Steve Jobs is no more. Surely, his accomplishments
are far-reaching and impossible to easily
summarise. Apart from revolutionising the
computer, music and publishing industries in his
lifetime, Steve Jobs’ death has pointed out that he
may have transformed just one more – the
leadership industry. Here’s one way of looking at
the scope of his achievement: It is the dream of
any entrepreneur to effect change in an industry.
Well, Jobs transformed half a dozen of them
forever, from personal computers to phones,
animation, music, publishing and video games. He
was a great negotiator, a skilled motivator, a
decisive judge, a farsighted tastemaker, an
excellent showman and a gifted strategist. Most
people will try to fit him into old moulds, trying to
confine his spirit within the familiar terms: Vision,
Innovation, Communication, Inspiration. There was
all of that, for sure, but these encomiums alone do
not quite succeed in capturing him. We haven’t lost
the best CEO of this generation – we’ve lost one of
the greatest artists of our times. Under his
leadership, the previously tottering Apple not only
recovered, but climbed its way to the top to
become the most valuable company in the world,
based on market cap!
Unlike most technologists and entrepreneurs who appear to succeed only once, Steve Jobs was distinctly
different, in that he constantly repeated his success. He never gave up and steadfastly pursued his
dreams, and is believed to have never been driven by the riches or the fame that followed his success.
Jobs was clearly obsessed with the products that his company rolled out, and pursued them to the
minutest detail. He was a perfectionist, and a strongly opinionated one at that.
Jobs was destined to change many industries during his life time. He had a fairly difficult childhood. He
was given up for adoption, dropped out of school, but eventually went on to start a company that
practically shaped the personal computer industry. He never had any fancy degrees. In fact, he had no
degree at all! Of course, this does not mean that you don’t aspire and work towards higher degrees, but
these alone cannot guarantee success. Rather, dedicated pursuit of goals and determination can be
magical wands. Following Jobs’ example, parents should ask themselves how they can encourage their
children to pursue their dreams with limitless passion and safeguarded from the fear of failure.
Early life:
Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco, California, on February 24, 1955. His biological parents,
unwed college graduates Joanne Simpson and Abdulfattah Jandali, gave him up for adoption to a lower
middle-class couple from south of the Bay Area, Paul and Clara Jobs. It was not until Jobs was 27 that he
was able to uncover information on his biological parents.
Jobs grew up in California, a willful, free-spirited young loner, with a penchant for trouble. In his high
school years, he was already fascinated with electronics. In 1969, he met Steve Wozniak, better known
as ‘Woz’, who was five years older, and already an electronics whiz. Jobs attended college, but soon
dropped out. He embraced the hippie lifestyle – drugs, Zen and Eastern philosophy. In 1974, he took a
position as a video game designer with Atari. Several months later, he left Atari to find spiritual
enlightenment in India. After months spent traveling through India in rags, he returned to California and
started a thriving business with Woz. They built and sold ‘blue boxes’ that let users make long distance
calls for free.
In 1976, Jobs, then 21, and Wozniak started a new business to build computers for hobbyists. Jobs chose
the name Apple Computer.
Seeding Apple :
Steve Jobs saw that many people were interested in his friend Woz’s brilliant amateur work – a computer
circuit board – and suggested that they sell the board to them. Apple Computer was born.
Apple’s first year in business consisted of assembling the boards in Steve’s garage and driving to local
computer stores to try and sell them. Meanwhile, Woz worked on a new, much-improved computer, the
Apple II, which he finished in 1977. Both Woz and Steve knew the Apple II was a breakthrough
computer, much more advanced than anything the market had ever seen. Thus, Steve set out to find
venture capitalists to fund Apple’s expansion. After a
while, he made a deal with Mike Markkula, an
enthusiastic former Intel executive, who invested
$250,000 in their business and assured them that their
company would enter the Fortune 500 list in less than
two years’ time.
Mike was right. The Apple II soon became the symbol of
the personal computing revolution worldwide and Apply
Computer went public in December 1980, after just four
years of existence. Steve Jobs’ net worth crossed the
$200-million mark on that day – he was only 25
In the pursuit of what he believed, however,
Jobs never hesitated to inflict his tantrums on
anybody, including on Woz, whose relationship
with Jobs soon collapsed. In his messy
personal life, Jobs refused to acknowledge his
baby daughter, Lisa, and acquiesced to letting
her grow up in poverty. Of course, he
continued his dedication to creating
revolutionary products, and his fervour
inspired his Apple cohorts.
Apple’s president and board, though, avoided
giving him full authority, and Steve was
digging his own corporate grave. The Apple
III, which he supervised, never worked
properly. He dreamed of creating a business
computer – which would be his creation, not
Woz’s. The result was a business-oriented
computer that Jobs named Lisa, after his unacknowledged daughter. Yet, Steve Jobs was soon thrown
out of the Lisa project because he was considered too temperamental a manager. Deeply angry, he took
revenge by taking over a small project called Macintosh, determined to make it a cheaper GUI computer
that would cannibalise the sales of Lisa.
Around this time, IBM entered the personal computer business, legitimising the industry. The lower price
tag on its PCs made the $10,000 Lisa a clear flop. Since Jobs was not allowed to run Apple, he recruited
Pepsi executive John Sculley, thinking that he could push Sculley around.
In 1984, the first Macintosh made its debut. Macintosh’s point-and-click technology (partly derived from
Xerox’s 1970s Palo Alto Research Center) reduced the need for users to remember innumerable tricky-to-
use DOS commands, and brought out the visual and user-friendly potential of computers. The rivals only
fully caught up a decade later, with Windows 95. However, despite positive sales and a performance that
was superior to IBM’s PCs, the Macintosh was still not IBM-compatible. It was cheaper than the Lisa, but
Jobs had blundered – the closed box had no expansion slots, and its limited memory made it impractical.
Only the old Apple II now kept the company afloat. Woz publicly quit Apple, and denounced its
management. The board took the Macintosh division away from Jobs, and turned to Sculley, who insisted
on full authority and got it.
Exit From Apple :
Jobs tried to stage a coup, but was caught and demoted. He planned to send Scullery to China on a
business tour and take over the corporate control of Apple in his absence. Scullery went to China, but he
soon got wind of Steve’s plan and returned from there. He then presented the issue to Apple’s Board of
Directors, and asked them to vote against Steve in his presence. Everyone from the board voted against
Steve, and he was fired from his own company.
(The background to this was that Apple’s board was unhappy with Steve’s indisciplined behavior. The war
between Board and Steve started when Apple was designing the personal computer, Lisa. Steve was
expelled from this project in 1982 and asked to work for Macintosh. Lisa was presented in 1983, but did
not perform well. It was believed to be a marketing failure. On the other hand, the Macintosh project
assigned to Steve did extremely well. Steve now lost faith on Scullery, and wanted to wrest back control.
He started doing odd things like organising meetings late into the night, sending out long faxes and many
such indisciplined activities. The Board lost patience, and decided to fire Steve.)
Later, in 1993, Scullery was also forcibly replaced from the post of CEO. When Scullery was replaced,
Apple was in a poor condition, as the company’s margins had eroded, sales had diminished and the stock
had declined.
Life after Apple :
Steve was stunned by his removal. Apple was his life, and he had just been kicked out of it. He started
travelling, looking for new ways to
expend his energy. In 1985, Jobs
founded another computer company,
NeXT. Its machines were not a
commercial success, but some of the
technology was later used by Apple,
where Jobs was eventually to return.
However great it was, the NeXT ‘Cube’
didn’t sell. It was overpriced and
missing useful software. The company
was bleeding money. All its co-founders
left one after the other, as did its first
investor from outside, the Texan
billionaire Ross Perot. By 1993, NeXT
had to give up its hardware business,
and focus only on promoting its
advanced software technology. Now,
NeXT Software turned into a niche
software development business.
In the meantime, in 1986, Jobs bought ‘The Graphics Group’, the computer graphics department of
Lucasfilm. The group was responsible for making high-end computer graphics hardware, but under its
new name, Pixar, it began to produce innovative computer animations. Their first title under the Pixar
name, ‘Luxo Jr.’ (1986) won critical and popular acclaim. In 1991, Pixar signed an agreement with
Disney, with whom it already had a relationship, to produce a series of feature films, beginning with Toy
Story (1995).
Until then, Pixar too had been going through a difficult time. The movie was to be released in the
Thanksgiving of 1995. As the date approached, Steve Jobs realised what an incredible power the Disney
brand was. He decided that Pixar would go public the week after the release of Toy Story, to cash in on
the media hype surrounding the first computer-generated animation movie of all times. This strategy
worked wonders – Toy Story’s box-office success was only surpassed by the Pixar stock’s success on Wall
Street. Steve Jobs, who owned 80% of the company, saw his net worth rise to over $1.5 billion – five
times the money he had ever made at Apple in the 1980s!
The studio merged with Walt Disney in 2006, making Steve Jobs Disney’s largest shareholder.
Reinventing Apple :
Speaking of Apple, the fruit company was in the midst of its worst year ever. After the release of
Windows 95, the Mac, which had turned profitable but had failed to evolve for a decade while Steve Jobs
was away, started losing its market share at an alarming rate.
By 1996, the company’s newly-appointed CEO, Gil Amelio, was looking for new software to replace the
old and bloated Mac OS. He eventually chose Steve’s NeXTSTEP. Apple paid $400 million to acquire
NeXT, and Steve was back to the company that had thrown him out a decade before. His official title was
that of ‘informal adviser to the CEO’.
Shortly after, when Amelio announced Apple’s losses of $700 million for the first quarter of 1997, the
board decided that it was time to get rid of this terrible manager. Steve Jobs organised a board coup,
and was named interim CEO of Apple in July 1997.
Steve Jobs quickly brought the lost confidence back to the Apple community. The company launched a
revolutionary marketing campaign around a new slogan Think Different, spreading the idea that people
who used Macs were dreamers who could change the world. Six months after he was back, Steve Jobs
had led the company to profitability.
Yet, Apple’s real resurgence came a little later, when Steve introduced a new, amazing consumer desktop
computer – the iMac. Introduced in May 1998, it was Apple’s first really innovative product since the
unveiling of the original Macintosh in 1984. The iMac’s stunning translucent design blew away the whole
personal computer industry, which had failed to produce anything but black or beige boxes for over a
decade. Moreover, the iMac was a hot seller, and was instrumental in bringing tonnes of developers back
to the Mac platform. Design innovations continued throughout 1998 and 1999, with the launch of
coloured iMacs and the iBook, Apple’s consumer notebook. After three years of being in charge, Steve
Jobs had brought Apple back to greatness. He was finally accepted as the full-time CEO of Apple in
January 2000 – this was the first time that one person became the CEO of two public companies at the
same time.
The digital hub strategy was unveiled by Steve Jobs at Macworld, San Francisco, in January 2001. This
was a vision for the future of the PC. Although many analysts and self-appointed experts were
proclaiming that PCs would disappear within a couple of years to be replaced by Internet terminals, Apple
believed they would evolve into digital centers or hubs for our new digital lifestyles.
Miracle Days – iPod, iPhone and iPad:
The greatest momentum for Apple came from an unexpected source – the iPod. The iPod was an integral
part of the digital hub strategy. For the first time, people were
buying Macs just so that they could use this little music player the
size of a cigarette box. Apple cashed in on that success and went
further in the following years, first by making the iPod Windows-
compatible in 2002, and then by opening the iTunes Music Store
and developing a Windows version of iTunes in 2003.
In 2006, for the first time in its history, the firm from Cupertino left
its niche market to become as influential a player in consumer
electronics as Microsoft was in the PC space. The iPod’s market
share was close to 75%!
The master move, of course, came in January 2007, when Steve
Jobs introduced the iPhone at Macworld. The iPhone was arguably
the ultimate Apple product. Its beautiful hardware ran no less than
Apple’s full operating system, OS X. Three years after it was
introduced, it is already fair to say that the iPhone will go down in
history as the first digital convergence device, equivalent to putting
a computer, an iPod and a phone in your pocket. It was such an obvious part of Apple’s move outside the
PC business that Steve announced at the end of Macworld 2007, that the company’s name would be
changed from Apple Computer Inc. to Apple Inc.
In late 2003, Steve was diagnosed with pancreatic
cancer. It was only in August 2004 that he agreed to
undergo surgery. Although Steve and Apple kept
denying any serious problem, to everyone’s surprise,
in December 2008, they announced that the CEO
would not go on stage for the last Macworld keynote
in history in January 2009. Steve Jobs took six months
off (the first half of 2009), as he was awaiting a liver
transplant, which he underwent in April 2009.
2010 saw the incredible rebirth of Steve Jobs as a very active CEO. In August 2011, Jobs resigned as CEO
of Apple, but remained at the company as Chairman of the company’s board. On October 5, 2011, at
around 3:00 p.m., Jobs died at his home in Palo Alto, California, aged 56, six weeks after his landmark
resignation. A legendary life thus came to an end.
If we look closely, Steve Jobs was singularly devoted not to
technology, but to how people interacted with technology. It
wasn’t for us to fit into a world of computers, but for
computers to fit into a world of people. That is what made
Jobs different.
Jobs lived above his company and its products. This is what
made Jobs one of the great leaders of our time. He didn’t
lead a company – he led us. He inspired us. He had a cause,
and we followed him in his pursuit. Let me portray some
facets of the genius that was Steve – what made him an
iconic businessman, which transformed in a major way the
lifestyle of human beings and their interaction with
technology.
