Steve Jobs’ Last Words: Oh Wow

Before Steve Jobs passed away he uttered two simple words. According to a eulogy by his sister, Mona Simpson, Steve Jobs’ last words were “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

Simpson writes:

“He’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them…. His breathing changed. It became severe, deliberate, purposeful…. Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times… OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.”

What do you think Steve Jobs’ meant to say when he left the world saying, “oh wow?” In her essay, “A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs,” Simpson says that Jobs’ last words had to do with his “capacity for wonderment, the artist’s belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later.”

According to the Washington Post, Thomas Edison uttered similar words before his death. Edison’s last words, however, imply that he saw heaven shortly before his death. Edison said:

“It is very beautiful over there.”

Walter Isaacson, Jobs’ biographer, said that in the days before Jobs death the Apple founder started talking more about God and the afterlife. Do you think Jobs and Edison shared a similar pre-death vision?

Were those the only words Steve Jobs could find as his life flashed before his eyes? Was he so overwhelmed by the love in the room that he could only utter a few syllables? Or are they meaningless?

What do you think of Steve Jobs’ last words?