I chose to read the biography of Steve Jobs as written by
Walter Isaacson. Previously, I watched the 2013 film Jobs starring Ashton Kutcher and the 2015 film starring Michael
Fassbender. With some background knowledge gained from watching those films, I
still learned new things about Steve’s life and perspectives that were not
included in the films. The interviews in the book were rather fascinating because
the reader was able to construct a real sense for what it must have been to be
Steve, or to work with him. The extent to which his lack of sensitivity was
depicted in the book is what surprised me the most. It is no surprise that Jobs
was portrayed as harsh and insensitive towards the people he worked with at
Apple, but the extent to which things were depicted made me kind of cringe and
wonder if those who worked with him just did not understand his perspective or
if they were justified in their opinions. Another thing that surprised me was
the foundation for his belief for integrated products. In the beginning of the
book, Steve notes that he saw a calf being born and was fascinated by its
ability to almost immediately start walking. From that fascination, he was
beginning to build on the integration of software and hardware.
Some of his entrepreneurial characteristics that I admired were
his imagination, ability to draw on his background of tinkering with electronics
and an interest in design, and his fearlessness when it came to growing Apple
as a corporation. However, one thing that I did not admire was his attachment
to his work. It was noted that even on family vacations, he would be preoccupied
with work. I also did not admire his sometimes condescending, rude behavior towards
the people who worked for him. According to Steve, he does not stay mad. Isaacson
asked Chief Design Officer of Apple, Jony Ive about it. He remarked that Steve “has
this very childish ability to get really worked up about something, and it
doesn’t stay with him at all. But there are other times, I think honestly, when
he’s very frustrated, and his way to achieve catharsis is to hurt somebody. And
I think he feels he has a liberty and license to do that.”
Steve Jobs definitely encountered adversity and failure. Jobs
recalled sleeping on friends’ floors and journeying across town for free meals
during college, in which he later dropped out after six months. He noted that
dropping out left him time to take a calligraphy class, which would later inspire
the aesthetic of Apple. One of the most well-known adversities was when he was
basically dumped by his own company. He was fired after a power struggle in
which the board of directors sided with John Sculley, a former Pepsi executive who
had been brought in to manage the company by Jobs. Steve recalled the public humiliation
of being ousted from Apple. However, he was able to form some kind of opportunity
around that failure. He stated that “the heaviness of being successful was
replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about
everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
During his time away from Apple, he bought Pixar and started NeXT. The company
NeXT was not that successful. However, Apple bought NeXT and incorporated some
of the company’s technology into Apple products. The deal also brought Jobs
back to Apple, where he would eventually take over as CEO. Even though NeXT was
not as successful as one would assume with Jobs leading it, the company was able
to lead Jobs back to Apple in order to do what he did best: think different.
He exhibited entrepreneurial competencies such as
creativity, passion, drive, and a competitive advantage. The competitive
advantage of Apple was its emphasis on user-friendly and inviting technological
design. I would classify Steve’s ventures as mostly opportunity creation. There
was a strong belief in the potential of his products, passion for electronics
that he shared with Wozniak, he never learned a line of code, he had charisma, and
he was a generalist when it came to electronics as he was talented but not
formally educated.
One part of the reading that was confusing to me was the
reason why Jobs lied to Wozniak about dividing their pay 50-50. When Atari gave
him $5,000 to work on it, Jobs told Wozniak that he got $700, so Wozniak was
given $350 of the $5,000.
Two Questions:
“How did
you know when to say ‘no’ to others?” – Saying “no” seems easy on the surface,
but to say it to an acquaintance or colleague can be a hard thing to do because
we normally want to avoid conflict.
“What is
the one foolish thing you most regret not doing?” – Steve Jobs was quoted, “Stay
hungry. Stay foolish.” Asking him about his regrets would be interesting, as
even successful people have regrets they wish they could go back and change.
His opinion of hard work was actually stated in his Stanford
commencement speech. He explained that you need a lot of passion for what you’re
doing because it’s so hard. Without passion, any rational person would give up.
So if you’re not having fun doing it, if you don’t absolutely love it, you’re
going to give up. And that’s what happens to most people, actually. Basically,
his opinion was that hard work towards a goal is pointless if you do not have
passion for it. I agree. No one wants to waste their time wasting all their
effort and limited time on something they care nothing for. They would be
better off doing something else. Something where they could use an entrepreneurial drive.
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