13A – Reading Reflection No.1

The book I had chosen to read for this assignment was Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

The most surprising part of Steve Jobs was how he was actually fired from Apple, his own company, at one point as the company was approaching a potential bankruptcy. The thing I admire most about him is his willingness to “Think Different” as he would experiment with ideas that are unconventional. He had started a company called NeXT which produced computer workstations for businesses and educational sectors and also been a large investor in Pixar Animation Studio as he believed in their vision. His least admirable characteristic was how often he would be rude to his peers/colleagues. He was known to throw people under the bus and never really saw his own mistakes. Steve Jobs faced many failures as his precious company wasn’t reaching the potential he wanted. He would work extra hours and reduced his pay just so he could use that money to invest in R&D for Apple.

Steve Jobs always challenged the ideas in the world. He never felt content with it and had the desire to fix the flaws. He brought in many unconventional ideas such as iPhone, iPod, and iPad. Those products ended up becoming the largest revenue drivers for Apple, making it the largest tech company in the world.

The part of the reading that seemed confusing is how Steve Wozniak didn’t receive as much credit when compared to Steve Jobs even though they had both worked on Apple together. The media only really covered the life of Steve Jobs and not the people that were alongside him.

Two questions I would ask Steve Jobs if he were still alive would be: What do you think of the current progress and management of Apple? Where do you see the tech industry to shift to in the future? The reason for the first question is to see if Steve Jobs believes his philosophy is still continued at Apple, with its latest products. The second question would help other entrepreneurs identify and develop better products for future generations.

Steve Jobs was a firm believer of hard work and often pushed himself in-order to achieve greatness. He was also very close with his best engineers and felt that together they could all change the world. My belief is similar, I think we can all learn from Steve Jobs’ life and see how this passion for computing allowed him to become one of the most prominent tech entrepreneurs of all time.