Great Men, Part II: Steve Jobs 


"I want to make a ding in the universe." 



Anyone who knows me even the smallest bit probably also knows that I am, what one might call, a "Mac Evangelist". Not only that, but I am a fan of almost everything "Apple" which is a good thing to be considering that I work with Apple products and people all of the time and also considering that I am a shareholder of the company.

There is one name that is synonymous with Apple and that name is Steve Jobs. Although the history of Apple Computer is sometimes as complicated and confusing as a story-line on 'General Hospital' or 'As The World Turns', the one person that often made it so Byzantine is also the same person who brought it the stability guidance that it so desperately needed at a time when Apple was rarely referred to without the word "Beleaguered" before it. That person is Steven P Jobs.

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

Jobs, by any account, is a very stubborn man. I suppose that you can afford to be so rigid when your net worth is quite over $1 billion dollars. In fact, it has been argued that his (in)famously cantankerous persona is actually what has made him the success and legend that he has indeed become over a surprisingly short amount of time; Jobs is only 49 years old this year but is a member of the "computer revolution" generation which also can count Bill Gates and Scott McNealy as its members.

Might I also insert here that Jobs is a famously liberal man, politically (he and former President Clinton are apparently good friends and Al Gore is on Apple's Board of Directors). Unlike other, perhaps, more ideologically-set individuals, I do not base those who I admire on their political beliefs. Instead, I examine the person as a whole, choosing to highlight the qualities that are most prominent and which best-illustrate the individual. I want to tell you how Jobs has made himself so that he is one of the richest men in the world, not how because he is so rich that he can actually afford to pay sky-high taxes. We'll save that discussion for another day...

Granted, Jobs isn't the computer genius that Apple cofounder and inventor Steve Wozniak ("Wozniak" means "wheel barrow" in Polish) was, he was able to and still has quite a remarkable knack for selling the product. Some have even claimed that Jobs has a "reality distortion field" that projects from him to the bodies around, allowing him to make even the dumbest or smallest product or feature appear and actually BE insanely great. He can sell and he does it well; that is one of the things that I admire him most about, his ability to be a persuasive speaker. This skill has proven invaluable for Apple as he almost single-handedly brought it back to prominence when he took its reigns in 1996.

About Jobs: "Like the Bhagwan, driving around Rancho Rajneesh each day in another Rolls-Royce, Jobs kept his troops fascinated and productive. The joke going around said that Jobs had a 'reality distortion field' surrounding him. He'd say something, and the kids in the Macintosh division would find themselves replying 'Drink poison Kool-Aid? Yeah, that makes sense'."
-Robert X. Cringely, 1992.

I write this blog entry when I should actually be researching for and writing a 10-page paper that is due on Monday at noon (about 36 hours from now). I suppose this could be considered a bit of a warmup for the remainder of the writing that has to be completed in such a short amount of time, but the primary reason that I am writing this is because I want to write it. Although I recognize the supreme importance of a college education in this day and age, I also admire those who were able to achieve greatness even without completing college at all. Jobs is one of those people, again, like Bill Gates, who was able to make his own way on his own terms and to find something worthwhile to capitalize on. (As a side-note, Jobs attended Reed College in Portland, OR, where one of my best friends currently goes to school and is studying the classics; Jobs studied physics, literature and poetry--quite the Renaissance man, eh?) His independent spirit and wide range of interests are some of his other characteristics that I highly admire.

Without delving into the entire Apple soap opera-like story, suffice it to say that Jobs formed the company, grew the company, ticked off the "suits" at the company and got ticked off himself and left, only to sell off all of his stock (20 million shares) to form a new technology company, NeXT Corporation. NeXT was a computer and a software company that developed an operating system and pretty revolutionary (though massively expensive) computer systems. At the same time Jobs also purchased a small computer animation company from George Lucas and named it Pixar Animation Studios, or more simply put, Pixar. While the former company did not succeed, the latter did and has, up until now, created the five largest grossing animated films in history with Disney. That contract has now expired (and was not renewed due to Jobs' knack for pushing things a bit too far, perhaps especially at the negotiating table) and Pixar will be able to compose and distribute films on its own after completing two more projects with Disney; they have the market scope and resources now, after five immensely successful films, to work on their own, although many still speculate that they may be in the market for a new partner to take Disney's place.

I have so much confidence in Jobs that I am also a Pixar shareholder. My money has been invested wisely.

(I did originally split the infinitive in that last sentence when I wrote "wisely invested", but my latest linguistics class has taught me well. I won't "boldly go" anywhere else ever again if I instead have the option to "go boldly". I advise you to do the same.)

(Note: in "normal" journalism [i.e. unlike Viacom and '60 Minutes' with Dick Clarke's little Bush "exposé"], which this is most certainly not, my stakes in both of Jobs' companies would be mandated and required and my glowing review would appear to be a conflict of interest. Isn't the internet lovely?)

Although Pixar was a success, NeXT was not, and Apple wasn't doing too well either during the mid-90s. It wasn't long before Jobs was first brought back into Apple as a unpaid "consultant" to the board and to the officers, but soon he was appointed the post of interim CEO, or "iCEO" as he was later called for then-painfully obvious reasons. When Jobs took the helm of Apple in mid-1997 he made the decision to purchase NeXT in an effort to modernize its nearly 20-year-old operating system. Some conspiracy theorists contend that instead of this being an Apple takeover of NeXT it was actually a NeXT takeover of Apple; the entire NeXT executive team was brought into Apple to take charge. It couldn't have been a better thing to happen to the troubled company.

Jobs slowly began pushing for a renewed sense of innovation and creativity within the company and ended up turning the computer world upside-down with his release of the iMac in 1998. The "Bondi blue"-colored, bubble-shaped, $1299 machine was an instant success, and probably was mostly so because of its stylish design. Appearance is everything and Jobs recognizes that very well.

With the launch of the iMac Apple was again in the news, and this time not for another management shakeup or quarterly loss; this time Apple had done something right. The next few years saw Apple release more colored and aesthetically-pleasing computers, software and even a little something called the iPod. Over the past couple of years Apple has launched the first successful online music store, the first mainstream UNIX-based operating system (based mainly off of the NeXT OS), the first 64-bit personal computer (the G5) and countless other innovative products that has kept it alive and its competitors, however dominant, on their toes.

If I might be so bold, I sometimes think of Steve Jobs as a visionary not only in the field of computers and technology, but also in the broad realm of marketing. While Jobs has missed on a few hunches (the Power Mac Cube being the biggest, but also one of the coolest, in more than one way) his hits far outnumber those few flops. Perhaps it is his violent temper that makes people fear him that gets the job done, or perhaps its his charm and enthusiasm that creates an aura of obedience and a can-do attitude in those working with and around him. Whatever it is, Jobs has a unique set of gifts and has made a great impact on our world. Hell, he continues to change it for the better and he does it all in good taste.

Appearance is everything. Human beings love good-looking people and good-looking things. They trust them and pay good money for them (not for the people, mind you, but for the things). What Jobs has done is to merge the two, appearance and usefulness, into a seamless whole--a whole that is exciting and new and fun. Whether you're listening to legally-downloaded music on your iPod or watching 'Toy Story' on your DVD player, Jobs has been an integral part of your experience and an essential member of our digital age.

I endeavor to take my place in some arena just like him.

Next week: the 41st President of the United States: Ronald Reagan, part III in my "Great Men" series.

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(Phew! I slipped this one in right under the deadline! It was a self-imposed deadline, you'll understand, but when I said that this was going to be a weekly series I meant it.) 

Posted: Sat - April 24, 2004 at 11:52 PM          

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