Becoming Steve Jobs Book Summary(2015) talks about the life and work of this tech genius. In this summary, we’ll learn about the history of Apple, the development of Jobs, his early successes and failures, as well as the innovations that led to a revolutionary product like the iPhone.
Brend Schlender has covered Steve Jobs for Wall Street and Fortune for nearly two decades. One of the historians of the development of the personal computer, he has interviewed Steve Jobs several times.
Rick Tetzli has written about technology for over 20 years. He is currently the executive director of Fast Company, editor of Entertainment Weekly and former deputy editor of Fortune.
Steve Jobs had a natural skill in technology from the beginning.
Steve Jobs is a daring and creative example for entrepreneurs in the tech industry. Despite being the idol of many, he remains an enigma – a noble man fighting for innovations and great designs. As the CEO of Apple, Jobs started one of the most valuable companies in the world, along with it he made many amazing products including the iPhone. But in reality who is this man full of myths? Many stories were told.
To some, Jobs seems to be a visionary leader, while to some, a stubborn, single-minded perfectionist or a stubborn half-genius, even mad. This is the story of Steve Jobs becoming the Steve Jobs of today. In this summary you will know, how did Apple get its name “Apple”? What role did Pixar play in Jobs’ return to Apple, and how did Jobs fight to the death to create some of his last great products?
So let’s get started!
Steve Jobs was born on 24 February 1955 in San Francisco, only after he was born, his mother Joanna Scheble wanted to give him in adoption. Due to which he grew up as the son of a working class couple Paul and Clara Jobs. Jobs grew rapidly in his understanding of technology, perhaps the adoption of Paul and Clara played a large part in Steve Jobs’ progress. His father was a car mechanic and craftsman who made furniture. He had a workbench in his garage where his father taught him to make things, take things apart and then put them back together.
This education made him a lot better. After a long time, when he was showing his iPod to the writer, he told how his father had explained to him that the more work you do for finishing the furniture, the better it is on the inside side too. Should do. Jobs was also very smart. He had left class 6th and was naturally attracted towards maths and science. Because of his skills in these subjects, he was accepted into the Explorer Club, a group of children working on electronic projects on Hewlett Packard’s (HP) campus.
It was here that Jobs used the computer for the first time. He was an asset to the industry, so it’s no surprise that he founded “Apple” with Stephen Wozniak at the age of 21.
Something like this happened, Stephen and Jobs met in 1969 when a mutual friend of theirs introduced the two, Stephen Lockheed Martin, the son of an engineer and an engineering genius. Back then, computing was not personal and did not even have a monitor and keyboard.
Stephen recognized these shortcomings and Jobs knew he could build a better computer for home use. He built his setup in Jobs’s father’s garage and started working on the Apple-1 model. He called the nearby children and asked them to assemble the computer and very soon a small assembly line was ready with them. He named this new company Apple, a gesture/tribute to the Garden of Eden and Origen Apple Arcade, where Jobs used to go after high school.
Apple soon made the second computer, the company became one of the fastest growing startups in history.
Jobs had found the purpose of his life while building his company and designing the Apple-1. Together with Stephen, he convinced local business owners to sell their machines. Soon he started selling a dozen computers within a few weeks. Less than 200 units of this model could be shipped but even this success was enough to cheer up. After increasing the speed of his first attempt and getting assurance from Stephen that he can make a better machine,
He started working on his second computer, Apple-2. He needed money to make Stephen’s plan successful. And this problem was solved after Jobs persuaded Intel’s former executive Markula to invest. The messiah investor gave $92,000 out of his own pocket and set a target of $250,000 for the new company. In addition, Markkula hired Michelle Scottie Scott, who became Apple’s first professional CEO and became the first professional CEO of the company Jobs. The family shifted from the garage to a real office.
In this new office, he focused on his vision of building a personal computer with the help of professional assistance and startup money. His hard work became successful in 1970 and Apple-2 was released. This computer had many specialties, it had a fast microprocessor as well as input for audio amplifier, speaker and gaming joystick. The best part was that being a personal computer, it did not come with industry horror and it was complete in a box. Well packed. Along with this, the rest of the features made it a huge success.
Very soon Apple became one of the fastest growing startups in history. Here, immediately after the release of Apple Second, from June 1977, the company started sending about 500 computers in a month. From here he found rapid success, his sales increased from $ 7.8 million in 1978 to $ 48 million in 1979.
Jobs was forcibly fired due to several product failures. In late 1977, Jobs’ life had become a roller-coaster, he was in his twenties and had completely thrown himself into a career. , had forgotten his social life and sometimes worked without sleep. This was beneficial in many ways as well, when Apple went public, Jobs’ stake in it was about $ 256 million. However, Jobs had absorbed himself within the company, leaving aside early investors such as Fernandez and Daniel Kotke.
After that he and Stephen started growing or working separately. Jobs wanted to make some other great product immediately but the company was not ready for it. First, the Apple-3 arrived in 1980. It was a complete waste in comparison to the other two products, with a $4,340 tag on it, but that wasn’t the quality. This computer heats up too much. After Apple-2 In 1983, the computer designed for business “Lisa” was released. It was the first computer to use a graphical user interface.
This meant that there were some symbols on its desktop that users could click to open files and programs. Jobs’s interest was in making computers for personal use, so this computer made for business failed even more than Apple-3. Then in 1984 the company released Mesitosh. Initially, it was highly praised by the media for its graphics, but due to too much under power, it did not prove to be useful and its sales margins fell badly. The failures made Jobs very difficult.
After leaving Apple, Jobs continued to try to revolutionize technology, but with little success.
Even after being fired from Apple, Jobs did not give up. He was ready to revolutionize technology, with investors and the media describing him as a genius, convincing him that he could make a great CEO. Jobs was convinced that he was the only person who could make the best product. So he opened the computer company NEXT in 1985, but here he did not get success as easily as he thought.
A firm was opened with the idea to manufacture computers for the needs of the higher education market. The academics Jobs spoke to said he couldn’t afford a single penny above $3,000. Yet when NEXT released its first computer, it had a retail cost of $65,00. This was not even the full cost of a functioning NEXT system, for the whole job, users were only able to pay around $10000, with no chance of producing a product at this price.
Product failure was a classic example of Job’s general tenacity, he was so engrossed in innovation that he failed to notice the tradeoffs that were essential to his choices. For example, he used storage instead of hard drives. For used optical disc drive. Disk drive had many advantages, it could store 200 times more information and it could also be separated from the computer. But deleting information from optical drives was difficult and at that time no one wanted a removable storage system.
Things weren’t good at NEXT, but Jobs had another project. He had gained a substantial participation in Pixar. It was the computer subdivision of Lucasfilm, which was behind the special effects of Star Trek 2 and Young Sherlock Holmes. Due to the company’s high tier software for manipulation of 3D images, it got the attention of Jobs. It was Jobs’ experience at Pixar that got him re-entered at Apple.
Microsoft dominated the computer industry during the 1990s, but the success of Pixar re-stabilized Jobs. While Jobs was having trouble fulfilling the vision of the utterly devastated NEXT, on the other, tech star Parwan was climbing. And it was TechStars Microsoft founder Bill Gates. During the 1990s, his company started dominating the industry as companies like Apple and NEXT started going downhill.
In 1991, Microsoft became the world’s leading software company. This was probably also because Apple and NEXT did not license their operating systems to other manufacturers, while Microsoft’s operating system and Windows became the standard for all personal computers except those made by Apple and NEXT. was. This thing made Gates famous in the super elite rich circle, but also completely cleared the fundamental difference between him and Jobs.
For example, Jobs would always try to make something new, some innovative machine, while Gates, on the other hand, was not interested in revolutionizing the computer industry. He just wanted to improve gradually and increase the reliability, which was also desired by crores of users.
Because of this difference, Bill Gates became the world’s most important businessman, the same jobs were sidelined. But all this changed when the success of Pixar gave Jobs a new confidence, in fact, something like this happened in 1995. Pixar partnered with Disney to make its first animated film, Toy Story, which was a huge success. After the success of Pixar, Jobs, who had 80% stake, became a billionaire overnight.
The strange thing was that due to the release of this animated film for children, the lost job came back in the limelight. His confidence increased and his experience at Pixar also taught him a lot about management importance.
After joining Apple in 1997, Jobs got the company back on track.
With the release of Toy Story, Jobs was back in the spotlight. NEXT was still not successful. The company’s products were still not selling and Jobs’s dream that this company would make the next best product was shattered. To some extent this was the low point of his career. The situation was so bad that Jobs stopped production, he focused on making software, especially the operating system NEXT step, which was at least a little successful. If the situation of NEXT was bad, then also know what was going on in Apple.
By the mid-1990s, the company was on the verge of sinking. It did not have any promising products and it was also failing to modernize the operating system. Also, Apple had too many employees which it could not afford. As a result, the company lost $ 750 million in the first half of 1996. After what happened to Jobs at Apple, Jobs also wanted to see the company’s ruin, but when it actually started happening, it was painful for him .
After that Jobs got an opportunity, Apple was trying to buy a more advanced operating system and software company to avoid its crisis. Jobs also tried his hand and in 1996 Apple bought NEXT. In this way, Jobs returned to Apple.
Over the next few years, he worked hard to make Apple a profitable leader company in the computer industry. This work began after the forced registration of then-CEO Gil Amelio, whom Jobs described as “Bozo”. Jobs was offered this position and he once again took over his empire. Even after coming to Apple again, Jobs was not able to decide what was first for him.
In fact, in the last few years, instead of taking a hasty decision, he had learned to take decisions after thinking carefully. And finally one of his confusions ended and by 2000, many great products like Apple iMac and Apple Mac were available in the market. This made the company once again and the company came out of danger. Next you will know how Jobs did all this
Apple reached the mass market by developing iTunes and iPod, and once again stood out for itself.
Jobs managed to make Apple a leading company from a sinking company, but how? At first, he downsized the firm in terms of resources, during which a lot of employees had to go, but the jobs who were left, managed to inspire them to make great products by inspiring them. In this way, they gave the company a clear direction I did it by standing, did not focus on anything other than 4 basic products. The company has prepared two models of computer PC and laptop, one model of both the products is for the consumer and one for the professionals.
With such a focus, the company had returned to its old avatar. But the real innovation happened in 2001 when the company created a product called iTunes, which allowed users to archive their digital music and create simple and easy-to-use personal playlists. But what was even better with iTunes was that it developed the iPod. Introduced in late 2001, the MP3 player was Apple’s first launch in the mass market of the electronic consumer. Pocket size MP3 players were available at that time but their design was useless and it was very difficult to find your favorite music.
The iPod changed all this. It was highly appreciated by a large section of users due to its user interface and unique “thumb wheel”, which allowed users to scroll through and find their favorite music collection. Consumers liked this product very much and its sales grew rapidly. After that in 2003, the company created iTunes Music Store in software which was later opened to Windows users as well, which became the second step to capture the market.
The music star’s edition became a huge success. In this, users were provided such an option at a simple and low cost, from which they could buy their albums and signals, which they had to download illegally. It was so successful that by 2003 the company had sold 25 million songs, the company once again came on top.
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