Memories of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs are still pouring in, the latest from Stephen Wolfram, the heart and brain of Siri. Wolfram told British interviewers Jobs “will always be a remarkable inspiration.” The former CEO laid the foundation of Apple’s future growth through “great tenacity and dramatic ultimate growth,” said Wolfram.
Even back when the men were toiling away in relative obscurity, both had bigger plans. The two first met after Jobs was fired from Apple and founded NeXT. “He explained that he expected that what he was doing would change the world, and, by the way, make a lot of money too,” Wolfram recently told the Observer. Jobs told Wolfram he wanted his Mathematic software to be part of his new computer.
In another encounter, Jobs rebuffed Wolfram’s attempt to get the Apple head’s quote for his new book A New Kind of Science. “Isaac Newton didn’t have back-cover quotes; why should you?” Jobs reportedly replied.
Jobs’s well-known perfectionism and attention to small details was present even when writing emails. Wolfram described receiving “remarkably detailed emails and phone calls” covering all sorts of topics. The Apple co-founder even suggested the name for Wolfram’s landmark software: Mathematica.
But Jobs could also let his guard down, as when he expressed nervousness before going on a date. “Suddenly, all his confidence as a technologist and businessman melted away,” Wolfram said. “Happily, the date worked out and the woman he met became his wife for the rest of his life.”
Wolfram may be best known for his search engine which lies at the heart of Siri, the voice-activated digital assistant able to provide some remarkable replies to complex questions.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
3 responses to “Steve Jobs Was ‘A Remarkable Inspiration’ To The Creator Of Siri’s Brain, Wolfram Alpha”
I didn’t know Wolfram was behind Siri.
It’s a bit confusing, but one of the services Siri calls on after it determines your meaning in context (the major part of Siri that makes it distinctive) is the specialized search engine called Wolfram Alpha (which is a totally different bit of cool search technology unrelated to natural language processing).
I know Siri uses Wolfram Alpha as a service but this article made it sounds like Steven Wolfram was the Father of Siri. Siri was founded in 2007 by Dag Kittlaus (CEO), Adam Cheyer (VP Engineering), and Tom Gruber (CTO/VP Design), together with Norman Winarsky from SRI International’s venture group.