. Jobs & Company have created what is quickly becoming the Trojan Horse of our generation. The iPhone that sits in your pocket will, within the next three years, become so all-powerful, so enveloping, so important, that Apple will become the largest, most powerful company in the world. It will dominate multiple markets, be pervasive throughout your entire life and Apple logos will be as common as colored lights during Christmas. It will be everywhere and everything.
And everyone will love it.
