22 Apr Knowing Steve Jobs
If you were inquired to name a company whose sleek products have become crazy well-known, you could probably think of a pretty good list fairly quickly. If we were to get more certain, asking you to name the company that is super well-known for its cell phones, not to mention tablets and laptops known for their ingenuity and easy user interface, Apple would probably be your first guess.
Cuz it’s true. The iPhone-iPad-iTunes-AppleWatch-world of today is something that most everyone are familiar with, and most of us own at least one of their products. And they aren’t just used on a personal scale; Apple’s products are utilized in huge business corporations all the way down to interactions between small business owners and their customers. And let’s not even get going on all the ways these devices are used in everyday life in our nation’s homes.
There’s no question about it; Apple is a greatly respected and loved brand, and their products are chosen by business men and women everywhere. And why not? When you consider Apple, you likely think about Steve Jobs, one of the most prominent businessmen of our time. And although he was already earning crazy amounts of money by his mid-twenties, it’s intriguing to note that finances weren’t a big focus for Jobs. He said, “I was lucky to get into computers when it was an idealistic and very young industry. There weren’t many degrees supplied in computer science, so people in computers were brilliant people from mathematics, physics, music, Zoology, whatever. They loved it, and nobody was really in it for the money […] There are people around here who begin companies just to earn money, but the great companies, well, that’s not what they’re about.”
Jobs became one of the most successful businessmen in the world, his beginnings were fairly average. Following his adoptive mother’s death, he made contact with his birth mother, a connection he maintained for the rest of his life.
He kind of struggled in school while he was growing up, and described himself as an aloof, too. But among the things that is so intriguing about him is that, while he’s known for his contribution in the tech industry, he actually loved the humanities as well. He put it this way: “I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics … then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, mentioned about the significance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.”
And while he may have battled in his younger years in school, things changed for him in high school, when he was presented to some of the world’s great literature, reading Shakespeare and Plato and other classics. He also experimented with drugs, and would later say that LSD ranked right up there when it came to things he ‘d done that had been essential in his life.
He was a spiritual man that was interested in Buddhism and eastern religious thought. This must have been shaped, in part, by the several months he spent in India when he was a younger man, and that journey forever influenced how he thought and got through his life from that time forward.
It’s always interesting to hear the background story of a crazy successful company, and Apple’s story doesn’t disappoint. It’s interesting to know that this company, which is big today, started rather humbly as an operation in Steve’s garage with his friend, Steve Wozniak. He would later say, “Of all the inventions of humans, the computer is going to rank near or at the top as history unfolds and we look back. It is the most amazing tool that we have ever invented. I feel incredibly lucky to be at exactly the right place in Silicon Valley, at specifically the right time, historically, where this invention has taken form.”
And though Jobs was among the founders of the company, he later went and resigned on to head NeXT, some other successful computer company. Nevertheless, years later, Apple bought NeXT, and Jobs became the CEO again at a critical time. When he took over, the company wasn’t doing that well, and it was under his leadership that it was turned around and put on the track that brought it to where it is today.
obs had pancreatic cancer, and died in October of 2011, leaving a pretty incredible legacy in his professional field. He holds well over 400 patents, and the footings that he provided to that company are foundational to how far it has come and where it will go in the future.
Many business men and women use Apple’s products as a tool to facilitate their business interactions. And while most businesses aren’t going to be anywhere near as successful as Apple has become, providing professional service and a quality product are hallmarks of any good company.
( The details for this post originated from the following source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs).