Goodbye Steve, I am honored to have known you, even just a little bit.
5 hours later:
Outside the Apple Store in Palo Alto, a makeshift memorial is growing, one of many around the world. I watched a woman, Wilson Farrar, place yet another bouquet of flowers, and asked her why she came. "I met him once," she said, "and I thanked him for the iPod." Tonight, she said, "I wanted to say thank you for everything he did. He appealed to the best of the human spirit. He never settled for mediocrity, his own or anyone else's. The world has lost a true hero, and there aren't many examples of that."
Those gathered outside the brightly lit store were chattering away, sharing stories of Jobs encounters or favorite anecdotes. Inside, employees followed instructions to keep on with business as usual.
A few blocks away, outside the unlit Jobs home, a larger and far quieter group stood and contemplated Jobs' image on a glowing iPad, surrounded by a large and rapidly growing carpet of flowers and notes written in sidewalk chalk. The mourning continues.
Tekla S. Perry is a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., she's been covering the people, companies, and technology that make Silicon Valley a special place for more than 40 years. An IEEE member, she holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Michigan State University.