Tale of Two Men - Jobs and Steinman

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything ahead of us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…..”
(Charles Dickens, “Tale of Two Cities”)

Sometimes we hear bad news and without consciously thinking about it, remember exactly what we were doing and where we were at the time we heard the news. I still remember exactly where I was as a child when JF Kennedy was assassinated, and later when Princess Diana died and the 9/11 attacks on New York brought America to its knees. For some reason these events stick in our mind for most of our lives.

Last week I was shocked when I read that Steve Jobs had died, however; I can’t say that I even heard when Dr Ralph Steineman died, let alone who he was, yet they both died within the same week. Much was written about Steve Jobs and his accomplishments and in stark contrast the cell biologist Dr Ralph Steinman may have passed away in some obscurity in the world’s collective mind, had it not been for a major announcement the following week.

Both men were brilliant and highly successful in their respective fields; very different fields – one in technology and the other in biology. Both were innovative and creative thinkers - light years ahead of their peers, but for very different reasons. Steve Jobs was responsible for revolutionising technology (and some say the 21st century) through his inventions of the most amazing devices - Apple MacBooks, iPads, and iPhones, while the other man, Dr Ralph Steinman revolutionised the field of immunology by discovering a new cell, that would change how we treat cancer and many other life threatening diseases. Both men died at the peak of their lives and within a week of one another and surprisingly, both men died of pancreatic cancer after long fought battles with the disease.

Both men took very different pathways in their lives. Steve Jobs dropped out of one of the most prestigious colleges after six months because he didn’t want his parents to use their life savings to pay for his college education when he couldn’t see the value in continuing his college course, since he wasn’t learning anything new in technology. (His parents had adopted him as a baby and promised Steve’s biological mother that they would send him to college.) Jobs continued to attend some classes that he thought were valuable though, and slept on the floor of mates’ dorm rooms to save on the cost of accommodation.

Steinman on the other hand, took the academic route, by continuing his study at McGill University and the prestigious Harvard Medical School and then onto the equally famous Rockefeller University. Steinman’s only blimp was at the tender age of seven years, when in the face of being sent to Summer Camp by his parents, a strident Steinman packed his bag and ran away from home. His short lived sojourn came to an abrupt end when the milkman spied him in town and alerted his parents of his attempted escape. Just think, if that milkman had not spotted Steinman, he may never have gone to university and discovered the dendritic cell that was to be one of the most important breakthroughs in our understanding of immunology.

Life was not always a bowl of cherries for either man. Steve Jobs, a self-made millionaire at twenty three years of age was fired from the very company he founded when he was 30 years of age and suffered great humiliation at the exit from his brainchild company. Jobs later told students of Stanford University that this was probably one of the best things that ever happened to him in his life. Why? In Jobs own words:

“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company NeXT, and another company named Pixar, which went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film. Toy Story.”

Many years later in 1997, Jobs returned to Apple and almost single-handedly turned the declining fortunes of the company around to create an astounding success story. Steve Jobs is acknowledged as one of the greatest inventors of our time, with over 4000 patents in his name at the time of his death.

Steinman, like Jobs, also suffered similar humiliation. After years of research that resulted in him identifying a new immune cell – the dendritic cell – many scientists were sceptical of his findings, simply because his experiments were so difficult to replicate. It was many years after his discovery, that improvements in technology enabled his findings to be confirmed and he was vindicated.

The immune system is very complex and many of us don’t give a second thought to how our immune system is constantly on alert, attacking bacteria, viruses and parasites, yes, even while we watch television. Different types of cells have different jobs to do in fighting foreign invaders in our bodies. The dendritic cells that Steinman discovered, devour these intruders and help activate the rest of the immune system and also filter body fluids to clear them of foreign organisms and particles. While others questioned his findings, Dr Ralph Steinman never once doubted the significance of his discovery or the implications of the dendritic cell to fight life threatening diseases such as AIDs, tuberculosis and cancer.

In a sad and ironic twist, Canadian Dr. Ralph M. Steinman was named one of three winners of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his life work on the human immune response on the Monday, three days after he died in Manhattan at 68 years. This fact was unknown to the Nobel Prize committee when it made its announcement.

Steinman was a humble man who gave little thought or care to awards presented to him and much to the chagrin of his family, often told them well after the event. One can’t help but think though, that Steinman would have been just a little proud of winning the Nobel Prize had he lived to hear the news. It’s surely a measure of a great man that he put so little value on these acknowledgements and awards during his life, and thought only, of how he might benefit people, through his research by finding a cure or treatment to eradicate diseases such as cancer.

What lessons can we learn from these two brilliant men? For our students, the message is clear. There is no one way to find success and happiness in life. There is no easy way to achieve what we want to in this life and sometimes we have to persevere with steadfast determination in the face of opposition or even ridicule. .Most importantly for us all to contemplate, is that our time on earth is limited, so we should make the very most of every single day – never waste a day or let an opportunity pass. Life is too short.

Steve Jobs was very reflective about his life, and in his address to students at Stanford in 2005 he made this sage comment to his audience:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward – you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”

Put simply:
 Find your passion in life – never be complacent with your ‘lot in life’
 Follow your dreams
 Never, ever give up on them, even when experts tell you, “You’re wrong” or “It can’t be done.”
 Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb for what you believe; and
 Keep the faith, stay true to your vision.

Karon Graham