Steve Jobs' inspirational entrepreneurial story
Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955—October 5, 211), born in San Francisco, California, was an American inventor, entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple. The following is the inspirational entrepreneurial story of Jobs compiled by me, hoping to help everyone.
Steve Jobs' inspirational entrepreneurial story 1
In 1997, Steve Jobs was named "the most successful manager". More and more colleagues in the industry agree with this view. Even Sculley, who had pushed Jobs out of Apple, couldn't help admiring: "Apple's reversal is not a scam, and Jobs did an absolutely excellent job. Apple has begun to return to its original track. "
Jobs became a miracle, but this miracle will continue. He always gives people constant surprises, whether at first or later, his genius for computers; An approachable life style; Wonderful creative brain; A great goal; The unflappable leadership style has built the core content of Apple's corporate culture, and Apple employees' reverence for him is simply a religious fanaticism. Employees even said to outsiders: I work for Jobs!
Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco, USA, on February 24th, 1955. Just after he was born, he was mercilessly abandoned by his heartless father who worked in a restaurant in San Francisco, USA, and the mother of a chic bartender. Fortunately, a kind couple took in the poor bastard.
Although he is an adopted son, his adoptive parents are kind to him, just like parents and children. When he was a student, Jobs was smart, naughty and unscrupulous, and he often liked to make some ridiculous pranks. However, his academic performance is outstanding.
At that time, Jobs lived near the famous "Silicon Valley", and his neighbors were all employees of Hewlett-Packard Company, a veteran of the "Silicon Valley". Under the influence of these people, Jobs was obsessed with electronics since childhood. An HP engineer saw him so obsessed that he recommended him to join HP's "Discoverer Club". This is a party specially held for young engineers, which is held in the company's restaurant every Tuesday night. It was at a party that Jobs first saw the computer, and he began to have a hazy understanding of the computer.
When he was in junior high school, Jobs met Woz, who was five years older than him, at a class reunion. Woz is the president of the school electronic club, and he is also very interested in electronics. The two hit it off at once, and eight years later they founded Apple Computer Company.
At the age of 19, Jobs, a freshman in college, had a whim and dropped out of school to become an employee of Atari TV Game Company. Not long after, young and restless, he became interested in Buddhism again, even gave up his job, and went across the ocean to India to follow exorcist's practice. The result can be imagined. Not only did you not learn to become a Buddha, but you also suffered a lot on the way. He had to return to atari to become an engineer.
After settling down, Jobs continued his interest when he was young, and often worked with Woz on computers in his garage. They dreamed of owning a computer of their own, but at that time, all the products sold in the market were commercial, bulky and extremely expensive, so they planned to develop them themselves. It is necessary to make a personal computer with a microprocessor, but the retail price of the 88 chip at that time was $27, and it was not sold to people of unregistered companies. Undaunted, the two men kept looking, and finally bought a 652 chip produced by Motorola at the Wisconsin Computer Products Fair in San Francisco in 1976. Its function was almost the same as that of Intel's 88, but the price was only $2.
With the 652 chip, two ecstatic young people returned to Jobs' garage and started their great innovation. They designed a circuit board, installed the 652 microprocessor, interface and other components on it, and connected the microprocessor with the keyboard and video display through the interface. In just a few weeks, the computer was installed. Jobs's friends were shocked, but they didn't realize that this ugly thing was the world's first personal computer, which would bring much influence to the future world. But the shrewd Jobs immediately estimated the market value of this homemade computer. In order to raise funds for mass production, he sold his Volkswagen car and persuaded Woz to sell his precious HP 65 calculator. In this way, they had $1,3 to lay the foundation for their great cause.
On April Fool's Day in 1976, Jobs, Woz and Jobs' friend Long Wayne did something that influenced future generations: they signed a contract and decided to set up a computer company. The name of the company was decided by Jobs, who preferred Apple-called Apple. Later, it was the famous trademark-an apple that was bitten by someone. And their home-made computer is naturally regarded as "Apple I" computer. Steve Jobs' inspirational entrepreneurial story 2
After Steve Jobs took charge of Apple again in 1997, in just 14 years, he created a miracle in the history of enterprise management-Apple's net profit lost from $1 billion in 1996 to $14 billion in 21, and its market value reached about $36 billion. The market value of Berkshire, which Buffett has operated for more than 4 years, is about $18 billion, while the market value of Apple is twice that of Buffett. Jobs not only created great products, but also changed many industries.
legendary CEO Welch of General Electric called Jobs the first CEO in the world. So how did Jobs' management philosophy come into being? What is unique?
From the Biography of Jobs, we can see that Jobs' management philosophy mainly comes from Mike, one of Apple's three founders. Makula. When Jobs and Woz and Markkula founded Apple, Markkula and Jobs were like father and son. Markkula wrote a page of his management philosophy to Jobs, mainly about the mission of the enterprise and the three principles of Apple marketing.
corporate mission
Markkula said, "You should never start a company with the purpose of making money. Your goal should be to make products that you believe in and start a company with strong vitality. "
Jobs said, "My passion is to build a company that can be handed down from generation to generation. People in this company are full of motivation to create great products. Everything else is secondary. Of course, it is great to make money, because then you can make great products. But the power comes from products, not profits. Sculley put the cart before the horse and took making money as his goal. This is just a subtle difference, but the result will affect everything: who you hire, who you promote, and what is discussed at the meeting. "
so what's the difference between these two purposes in practice?
Jobs used Apple's success to prove the success of this philosophy. He said: "I have my own theory about why companies like IBM or Microsoft have declined." These companies do a good job. They innovate and become or nearly become monopolists in a certain field, and then the quality of products becomes less important. These companies began to pay attention to excellent salespeople, because they are the ones who rewrite the income figures (note: for the purpose of making money), not the engineers and designers of products. Because the salesperson became the operator of the company. John from IBM? Axe (and John who has already left Apple? Sculley, Steve from Microsoft? Ballmer) is a smart, eloquent and great salesperson, but he knows nothing about the product. "
There is also a story in the book: Microsoft imitates the failure of Apple's iPod to illustrate the importance of motivation. Three years after Apple's iPod was launched, in November 26, Microsoft finally declared war on the iPod and launched the Zune player, which is similar in appearance to the iPod, but not as light as the iPod. Two years later, its market share is less than 5%. A few years later, Jobs pointed out directly the reasons for Zune's uninspired design and weak market:
"As I get older, I understand the importance of motivation more and more. Zune is a failure, because people in Microsoft do not love music and art as much as we do. We won because we love music from the bottom of our hearts. We make iPod for ourselves. When you really do something for yourself, your good friends or your family, you won't give up easily. But if you don't love it, then you won't go one step further, and you don't want to work overtime on weekends. You will only be content with the status quo. "
if the purpose of an enterprise is to make money, it will not only become mediocre, but also bring disasters, such as the Toyota incident.
In 21, Toyota unexpectedly accelerated due to accelerator pedal and braking problems, resulting in 34 deaths in the United States, and recalled more than 8.5 million vehicles around the world, as well as the Toyota quality crisis caused by the safety hazards of 15, aviation seats of Toyota's Suu company involving thousands of aircraft.
Toyota has always been a benchmark in the business world. Why is there such a big quality accident?
JimPress, a former Toyota executive in the United States, said that the company's problems were caused by "financial-oriented pirates", not by the founding families, who "failed to adhere to the quality of customer first".
Akio Toyoda, the new president of the company, said that one of the key reasons for the company's quality problems is that "some people" in the company pay too much attention to market share and profits. This is his heaviest remark so far when evaluating the product defects that led to Toyota's massive recall of cars.
Akio Toyoda is particularly worried that executives have overemphasized the annual operating profit target of 2 trillion yen (US$ 22.4 billion). Toyota surpassed this level in the fiscal year ending in March 27. This goal not only led Toyota to cut costs drastically, but also began to demand an increase in the premium of Toyota brand cars, especially in the American market, which changed the long-held strategy of value-based pricing.
Toyota's wrong strategic focus distorts Toyota's traditional priority in automobile manufacturing: first, it emphasizes product quality and safety, followed by sales volume and cost. When Toyota began to expand rapidly ten years ago, this order changed, and rapidly expanding market share and reducing costs overwhelmed everything. Therefore, the change of enterprise purpose has led to the crisis.
Charlie, Buffett's partner? Commenting on the success of Xishi Candy, Munger said: "The fanatical pursuit of product quality and excellent service is the essence of the company's business. I really appreciate that all of us here today are our long-term customers and suppliers. You have excellent and trustworthy suppliers, and at the same time you treat your own customers in this way, so you become a part of an invisible web of trust. This is the way the world should operate. It is more exemplary for others. This is the correct way to build a country or a civilized society. Remarkably, we started this cooperative relationship at the early stage of our career, which is entirely out of a basic and solid cultural identity. This proves once again that Ben? Franklin's business philosophy is still effective in Xishi candy after so many years. "
Three Principles of Apple Marketing
The first point is * * * Ming. Markkula said: "It is to closely combine the feelings of customers. We have to understand the requirements of users better than any other company. "
So why can Jobs make great products that make consumers scream?
1. motivation. The purpose of Jobs' doing business is to create great products and build excellent companies, not to make money. As mentioned above, the reason why Microsoft failed to imitate the iPod was because of the problem of motivation.
2. Jobs' multidisciplinary thinking. Jobs is not an artistic genius or a technical genius. But he has both humanistic and technological characteristics. Coupled with Jobs' unique intuition formed through meditation, he was inspired to create great products.
3. Humanism. Jobs said: "The reason why Apple can resonate with people is because there is a humanistic spirit hidden in our innovation."
4. Jobs' perfectionism. For example, in the process of product development, Jobs often reinvented himself for perfection, which made the team suffer, but he made products that made consumers * * * sound.
5. Build a first-class team. Jobs learned Oppenheimer's leadership method and made first-class products with first-class talents.
the second point is concentration. Markkula said: "In order to do well what we have decided to do, we must reject all unimportant opportunities."
one of the great things about Jobs is that he knows how to focus. "Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do." He said, "This is true for the company and it is also true for the products."
Jobs was very focused, and he set priorities. Aim his laser-like attention at the target and filter out all distractions. The same is true in management, which will keep core products and important things and cut off all other businesses.
when Steve jobs took charge of apple again in 1997, apple had many product lines. It took three weeks for employees to explain to Jobs. Later, Jobs had enough, and then he drew a horizontal line and a vertical line on the whiteboard to make a square four-grid table. At the top of the two columns, write "consumer grade" and "professional grade". Write "desktop" and "portable" at the titles of the two lines. He said, just make four great products, one for each grid. All others stop, which will release the outstanding talents and funds for other projects to specialize in four products. The result was a great success.
At Apple's brainstorming meeting, Jobs asked the 1 people, "What are the ten things we should do next?" After careful discussion, everyone wrote it on the whiteboard, and then Jobs crossed out all the last seven items and announced, "We can only do the first three."
he gave it to Google CEO Larry? Page suggested: "What kind of company does Google want to be when it matures? Now the stalls are everywhere. What are the five products you want to focus on? Throw away everything else, because it will hold you back and turn you into Microsoft, resulting in products that meet the requirements but are not great. "
what is the most important thing in a person's life? Buffett and Bill? Gates's answer is concentration.
the third point is indoctrination. Markkula said: "This involves how people form a judgment on a company or a product according to the signal it conveys. People do judge by appearances. We may have the best products, the highest quality, the most practical software and so on. If we show it in a sloppy way, customers will think our products are sloppy. If we display our products in an innovative and professional way, then the high-quality image will be instilled in the minds of customers. "
Jobs described Markkula's famous saying to Johnson: "A good company should learn to instill. It must do its best to convey its value and importance, from packaging to marketing. "
1. Apple's product launch conference, Jobs carefully prepared every time. Including the scene, props, slides, etc.