IndexBasic InformationStarting Your BusinessFacing and Overcoming ChallengesCharacteristics that Lead to SuccessMotivation of Steve JobsWorks CitedBasic InformationSteve Jobs is an American entrepreneur, business mogul, inventor and designer industrial. He was president, CEO and co-founder of Apple Inc. Jobs was also CEO and majority shareholder of Pixar, a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company. Steve Jobs invested in Pixar and is the founder, president and CEO of NEXT. However, Steve Jobs is known to the world for the microcomputer revolution and the first steps in smartphone technology. Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco, California on February 24, 1955. Steve's biological parents gave him up for adoption, unnamed. As a child, Jobs was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs for whom he was named Steven Paul Jobs. Clara worked as an accountant and Paul was a Coast Guard veteran and machinist. During the learning phase of life, Jobs and his father worked on electronics in the family garage. Paul showed his son how to take apart and rebuild electronic components, which became Jobs' interest and a hobby that built his experience and mechanical skill for electronics. As a young student, Jobs was such an intelligent and innovative thinker that the administration suggested that Jobs skip high school. After high school, Jobs was unsure of his future path. He dropped out of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, after six months and then took creative classes at the school where he developed his love of typography. In 1974, Jobs took a position as a video game designer at Atari. During his high school years, Job was introduced to his future partner and co-founder of Apple Computer, Steve Wozniak. Both friends had a common interest in computers which led them to found Apple Inc. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Starting the Business During his high school years, Steve Jobs would ask William Hewlett, co-founder and president of HP, to go on a school project. However, Hewlett helped him with the parts, but also offered him a summer internship at Hewlett-Packard. It was there that Jobs met Steve Wozniak, a young engineer five years his senior who became friends with Jobs. In 1976, both friends opened a workshop in the Jobs family garage. Jobs sold his Volkswagen bus and his friend sold his HP calculator, so they can finance their business with capital of $1,350; the beginning of Apple. From that point on, both friends began working on the Apple I prototype, which was later sold to hobbyists. This helped them generate enough money to improve their design, which led them to introduce the Apple II in 1977. It was the first personal computer with color graphics and a keyboard, designed for beginners. This invention was a huge success in Jobs' career, as it ushered in a new era in electronic technology. In the first year sales exceeded $3 million and then two years later sales exceeded $200 million. However, as competition increased in the 1980s, Apple faced declining sales, caused primarily by the Apple III and LISA; caused the company to lose nearly half of its market to IBM. Through great ups and downs, Apple is now the first $700 billion company, and even Apple has surpassed Google as the most valuable brand in the world. Now Apple is in the running to become the first company with a market capitalization of $1 trillion. Face and overcomethe challenges Steve Jobs did not have a perfect life, as he was given up for adoption as a child and later found out that both parents had married and had another child. Not only that, Apple was a struggle to manage as when its sales were declining, Steve Jobs had to create something new for people to buy, leading to the creation of the Macintosh. However, this too was a failure due to marketing flaws. He then created the Mac, a home computer that was too expensive for the consumer market. This led him to pitch the Mac as a business computer, but due to its lack of features and capabilities, it was also a huge failure. Despite all these difficulties, Steve Jobs was fired as Apple's board of directors sided with CEO John Sculley, who chose to run Apple personally. Losing all his power, Jobs sold his Apple shares and resigned in 1985. According to William Simon, co-author of "iCon: Steve Jobs, the Greatest Second Act in the History of Business." Steve was very demanding because he expected a lot from the people who worked for him, and being kind and polite was not part of his behavior. However, not all failures and challenges are a bad thing, as Steve Jobs said “it was the best thing that ever happened to me”. After a few months of not being sure where to start his career, he still had a passion for working with electronics and overcame all these challenges by starting over and not giving up; just like it did with the launch of a new computer, increasing sales. Using money from the stock sale, Jobs launched NeXT Computer Co., with the goal of building a computer that would revolutionize research and higher education. The computer was introduced in 1988, featured numerous innovations, including fast processing speeds, great graphics, and an optical disc drive, but being too expensive it did not attract enough sales to keep the company afloat. Jobs overcame this by shifting the company's focus from hardware to software. He also began to pay more attention to his other business, Pixar Animation Studios, which he had purchased from George Lucas in 1986. Jobs began creating the first computer-animated feature film known as Toy Story. It became a huge success when it was published in November 1995 that Jobs took Pixar public in 1996, and by the end of the first day of trading, his 80% stake in the company was worth $1 billion. This also helped him overcome the problems of his other businesses as Apple purchased NeXT for $400 million and reappointed Jobs to Apple's board of directors as an advisor to Apple's president due to Apple's difficulties with development and hoped that Jobs could change the situation. Apple is still in big trouble. Jobs was then hired as CEO. It overcame this major problem with the help of Microsoft, investing in them to cooperate on several sales and technology fronts. An important lesson from this was that even though Jobs had faced so many challenges that led to him being fired from the company he founded, he then started from the bottom and slowly made his way to the top, this time coming in stronger. Characteristics that lead to successSteve Jobs became a successful entrepreneur with his developed characteristics. Steven Paul Jobs was a hard worker and had the courage to become something special. When Apple's sales were collapsing, he had the courage to increase sales by staying up all night and meeting to create the next best thing. After many failures, he continued to work harder and harder until he created the largest company in the worldworld in this technological age. He was the initiator of new smartphones, all thanks to his courage and hard work that never broke him down. This entrepreneur was successful because he had a passion for electronics. Even after being kicked out of the company he founded, he didn't abandon his hobby of electronics. His passion from a young age (working on electronics with his father and videography from school courses), helped him start 2 new businesses that were ultimately off the charts. Pixar created Toy Story, which marked a new era in animated films and became the most popular film, which ultimately helped gain popularity in its NeXT business. His passion for success and working with electronics helped him succeed from the bottom up. He was also successful because he showed leadership in both companies. His enthusiasm and toughness pushed people to work hard and with his leadership skills he created ideas and plans for employees, so that everyone can achieve a profitable product. An example of his leadership was that NeXt was losing sales, so his toughness took the employee seriously and with his knowledge of electronics, he made a plan to focus on software and not hardware. This helped the company to increase sales for which Apple bought it for its great products and sales. When Jobs was working with Woz to create the first microcomputer, Steve gave Woz the courage not to give up on the product and for this reason he started Apple. Steve Jobs was also a problem solver in his life, as when he was hired returning to Apple, sales were decreasing drastically, whereupon he showed leadership and his ability to solve the problem by working with Bill Gates (Microsoft) to receive funding and also agreeing to collaborate with sales. Its features saved Apple from bankruptcy and is now the most successful company in the world. Another characteristic that made Steve Jobs successful was his ability to try new things. When he was in high school and college he tried other courses to find the perfect one for him. While those courses didn't turn out to be his favorite, he took the knowledge he gained from researching the courses and put it to use in the company he founded. For example, Jobs took creativity courses and worked with Atrai to gain experience that helped him expand his creativity and his ability to program to create new and better products like the iPod and iPhone. These are just 5 characteristics that made Steve Jobs a successful entrepreneur, even today. Steve Jobs' Motivation Steve Jobs became what he is today thanks to his passion for electronics, self-motivation and inspiration from Edwin Land. His passion for electronics motivated him to choose a career related to electronics. When one is passionate about something, they are motivated to not give up. His passion had helped him find another job related to his passion, computers. Even though he had disappointed Apple, he did not abandon his career in electronics. His passion motivated him to open another NeXt business that also dealt with electronics. Jobs failed then too, but his passion told him to never give up and he also came up with the idea of focusing on software and not hardware. Since then his business has been successful and all thanks to his passion. According to Quora.com, "When Steve was 17, he read a quote: If you live every day as if it were your last, one day you will surely be right." This affected him so much that from that day on every morning he looked in the mirror and asked himself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” If.
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