Steven Paul Jobs was born on the 24th February, 1955 in San Francisco to two university students, Joanne Schieble and Syrian–born John Jandali. They were both unmarried at the time, and Steven was given up for adoption. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, whom he always considered to be his real parents. Steven’s father, Paul, encouraged him to experiment with electronics in their garage. This led to a life-long interest in electronics and design.
After a local school in California, Jobs enrolled at Reed College, Portland College, Oregon. He struggled with formal education and his teachers reported he was a handful to teach. At Reed College he attended a calligraphy course which fascinated him. He later said this course was instrumental in Apple’s multiple typefaces and proportionally spaced fonts.
Job’s first real computer job came working for Atari computers where he came to know Steve Wozniak well. In 1976, Wozniak invented the first Apple 1 computer. Jobs, Wozniak and Ronald Wayne then set up Apple computers in Job’s parents’ garage. In 1984 Jobs designed the first Macintosh which was the first commercially successful home computer to use graphical user interface which was an important milestone in home computing.
In 1985 Jobs was fired from Apple which he later said was one of the best things that happened to him. On leaving Apple he founded NeXT computers and later was part of Pixar that Disney used to create animation movies. The movies were highly successful and profitable and created great respect and success for Jobs.
In 1996 the purchase of NeXT brought Jobs back to Apple. Apple had fallen way behind rivals such as Microsoft and was struggling to make profit. Jobs was made CEO and he launched out in a new direction. With a certain degree of ruthlessness, some projects were summarily ended and Jobs promoted the development of a new wave of products which focused on accessibility, appealing design and innovative features.
The iPod was a revolutionary product, iTunes became the second biggest music retailer with over six billion song downloads and Apple sold over 200 million iPods. In 2007 the iPhone was launched and became one of the best-selling electronic products. 2010 saw the launch of the iPad – a revolutionary new style of tablet computers. Steve Job’s design philosophy was to start with a fresh slate and to imagine a new product that people would want to use.
Apple has been rated No. 1 in America’s most admired companies. Under Jobs, Apple managed to overtake Microsoft and gained a pre-eminent reputation for the development and introduction of ground breaking technology.
At age 23 jobs was worth over $1 000 000, at 24 over $10 000 000, and at 25 over $100 000 000. Later share options from Apple and Disney gave him an estimated fortune of $8.3 billion. In 2011, Jobs died as a result of complications from pancreatic cancer and is buried in an unmarked grave at Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto.
Camine Gallo wrote three books on Steve Jobs and Apple. She was asked by the ABC News program “20/20” to share some of the insights she had gleaned from writing them. She updated the seven rules again with information she had learned since the original broadcast and recorded them in her attached article viz. “Steve Jobs followed 7 Unbreakable Laws of Success that apply to any Business”.
The Seven Rules are:
1. Follow your passions
2. Find your noble cause
3. Simplify everything
4. Unleash your creativity
5. Create “insanely great” customer experiences
6. Become the storyteller-in-chief
7. Sell dreams, not products
She concludes with, “Apple is fascinating to write about because its founder was endlessly fascinating. And he still gives us plenty to learn”.
Using her words I conclude, “Entrepreneurs should follow the Apple roadmap to set themselves apart”.
Read about it here:
(PERFORMANCE) - Steve Jobs Followed 7 Unbreakable Laws of SuccessPlease click on the bottom LH side of the page to turn to the following page
