It is almost unlikely to mention Steve Jobs as my business personality of all time without running the risk of being accused of ‘following the crowd.’ But that is the blame I readily take. For me, Steve ‘is’ a great teacher as he has taught us the following. Lesson one; you are never too young to think of the world. When Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak started Apple Computers, Jobs was only 21 years old. Usually, at that age, people tend to feel they are young, and most attempts at economic empowerment are rather selfish, marked with ‘I need to make it’ kind-of thought. Jobs must have felt the same, too. But within this was another visionary thought; ‘I need to help the world make it.’
Lesson two; it is never too small. Almost laughable is the fact that Jobs and Wozniak started Apple Computers in Job’s family garage. Even almost preposterous is the fact that its initial life was funded with the money that the two got after Jobs sold the Volkswagen bus he owned, and Wozniak parted with his so-described ‘beloved’ scientific calculator. Today, Apple is the most valuable company in the world, an unimaginable contrast to its garage-based youth.
Lesson three; stay focused. In spite of the early successes of Apple Computers, sales started to subside in the 1970s, and Jobs was forced into resigning as the company CEO in 1985. Instead of sitting back to nurse his wounds, Jobs started another software and hardware company, NEXT, Inc., And he acquired an animation company, later becoming Pixar Animation Studios, which has become the most famous and successful animation movies’ production studio in the world today.
His primary focus, Apple Computers, remained, and when he returned as CEO in 1997, the company was wavering. With a new team of management and changed stock options, Jobs rejuvenated Apple; until his death, he led revolutionary innovations such as the iMac, iPhone, and iPod, taking the world of communication and entertainment by storm.
Lesson four; lead by example. Jobs is said to have been a ‘hard driver’ by fellow workers, always following the step-by-step progress of new products. But he could be forgiven because he demanded the same of himself, too. But in spite of these successes, the aura of Steve Jobs lies in the fact that he was also human after all. Jobs made mistakes too like everyone else; for instance, besides the falling sales of Apple Computer products in the 1970s, his after-resignation acquisition (NEXT, Inc) also floundered in sales. Jobs also battled Pancreatic Cancer.
But these things did not bring him down as he kept his vision for the world alive. Jobs’ vision of the world was beyond the borders of the USA and the whole continent of America as well. He stayed focused and, in the end, set the world rolling towards the future, his vision.
The business world, as well as the rest of the world, still moans the rather ‘fresh’ demise of Steve Jobs. And death is known to provoke sympathies reflected in the usually ‘kind’ words of a send-off. On the contrary, it is not Steve Job’s demise that provokes kind words, but his life, a major mark in not just business and management, but the modern world as well. The sympathies are not provoked by his demise per se, but by that bit of the ‘future’ that has gone with him; that sympathy, therefore, is for those who are left behind.