A wise man once said, “Visionary builds what dreamers imagined.” I think this quote alone is sufficient to describe Steve Jobs. He was a character shrouded with controversies and distorted reality for his countercultural lifestyle.
He was a complex man and an enigma for the people around him. But these are traits that great people commonly have as history has showed us again and again. It is no doubt that he was a visionary who gave the world a lot and managed to push humanity forward.
Early Life
Jobs had a very unfortunate beginning in that he was given up at birth in 1955. But he was lucky enough to be adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs who raised him as their own son. He was difficult as a child and his adoptive mother had even once thought about returning him.
Jobs had developed a love for craftsmanship from the very beginning as his father was a great craftsman, who in his words, could build anything. And by the time he turned 10, he got deeply infatuated by the world of electronics and had made friends with a lot engineers in his neighbourhood though he was often thought to be a loner.
Schooling is always a subject of intrigue with great minds. They are often dissatisfies with the educational system which led to frustrations. The same was the case with Jobs as well and part of the reason was that he himself was an innovative thinker and had always been a resistor of authority.
The Two Steves Meet
The Jobs family moved to Los Altos, California in 1967 and Steve made friends with even more engineers in his new locality. After a few years, he met Steve Wozniak at Homestead High School and what a historical meeting it was.
Both of them clicked immediately over their shared love for electronics. Though Jobs was only 13 and Woz was 18, they got along just perfect. This would turn out to be a great friendship and arguably the reason Apple ever happened.
He also went on to make two separate circles of friends. One who loved all things electronics and the other who was creative and were interested in art and literature. He would go on to marry both these types into his products at Apple which is the main reason for their popularity.
A College Dropout
Although Jobs’s parents couldn’t afford it, Jobs was enrolled to Reed College. It was during this period that Jobs slept on the floor of his friends’ dorm, returned Coke bottles for money and ate weekly free meals in the local Hare Krishna temple.
But soon Jobs dropped out of Reed to save his parents’ money and because he was feeling direction less but he continued to attend by auditing classes. During this period, he got very interested in and attended a course of calligraphy which he later credited as the reason Macs have different typography.
The Hippie Period
It is a well known fact that Jobs had been a hippie in his own right. After dropping out from college, he had taken up a job at Atari, where he impressed his boss who stated that he was often the smartest one in the room.
After a few months he left for a trip to India for spiritual growth. During this time he experimented with all sorts of psychedelic drugs which he later stated was “one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life.”
He came to the US after seven months of travelling and rejoined Atari.
The Epiphany
Jobs’ realisation that he could start his own company by leveraging his love for electronics and take on the big guys, came when his friend Steve Wozniak had invented a low cost digital blue box which could manipulate the telephone network, allowing for free long distance calls.
It was then that they could turn their hobby into a profitable venture. Jobs later stated that if not for the blue box, Apple wouldn’t have existed.
Apple
Jobs started Apple in the garage of his parents’ home with Woz at the age of just 21. Woz had invented a circuit board and Jobs figured out that if they could produced enough of those, they could be sold at a profit. And thus, on April 1, 1976, Apple came into existence.
Much of the early work was done in the garage. Jobs had managed to get several people involved in the project and had also managed to get some funding. After the initial success of Apple I, they really started to look at things seriously trying to make their little venture a success, to put a dent into the universe as Jobs liked to say.
The Apple II was launched in 1977 and things just took off from there. It was the first consumer product that Apple ever sole. That product alone put both the Steves into the radar of everybody else. Jobs had managed to break the glass ceiling of the Silicon Valley achieving success at such a young age.
In 1984, came the first Macintosh, which was slated as the personal computer that would change the whole landscape.
Apple, under the guidance of Steve Jobs has turned many industries on their heads. They revolutionised the personal computer landscape, the music industry, media consumption, introduced the real smartphone industry. All the revolutionary products that Apple designed have literally helped shape modern technology. At least in the consumer space.
Jobs never wrote a single line of code for Apple and nor did he invent the technologies that were the reason for Apple’s success but his presence, guidance, leadership, visionary outlook, personality and tireless efforts all played a very important part in making Apple what it is today and making the entire consumer electronics space what it is today.
Jobs’ departure from his own company, his dramatic comeback and saving of the sinking ship that was Apple in 1997 all show the journey of one man with one mission, to bring a change in the world, in people’s lives, giving them the tools to unlock their potential and help everyone be a part of the further enhancement of the human race.
Apart from Apple, Jobs also managed to take Pixar, an animation company to the epitome of success with which Disney ended up merging. Pixar has produced many successful movies over the years. Although not on the movies themselves, but Jobs has had an influence on the culture itself. Both at Apple and at Pixar. And it’s the culture that matters, the core DNA of a philosophy that shows people the way and lets them achieve their fullest potential.
Design Philosophy
This is perhaps the single most important thing that his entire life’s success hinges on. Jobs was a follower of Zen Buddhism. He believed in simplicity. He was a simple man himself and his products show this. A look at every company’s products tells the story of Apple’s constant strive towards innovation and refinement. This philosophy was instilled by Jobs into the heart of his company.
He was the one who said that, technology and humans should not be two separate worlds. Technology should feel like an extension of oneself. This is why he tried to make his products as simple, minimalistic and elegant as possible. He married art with technology and the results are just wonderful. He has inspired tons of designers in the world who look upon his philosophy as the guiding path towards self achievement.
Final Thoughts
Steve Jobs was infamous for being rude and kind of a bully. But in a strange, unexplainable way, he was right. He delivered results and he delivered them quick. He had this talent to bring out the full potential in people and then some.
All this has led to the introduction of remarkable technology during the years he was at Apple. Today, we use his products and take them for granted, not realising how many years of thinking and toiling and frustration it had taken to come up with the products that are so pristine and beautiful.
He was truly a visionary.
"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become." - Steve Jobs