Today’s news of Steve Jobs death strikes a cord of the convergence of a few important elements I can appreciate in a few small ways. Steve’s amazing story is the stuff of the American Dream…
Jobs was an entrepreneur and capitalist at heart. He looked for user problems and directed people’s time and money to steer the company ahead of opportunity, for profit. He suffered as many visionaries do early on by being too far ahead, but with age, he found a sweet spot of technological stretch and user believability.
Being a founder of Apple meant he was able to shape its vision in ways that most leaders would have considered a ‘bet the farm’ strategy. Even in the first year of his second stint as Apple CEO, he lost money on bad projects and got behind failed technologies. In fact, Apple took 3 years to show the financial fruit of his vision. 3 years. Three years ago, the iPad didn’t exist in the market.
Most importantly, Steve proved his abilities as a leader more at Pixar, with another company’s dreams, than anything he did at Apple. His impact in the media world allowed him to turn to technology and make it highly relevant and into a legit business (he took on Napster and not only won, he dominated).
Steve said that a career is built on a series of experiences that add up to skills and abilities to attack problems. He lived it by getting the most from his seemingly random typography class in college and again at Pixar.
His eventual dream that consumer electronics would outpace Microsoft’s business software bet which was almost impossible to envision 10 years ago. His ability to adapt, stretch and listen to users, but be choosy about what he offered made it a reality and is unmatched.
So many lessons.