27A- Reading Reflection No. 3

Cover of the book "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson.

Credit

Alessandra Montalto/The New York Times

Q1-  You read about an entrepreneur: 

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, I chose to read the biography of Steve Jobs for a few reasons and am glad that I did. The interest I had in choosing this biography probably had to do with the influence I experienced growing up.  My first computer was an Apple IIe computer back when floppy discs were around. This computer came out in 1983, the year I was born and while the rave was IBM when I was growing up this one was geared towards business, personal and educational uses therefore we had it. Steve Jobs has made one of the largest influential impacts globally that I am familiar with which is why I have been fascinated uniqueness as an entrepreneur. I have watched the movie that came out in 2013 about Steve Jobs and many documentaries but had not read his biography until this class.   

• What surprised you the most? I was surprised to learn that Steve Jobs asked Walter Isaacson to write his biography at a time where he learned he had pancreatic cancer. It was surprising to me that Steve Jobs reached out to Walter Isaacson, author, to write his biography based on previous biographies written by him. Both Albert Eisenstein and Leonardo da Vinci had biographies written by Isaacson before writing about Jobs. I am always interested in learning about the childhood element when it comes to highly successful people. Those who hold some sort fame whether it is an entrepreneur or just someone brilliant, tend to have very interesting upbringings. I was surprised to find out that Steve Jobs was adopted and more so that he knew this at a young age. The coping of that alone as a young child explains a lot about his mind set in his biography. The allusion that he felt as some sort of misfit gave him a tremendous amount of courage to define himself through his uniqueness. The life experiences throughout his biography explain his relentless energy to become something larger than obstacles in front him. 

• What about the entrepreneur did you most admire? The fact Steve Jobs started his company out of his garage is pretty admirable to me. Someone who can make something out of nothing is pretty rare and to take it to levels no one would imagine is even more admirable. I also can appreciate how he struggled but never gave up, he faced many adverse realities and finding ways to overcome this made for several ups and downs. As socially unacceptable as dropping out of school has always been, Steve Jobs certainly over achieved in areas most would fear the challenge of. The confidence he exudes in his journey speaks for itself.

• What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?  Steve struggled with his identity and the true heritage of his biological parents. He was known for unpredictable interactions with employees and a forceful temper. A few instances in his biography where I least admired his character was how he conducted himself during conflict. Steve Jobs struggled with managing people at times as well as his emotions. Adoption had a profound effect on his emotional self control. His way of dealing with this, was that he only wanted to work with people who demand perfection.

• Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?According to the his biography, Steve Jobs faced many adversities through all stages of his life. Several stages of his Apple legacy were adverse challenges, he went into a deep depression in 1985 when the Macintosh office failed. At one point Steve Jobs was fired from Apple in 1985 over a power struggle with the companies board as well as CEO, John Sculley. 

Q2- What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? 
To be an entrepreneur, the first risk you take is the possibility of failure. This is something that Steve Job was fearless of. His mindset allowed him to find something greater than the problem when things did not go as planned. Steve Jobs dared to do things differently through impressive ambitions. He had difficulty in structured classroom settings, he often rebelled against figures of authority. It is said that this was because he was often bored and was not challenged enough. 

Q3-  Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you. 
Where he got the name for Apple was alluded to a story about a day he was at an apple farm and decided to file Apple as the official name for the company.. Reading further into his biography I found another major reason for Apple's name. It had nothing to do with personal preferences or symbolism, it was a clear cut business decision. Apple comes before Atari in the phonebook. Because Steve formerly worked at Atari and wanted his computer company to be seen first by people looking through a phone book directory. 

Q4-  If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

It is interesting to me to understand entrepreneurs frame of mind before taking the risk and after. Because of this, I would ask the following questions:

1. What was the most rewarding experience he had as an entrepreneur and if he could do it all over again what he would do differently?  

2. What advice would he give his children or aspiring entrepreneurs before taking the risk of owning a business and how his decisions impacted his personal life? 

Q5-  For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

In the way of an opinion his was strong. I think for Steve Jobs hard work was and ingrained expectation of his own more that it was an opinion of his. I think to Steve Jobs hard work was a way of life and just the way it was. He expected other people to work hard and did not hesitate to tell them if the were not. Often times other people's opinion of hard work did not meet his expectations. He was a perfectionist, naturally this required hard work. I can relate to this mentality, from a values point of view. Hard work is not easy, those that really want to achieve great things have to have a strong will and desire to work hard.

About Steve Jobs:

Walter Isaacson Talks about Steve Jobs- YouTube Clip

Steve Jobs in a documentary about Apple (1985)- YouTube Clip