Skip to content
Breaking News

Georg Steinberger is Gone

Georg Steinberger, one of the electronics component distribution world’s most astute observers and analysts, died last week. The industry lost a big proponent and critic.
Georg Steinberger is Gone
Georg Steinberger. Source: FBDI

Share This Post:

By Bolaji Ojo

Oh Georg!

We had a rendezvous. Many dates. We had dates planned and unplanned, but numerous meetings we were looking forward to, nonetheless. We had dates for Embedded World 2025 this March, in Nuremberg. During the event, we would have made plans for other events and future Embedded World events.

Then on Friday last week your heart stopped.

Just like that, Georg Steinberger, one of the most enthusiastic proponents of the electronic component distribution business – and of technology innovations in general – was gone, your once vibrant voice still, your place now a mist.

I found out on LinkedIn in a post by FBDI e.V. – Fachverband Bauelemente Distribution – the industry association you helped establish and which you led as chairman until death came calling. The opening of the posting was blunt, the shock of the writer at your demise ripping through in stirring prose. “Georg, one of the most impressive personalities who enriched our world with his commitment, charisma and humor, left it much too early,” the writer said.  

We had plans to compare notes on developments in the industry at future biennial Electronica industry conferences starting with the next one in November 2026, November 2028, November 2030, November 2032, November 2034, and every two years into the future. We were eager to compare notes on how the electronics industry would have evolved, as we had done previously. Our last meeting was at Electronica Munich last November. I bumped into you at the press room. We pulled chairs together, I introduced my son, we chatted, and made plans.

We talked about rolling out a new, weekly or fortnightly, opinion article that you would write about developments in the industry. The plans were supposed to be finalized this March in Nuremberg at the Embedded World event. Ahead of this, we had plans to unveil a bimonthly webcast on the state of the global electronics business. The webcast would have covered the entire electronics industry and its impact on the world. Because electronics are going into everything, and the lines are blurring.

Georg, in a world in the grips of charlatans and flooded with indecencies, spoken and acted, you were a proper and honest voice. But also, a strident one. You spoke out against things you believed were wrong, with compassion and understanding. You made it clear the world of electronics cannot pretend it stands outside the environment in which the enterprises you wrote about and analyzed operated. In our conversations, you stressed the significance of bringing things back to the “lives and activities of people.”

I recall how you emphasized the ephemeral nature of political appointments and winnings. Over the years of meetings at various industry events, Georg, you chuckled at the folly of humanity, wars, arguments, unbridled dissents, and passions unchecked. You celebrated people, friends, colleagues and talked of how changes in the electronics industry will occur but noted that, oddly, things “will still remain the same.”

You put people at ease when they met you because there was never a hint of aggression, distaste or animosity in your approach. You listened to contrary opinions, intently, making it clear you were open to being convinced against your earlier position. On leaving a room, you left a gap, on entering, you filled it quietly, bringing in cheering life.

You are gone now, and your absence will so keenly be felt when those of us who knew you meet again at one of our gathering points.

There were other plans you had, much of them unshared, about family, friends and colleagues. They’ll now forever remain plans, calcified in the minds of whoever is left alive and with whom you shared them.

Georg Steinberger, you “left much too early,” as your colleague at FBDI said. And you leave a “huge void – not only as a connoisseur of the electronics industry, but also as a person who was inspiring to those around him and irreplaceable to his friends.”

Somehow, though, I know you preferred leaving this way. You were never one for long goodbyes, or a lingering presence. You’ve done your part.

Auf Wiedersehen


Editor’s note: Georg Steinberger was a co-founder and chairman of Germany-based FBDI e.V. – Fachverband Bauelemente Distribution, an industry association focused on the European electronic component distribution business. Before joining Avnet Inc. in its communications group, Georg worked as a journalist covering the distribution beat and in recent years as an analyst.


Bolaji Ojo is publisher and managing editor of the Ojo-Yoshida Report. He can be reached at [email protected].

Copyright permission/reprint service of a full Ojo-Yoshida Report story is available for promotional use on your website, marketing materials and social media promotions. Please send us an email at [email protected] for details.

Share This Post: