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Steve Jobs: Innovator and Apple Visionary

Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Computer in 1976 and revolutionized personal computing with products like the Apple II and Macintosh. Though he was fired from Apple in 1985, he returned in 1997 to save the struggling company, cutting products to focus on just four and stabilizing Apple's finances. Jobs exhibited strong leadership and vision in pulling Apple through crises. After his death, Jobs' energy and values continue to influence Apple's culture and success through the daily routines and practices he helped establish.

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Nguyễn Ngọc Đại Kim
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156 views2 pages

Steve Jobs: Innovator and Apple Visionary

Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Computer in 1976 and revolutionized personal computing with products like the Apple II and Macintosh. Though he was fired from Apple in 1985, he returned in 1997 to save the struggling company, cutting products to focus on just four and stabilizing Apple's finances. Jobs exhibited strong leadership and vision in pulling Apple through crises. After his death, Jobs' energy and values continue to influence Apple's culture and success through the daily routines and practices he helped establish.

Uploaded by

Nguyễn Ngọc Đại Kim
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Steve Jobs

Steve co-founded Apple Computer in his garage with friend Steve Wozniak on April 1976,
revolutionizing computing in the 1970s and ‘80s with the ‘Apple II’ and ‘Macintosh’, which, for
the first time, made it possible for average people to use computers at home. Steve’s
personality has pulled Apple through crises, periods of change, and even compelled
employees to work 90-hour weeks (joyfully) in order to meet seemingly impossible
deadlines. Following Apple II, Jobs was acclaimed as the ‘young prince of technology’ and
attracted national media attention for his meteoric rise. 

However, by 1985, despite initial positive reviews, Jobs’ Macintosh was a commercial failure.
Jobs was finally dismissed as the head of the Macintosh division. He was also fired from
Apple when he adamantly refused to change the course he believed Apple needed to go.
His dismissal from Apple prompted him to enter one of the most creative periods of his life,
mastering the art of producing animated films. 

Steve was invited to re-join Apple in 1997 and realizing that the company was only months
away from bankruptcy, requested a salary of just US$1.  Over the next few months, he
started from ‘scratch’ and conducted a review of the entire company, deciding which
divisions to save and which to close. Jobs exhibited outstanding decision-making qualities
and slashed Apple’s product range to only four products, arresting financial bleeding and
stabilizing the company’s ‘bottom line’. Being rejected by his own company and twelve years
on the outside has ‘humanized’ Steve.  While he retained the edge and energy that drove
him in his youth, he also learned to let others contribute to help fulfil his vision.

Jobs’ ability to establish and maintain a powerful image with followers was a combination of
a salesman’s enthusiasm for the product, an evangelist’s bible-thumping passion, a zealot’s
singularity of purpose, and a poor kid’s determination to make his business a success.
Steve brought a new leadership style by leveraging a revolutionary vision to create a
company with a cult-like following invoking personal and emotional appeals combined with a
radical, world changing vision.

The level of energy, values and positive consequences of Jobs’s leadership has lived on well
after his death leader’s because they are integrated into the daily routines and practices of
the organization. Jobs left his company in the best shape of its life, with a top-selling product
line-up, an enviable management team and an invincible aura of cool. Jobs’ genius was
never in the logistics of running a company; it was in knowing which visions to pursue and
which to abandon. He was doing that almost right up to his death. Apple has a strong talent
pool of engineers and designers, but Tim Cook’s (present CEO) operational genius will only
be able to squeeze out so many efficiencies from the current product line-up. To keep its hot
streak going, Apple will have to prove it can still innovate.

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