STEVE JOBS WASN’T MY GRANDFATHER’S BIGGEST FAN BY ALICIA DI SCIPIO

One time Steve Jobs cursed at my grandfather in a meeting because there wasn’t the exact breakfast food that he wanted.

I know this because in between dinner table stories about being the Vice Chairman of Xerox and putting the Entrepreneurship department at Babson College on the map, my grandfather always finds time to mention how much of a genius but asshole Steve Jobs was.

This triggers my entrepreneurial father to ask his favorite question: What is the greatest idea of your lifetime? My sixteen year old cousin says Snapchat, I say the iPod, my dad says Uber, my uncle says the cell phone and my grandfather laughs because he believes his answer shows his age: the computer.

I come from an entrepreneurial, tech family. My dad creates software for pharmaceutical drug companies, while my oldest sister works for Turo (a company better known as “Airbnb for cars”).

I’ve learned that creativity isn’t always creating a machine that fits in your pocket and holds 5,000 songs that were purchased from a store you don’t physically enter. It’s taking an already working model like Airbnb and saying, “Hey let’s apply this to cars.” Creativity is being a kind human being to those willing to help innovate but enough of an asshole to make progress forward. Creativity to me is looking at the world you live in and coming up with a brand new way to paint the walls. Or better yet, tear the walls down and start from scratch.