A giant of our times has died, at a painfully early age.

Steve Jobs succumbed to cancer at fifty-six. Young as he was, though, he left behind an enviable legacy. I only could wish to create one a thousandth as great. His relentless focus on making computers, and electronic devices in general, as easy to use as kitchen appliances has touched every one of us—even those who hate Apple and its products with every fiber of their being, and indeed is a major reason why they do so.

I had hoped he would live long enough to see the ambitious new Apple company headquarters constructed and operating. In retrospect, though, it is plain he knew his time was fast running out: his resignation letter hints at it, and the little-known Apple University clearly is his effort to ensure the company he built and rebuilt would survive and thrive into the future by following the formula for success he evolved laboriously over the decades of his professional life.

The last time we saw titans of industry like him, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and their contemporaries was in the nineteenth-century rail barons and industrialists, and I do not believe this is coincidental. Then, it was all about a cornucopia of new mechanical devices and the hugely expanding rail networks moving people and goods long distances. Today, it’s all about a cornucopia of new electronic devices and the hugely expanding digital networks moving information and media long distances.

Addendum: Another lesser-known giant also has died—Dennis Ritchie, creator of the programming language C and co-creator of the operating system Unix. It’s impossible to overstate the impact those two creations have had on modern computer science. Where Jobs will be a household name for generations and possibly for centuries, Ritchie will be one of those names unknown to the public but revered in their fields effectively forever.