Steve Jobs Research

http://ipod.about.com/od/introductiontotheipod/a/steve-jobs-bio_2.htm

Steven Paul Jobs is the co-founder, two-time CEO, and chairman of Apple Inc.
The achievements in Jobs’ career have included helping to popularize the personal computer, leading the development of groundbreaking technology products including the Macintosh, iPod, and iPhone, and driving Pixar Animation Studios to prominence. Jobs’ charisma, drive for success and control, and vision have contributed to revolutionary changes in the way technology integrates into and affects the daily life of most people in the world.
Steve Jobs’ Early Life
Born in San Francisco in 1955, Jobs was was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs of Santa Clara, Calif.
Jobs attended high school in Cupertino, Calif., the city where Apple is based. In 1972, he briefly attended Reed College in Portland, Ore., but dropped out after a semester. Jobs returned to California in 1974 and landed a job with Atari, where his friend and eventual business partnerSteve Wozniak also worked.
Apple – Rise and Eventual Ouster
Jobs co-founded Apple, then known as Apple Computer, with Steve Wozniak to provide a circuit board for hobbyists who built their own computers. Despite that homebrew beginning, Apple helped usher in the age of the personal computer with the introduction of the Apple II line in 1976.
Those machines soon gave way to a revolutionary change in desktop computing – the Macintosh. The Mac OS was the first commercially available and widely embraced system to use the graphical user interface that is common today and a mouse for interacting with the icons on the screen. The Mac was a giant success and rocketed Jobs and Apple into position as one of the world’s most important computer companies.
The company made a huge splash with its 1984 Super Bowl commercial that introduced that Macintosh, which played on George Orwell’s novel 1984 and positioned IBM as Big Brother, while Apple represented heroic rebels struggling for freedom.
By that time, Jobs had lured John Sculley, an experienced executive, away from PepsiCo to be Apple’s CEO. But, in 1985, amid a sales slump, Jobs lost a corporate power struggle to Sculley and the company’s board of directors, and left Apple.
NeXT – A New Challenge
Upon leaving Apple, Jobs founded NeXT Computer, a computer company that took the graphical lessons learned from the success of the Mac and married them to the computing power of Unix. The stylish and technologically advanced, but expensive, NeXT computers never caught on in the way that the Apple II or Mac lines did, though NeXT maintained a steady business from 1985-1997. And, come 1997, NeXT would take on a new, and much more central role -- at Apple.
Pixar – A Hobby Becomes a Powerhouse
While at NeXT, Jobs purchased a computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd. in 1986 for $10 million. That division became Pixar Animation Studios, with Jobs as its CEO and majority shareholder.
Though originally intended as a computer hardware company aiming high-end machines at Hollywood, when that business failed to take off, the company transformed into a maker of animated movies with a contract with Disney.
Under Jobs’ leadership, Pixar became a dominant movie-making force in Hollywood, churning out a string of smash hits, including Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Wall-E, among others.
In 2006, Jobs engineered the sale of Pixar to the Walt Disney Co., a deal which landed him a spot on Disney’s board and made him the company’s largest individual shareholder. After the conclusion of that deal, Fortune Magazine named Jobs its Most Powerful Businessman of 2007.
The Return to Apple - Triumph
Jobs earned that title not only due to his role at Disney but also because, by that time, he had returned to Apple as its Chairman and CEO.
In late 1996, Jobs had overseen the sale of NeXT to Apple and returned to a leadership position in the company he co-founded. The technology underlying NeXT’s hardware and software was acquired in a $429 million deal in 1996 and became the foundation of Apple’s next-generation Mac OS X operating system.
When Apple CEO Gil Amelio was ousted by the company’s board of directors in 1997, Jobs returned to the company as its interim CEO.
At that time, Apple was foundering under low marketshare, a confused licensing strategy, diffuse product line, and lack of focus, all of which led to much speculation in the press and online that the company would either merge with another or go under. In order to keep the company afloat, Jobs immediately began a series of sometimes-unpopular cuts, including paring from Apple’s product lines middlingly successful but passionately followed products like the Newton PDA.
The first major hit product of Jobs’ second tenure at Apple was the iMac, an all-in-one computer introduced in 1998, which continues in production today. The iMac was followed by a string of hit laptop and desktop computers, though some failures - such as the Power Mac G4 cube - were mixed in.
Under Jobs’ leadership, Apple returned from the brink of bankruptcy to again become a stable, successful company. But, thanks to the introduction of a small gadget, the company would soon skyrocket.

(Continued from Page 1)
In October 2001, Apple unveiled the first iPod. The cigarette-pack-sized digital music player offered 5GB of storage (enough for about 1,000 songs) and a simple interface. It was an instant hit.
The development of the iPod had been ordered by Jobs – who disliked existing digital music players and their difficult interfaces – and was overseen by engineering head Jon Rubinstein and product designer Jonathan Ive.
The iPod worked with Apple’s music management software, iTunes, which had been introduced in January 2001. The combination of the two, with their ease of use and powerful features, made the iPod a smash. Apple began a quick expansion of the iPod product line to include the Mini, nano,Shuffle, and later the touch, introducing new iPods roughly every six months.
ITunes also evolved and added the iTunes Storefor downloadable sales of music in 2003 and movies in 2005. With that move, Apple cemented its place in the music industry and made the iPod/iTunes combination the de facto standard for digital music consumption and playback. By 2008,Apple had become the world's largest retailer of music (online or offline), and record companies began to worry about Apple’s dominance in their business. In 2009, the iTunes Store sold its 6 billionth song.
The iPhone
In January 2007, Apple expanded on the success of the iPod, and positioned itself to revolutionize another market, when it announced the iPhone. That device was developed with Jobs’ oversight and involvement and was an instant hit upon its release. The first iPhone sold 270,000 units in its first 30 hours of availability, while its successor, the iPhone 3G, sold 1 million units in its first three days just a year later.
By March 2009, Apple had sold over 17 million iPhones, and had surpassed quarterly sales of the previously dominant smartphone, the Blackberry.
Following on the success of the iTunes Store, the iPhone got an App Store, offering third-party software, in July 2008. By January 2009, it had registered 500 million downloads, a mark it took the iTunes Store two years to reach. Apple had another hit on its hands.
Health Leave
Amidst this success, Jobs was dogged by questions about his health, especially after the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) appearance in 2006.
In January 2009, Jobs issued a statement saying that his appearance was related to a hormonal imbalance that drained his body of necessary proteins. The statement added that his doctors thought they’d found a cause, that he’d seek treatment, and that he wouldn’t speak more on the topic, as he felt it was a personal matter.
However, less than 10 days later it was announced that Jobs’ health problems were more serious than first realized and that he’d be taking a six-month leave of absence from the company. The company’s stock initially took a beating, but recovered to a level only a few points below the announcement within about a week. Tim Cook, the company’s chief operating officer, served as CEO in Jobs’ stead.
Jobs returned to work at Apple in late June 2009, as scheduled. He has reportedly been deeply involved with Apple since his return.
Steve Jobs’ Legacy
Perhaps no other executive in modern memory, with the possible exception of Bill Gates, has been as closely tied to his company, and its success – or the public perception of that success, at least – as Jobs.
Some, including Rolling Stone writer Steve Knopper, have even compared Jobs and his legacy to those of legendary business figures like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney. Others, however, have been less laudatory, placing him on a second tier of historical business figures due to his smaller accumulated wealth and charitable contributions.
Despite any analysis that places Jobs in rare historical company, his management and personal styles have also been the subject of legend and anxiety. Jobs has been jokingly said to possess a “reality distortion field,” a term used by many to describe the force of his personality and presence, and his ability to convince people of the correctness of his positions.
His personality has also led to criticism of a management style that included strong doses of both fear and secrecy. Under Jobs, Apple has been notorious for tightly protecting details of new products launches, going so far as to sue rumors websites and hold up deals with partners who leaked information. In the new millennium, Apple has become known for its desire to — and general success in doing so — control press coverage about it.
Despite these criticisms, the Apple Jobs has built is strong, with over $24 billion in cash on hand, growing marketshare, and a deeply devoted customer base.
Criticism notwithstanding, it’s clear that Steve Jobs is a technology visionary who has transformed at least two markets — computers and digital music — and might yet have a lasting impact on a third, cell phones.


http://jobsearchtech.about.com/od/historyoftechindustry/a/SteveJobs.htm

Steve Jobs is the CEO of Apple, which he co-founded in 1976. He was born February 24, 1955, in San Francisco, California, and was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. He grew up with one sister, Patty. Paul Jobs was a machinist and fixed cars as a hobby.
After graduating from high school in 1972, Jobs attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, for two years. He dropped out to visit India and study eastern religions in the summer of 1974. In 1975 Jobs joined a group known as the Homebrew Computer Club. One member, a technical whiz named Steve Wozniak, was trying to build a small computer. Jobs became fascinated with the marketing potential of such a computer. In 1976 he and Wozniak formed their own company. They called it Apple Computer Company.
Shortly thereafter, Jobs and Wozniak redesigned their computer, with the idea of selling it to individual users. The Apple II went to market in 1977, with impressive first year sales of $2.7 million. The company's sales grew to $200 million within three years. Jobs and Wozniak had opened an entirely new market—personal computers.
In 1984 Apple introduced a revolutionary new model, the Macintosh. The on-screen display had small pictures called icons. To use the computer, the user pointed at an icon and clicked a button using a device called a mouse. This process made the Macintosh very easy to use. The Macintosh did not sell well to businesses, because it lacked features other personal computers had. The failure of the Macintosh signaled the beginning of Jobs's downfall at Apple. Jobs resigned in 1985, though he retained his title as chairman of its board of directors.
Jobs soon hired some of his former employees to begin a new computer company called NeXT. Late in 1988 the NeXT computer was introduced at a large gala event in San Francisco, aimed at the educational market. The product was very user-friendly, and had a fast processing speed, excellent graphics displays, and an outstanding sound system. Despite the warm reception, however, the NeXT machine never caught on. It was too costly, had a black-and-white screen, and could not be linked to other computers or run common software.
In 1986 Jobs purchased a small company called Pixar from filmmaker George Lucas. Pixar specialized in computer animation. Nine years later Pixar released Toy Story, a huge box office hit. Pixar later went on to make Toy Story 2 and A Bug's Life, which Disneydistributed, and Monsters, Inc., among other hits. In December of 1996 Apple purchased NeXT Software for over $400 million. Jobs returned to Apple as a part-time consultant to the chief executive officer (CEO). Over the next six years Apple introduced several new products and marketing strategies.
In November 1997 Jobs announced Apple would sell computers directly to users over the Internet and by telephone. The Apple Store became a runaway success. Within a week it was the third-largest e-commerce site on the Internet. In September of 1997 Jobs was named interim CEO of Apple.
In 1998 Jobs announced the release of the iMac, which featured powerful computing at an affordable price. The iBook was unveiled in July 1999. It includes Apple's AirPort, a computer version of the cordless phone that would allow the user to surf the Internet wirelessly. In January 2000 Jobs unveiled Apple's new Internet strategy. It included a group of Macintosh-only Internet-based applications. Jobs also announced that he was becoming the permanent CEO of Apple.
Apple is also leading the digital music revolution, having sold over 110 million iPods and over three billion songs from its iTunes online store. Apple entered the mobile phone market in 2007 with its revolutionary iPhone.
Steve grew up in the apricot orchards which later became known as Silicon Valley, and still lives there with his wife and three children.


http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/jobs.html

Steve Jobs
CEO
Apple

Steve Jobs is the CEO of Apple, which he co-founded in 1976. Apple is leading the consumer technology world with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, its family of iPod media players and iTunes media store, and its Mac computers and iLife and iWork application suites. Apple recently introduced the iPad, a breakthrough Internet and digital media device, plus the iBookstore, alongside iTunes and the App Store.
Steve also co-founded and was the CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, which created some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time including Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars and Ratatouille. Pixar merged with The Walt Disney Company in 2006 and Steve now serves on Disney's board of directors.
Steve grew up in the apricot orchards which later became known as Silicon Valley, and still lives there with his family.


http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2006/03/70512
Steve Jobs' Best Quotes Ever

Owen Linzmayer  03.29.06

"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."
-- BusinessWeek, May 25 1998
View Slideshow
One of the great things about Steve Jobs is what comes out of his mouth.
The CEO of Apple Computer is a master of hype, hyperbole and the catchy phrase. Even when he's trying to talk normally, brilliant verbiage comes tumbling out.
Here's a selection of some of the most insanely great things the man has said, organized by topic: innovation and design, fixing Apple, his greatest sales pitches, life's lessons, taking the fight to the enemy and Pixar.
On Innovation and Design:

"It's rare that you see an artist in his 30s or 40s able to really contribute something amazing."
-- At age 29, in Playboy, February 1985
"I've always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do."
-- BusinessWeek Online, Oct. 12, 2004
"Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it."
-- Fortune, Nov. 9, 1998
"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."
-- BusinessWeek, May 25 1998
"It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much."
-- BusinessWeek Online, Oct. 12, 2004
"(Miele) really thought the process through. They did such a great job designing these washers and dryers. I got more thrill out of them than I have out of any piece of high tech in years."
-- Wired magazine, February 1996
Apple at 30 Coverage
March 28
Apple OS Gallery: A screenshot tour of three decades of Apple operating systems. By Owen W. Linzmayer.
March 29
Heroes and Villains: The people who made Apple great -- and who almost brought it down. By Pete Mortensen.
March 30
Every Apple Ever Made: A gallery of some 240 product shots spanning 30 years. By Wired News staff.
PLUS: Highlights from the Wired News archive.
March 31
Best Moments in Apple Advertising: An image gallery of the best and most memorable campaigns. Courtesy of Macmothership.com.
April 1
Apple Fans Gone Wild: More images showing the depth and breadth of Mac culture. By Leander Kahney.
On Fixing Apple:

"The products suck! There's no sex in them anymore!"
-- On Gil Amelio's lackluster reign, in BusinessWeek, July 1997
"The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament."
-- Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colorful Company, by Owen W. Linzmayer
"If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth -- and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago."
-- Fortune, Feb. 19, 1996
"You know, I've got a plan that could rescue Apple. I can't say any more than that it's the perfect product and the perfect strategy for Apple. But nobody there will listen to me."
-- Fortune, Sept. 18, 1995
"Apple has some tremendous assets, but I believe without some attention, the company could, could, could -- I'm searching for the right word -- could, could die."
-- On his return as interim CEO, in Time, Aug. 18, 1997
Coming up: His greatest sales pitches; Scully's sins




http://www.biography.com/articles/Steven-Jobs-9354805
Steven Jobs Biography

( 1955 – )


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Entrepreneur. Born Steven Paul Jobs on February 24, 1955, to Joanne Simpson and Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave their unnamed son up for adoption. His father Abdulfattah Jandali was a Syrian political science professor and his mother Joanne Simpson worked as a speech therapist. Shortly after Steve was placed for adoption, his biological parents married and had another child, Mona Simpson. It was not until Jobs was 27 that he was able to uncover information on his biological parents.

As an infant, Steven was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs and named Steven Paul Jobs. Clara worked as an accountant and Paul was a Coast Guard veteran and machinist. The family lived in Mountain View within California's Silicone Valley. As a boy, Jobs and his father would work on electronics in the family garage. Paul would show his son how to take apart and reconstruct electronics, a hobby which instilled confidence, tenacity, and mechanical prowess in young Jobs.

While Jobs has always been an intelligent and innovative thinker, his youth was riddled with frustrations over formal schooling. In elementary school he was a prankster whose fourth grade teacher needed to bribe him to study. Jobs tested so well, however, that administrators wanted to skip him ahead to high school—a proposal his parents declined.

After he did enroll in high school, Jobs spent his free time at Hewlett-Packard. It was there that he befriended computer club guru Steve Wozniak. Wozniak was a brilliant computer engineer, and the two developed great respect for one another.

After high school, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Lacking direction, he dropped out of college after six months and spent the next 18 months dropping in on creative classes. Jobs later recounted how one course in calligraphy developed his love of typography.

In 1974, Jobs took a position as a video game designer with Atari. Several months later he left Atari to find spiritual enlightenment in India, traveling the continent and experimenting with psychedelic drugs. In 1976, when Jobs was just 21, he and Wozniak started Apple Computers. The duo started in the Jobs family garage, and funded their entrepreneurial venture after Jobs sold his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak sold his beloved scientific calculator.

Jobs and Wozniak are credited with revolutionizing the computer industry by democratizing the technology and making the machines smaller, cheaper, intuitive, and accessible to everyday consumers. The two conceived a series of user-friendly personal computers that they initially marketed for $666.66 each. Their first model, the Apple I, earned them $774,000. Three years after the release of their second model, the Apple II, sales increased 700 percent to $139 million dollars. In 1980, Apple Computer became a publically traded company with a market value of $1.2 billion on the very first day of trading. Jobs looked to marketing expert John Scully of Pepsi-Cola to help fill the role of Apple's President.


However, the next several products from Apple suffered significant design flaws resulting in recalls and consumer disappointment. IBM suddenly surpassed Apple sales, and Apple had to compete with an IBM/PC dominated business world. In 1984 Apple released the Macintosh, marketing the computer as a piece of a counter culture lifestyle: romantic, youthful, creative. But despite positive sales and performance superior to IBM's PCs, the Macintosh was still not IBM compatible. Scully believed Jobs was hurting Apple, and executives began to phase him out.
In 1985, Jobs resigned as Apple's CEO to begin a new hardware and software company called NeXT, Inc. The following year Jobs purchased an animation company from George Lucas, which later became Pixar Animation Studios. Believing in Pixar's potential, Jobs initially invested $50 million of his own money into the company. Pixar Studios went on to produce wildly popular animation films such as Toy Story,Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. Pixar's films have netted $4 billion. The studio merged with Walt Disney in 2006, making Steve Jobs Disney's largest shareholder.
Despite Pixar's success, NeXT, Inc. floundered in its attempts to sell its specialized operating system to mainstream America. Apple eventually bought the company in 1997 for $429 million. That same year, Jobs returned to his post as Apple's CEO.
Much like Steve Jobs instigated Apple's success in the 1970s, he is credited with revitalizing the company in the 1990s. With a new management team, altered stock options, and a self-imposed annual salary of $1 a year, Jobs put Apple back on track. His ingenious products such as the iMac, effective branding campaigns, and stylish designs caught the attention of consumers once again.
In 2003, Jobs discovered he had a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare but operable form of pancreatic cancer. Instead of immediately opting for surgery, Jobs chose to alter his pescovegetarian diet while weighing Eastern treatment options. For nine months Jobs postponed surgery, making Apple's board of directors nervous. Executives feared that shareholders would pull their stocks if word got out that their CEO was ill. But in the end, Job's confidentiality took precedence over shareholder disclosure. In 2004, he had a successful surgery to remove the pancreatic tumor. True to form, in subsequent years Jobs has disclosed little about his health.
In recent years, Apple has introduced such revolutionary products as the Macbook Air, iPod, and iPhone, all of which have dictated the evolution of modern technology. Almost immediately after Apple releases a new product, competitors scramble to produce comparable technologies. In 2007, Apple's quarterly reports were the company's most impressive statistics to date. Stocks were worth a record-breaking $199.99 a share, and the company boasted a staggering $1.58 billion dollar profit, an $18 billion dollar surplus in the bank, and zero debt.

In 2008, iTunes became the second biggest music retailer in America&mdsah;second only to Wal-Mart. Half of Apple's current revenue comes from iTunes and iPod sales, with 200 million iPods sold and six billion songs downloaded. For these reasons, Apple has been rated No. 1 in America's Most Admired Companies, and No. 1 amongst Fortune 500 companies for returns to shareholders.
Early in 2009, reports circulated about Jobs' weight loss, some predicting his health issues had returned, which included a liver transplant. Jobs had responded to these concerns by stating he is dealing with a hormone imbalance. After nearly a year out of the spotlight Steve Jobs delivered a keynote address at an invite-only Apple event September 9, 2009.
In respect to his personal life, Steve Jobs remains a private man who rarely discloses information about his family. What is known is Jobs fathered a daughter with girlfriend Chrisann Brennan when he was 23. Jobs denied paternity of his daughter Lisa in court documents, claiming he was sterile. Jobs did not initiate a relationship with his daughter until she was seven but, when she was a teenager, she came to live with her father.
In the early 1990s, Jobs met Laurene Powell at Stanford business school, where Powell was an MBA student. They married on March 18, 1991, and currently live in Palo Alto, California, with their three children.
© 2011 A&E Television Networks. All rights reserved.



http://www.thepracticeofleadership.net/2008/03/30/steve-jobs-and-his-leadership/


Fortune has a great feature on Steve Jobs, titled "Steve Jobs speaks out" that looks at some of Steve’s perspectives on business, leadership and technology. In the article Steve reveals some interesting insights into Apple and his leadership principles.



On Apple’s focus


"Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we’ve got less than 30 major products. I don’t know if that’s ever been done before. Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.
"I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. The clearest example was when we were pressured for years to do a PDA, and I realized one day that 90% of the people who use a PDA only take information out of it on the road. They don’t put information into it. Pretty soon cellphones are going to do that, so the PDA market’s going to get reduced to a fraction of its current size, and it won’t really be sustainable. So we decided not to get into it. If we had gotten into it, we wouldn’t have had the resources to do the iPod. We probably wouldn’t have seen it coming."
Focus is critical for effective leadership, with so many options choosing the right one can be extremely difficult. Small changes can have big results, if you focus on the key issues and execute relentlessly on those key issues. To focus on the most important issues means you have to say not to a whole range of alternative opportunities.

On finding talent


"When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself. They’ll want to do what’s best for Apple, not what’s best for them, what’s best for Steve, or anybody else.
"Recruiting is hard. It’s just finding the needles in the haystack. We do it ourselves and we spend a lot of time at it. I’ve participated in the hiring of maybe 5,000-plus people in my life. So I take it very seriously. You can’t know enough in a one-hour interview. So, in the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they’re challenged? Why are they here? I ask everybody that: ‘Why are you here?’ The answers themselves are not what you’re looking for. It’s the meta-data."
Passion rules! Passion is about our emotional energy and a love for what we do. Without passion it becomes difficult to fight back in the face of obstacles and difficulties. People with passion find a way to get things done and to make things happen, in spite of the obstacles and challenges that get in the way.

On his marathon Monday meetings


"When you hire really good people you have to give them a piece of the business and let them run with it. That doesn’t mean I don’t get to kibitz a lot. But the reason you’re hiring them is because you’re going to give them the reins. I want [them] making as good or better decisions than I would. So the way to do that is to have them know everything, not just in their part of the business, but in every part of the business.
"So what we do every Monday is we review the whole business. We look at what we sold the week before. We look at every single product under development, products we’re having trouble with, products where the demand is larger than we can make. All the stuff in development, we review. And we do it every single week. I put out an agenda — 80% is the same as it was the last week, and we just walk down it every single week.
"We don’t have a lot of process at Apple, but that’s one of the few things we do just to all stay on the same page."
Social architecture, meetings and their structure (drama, purpose and conflict) keep people engaged in the organisations vision. Regular meetings ensure effective communication and that the organisation is making steady progress towards the vision.



http://www.leadership-with-you.com/steve-jobs-leadership.html
Steve Jobs
Leadership Case Study
Steve Jobs Leadership Case Study is a part of Leadership Stories, a series of biographies of great leaders in history that have impacted the world in a huge way.

Steve Jobs Leadership

Who is He?


Steve Jobs is the Chairman and CEO of Apple Computers Inc. and arguably one of the world’s most successful businessmen today.
He founded Apple in the 1970s, got chased out by his own board of directors, but returned eventually as Apple’s CEO. Since then, he has revolutionized the IT industry with his creations like the MacBook, the iPod and the iPhone.
Since his return, he has brought Apple Computers Inc. from a fledging company to a global force to be reckoned with.
A Quick History


Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco in Feburary 24, 1955. He was an adopted son of the Jobs couple from California.
Jobs attended Homestead High School in California and often went to the after school lectures by Hewlett-Packard Company. It was there that he met his eventual partner, Steve Wozniak.
Jobs would have his early beginnings working at Atari as a technician building circuit boards. In 1976, he would start the company Apple Inc. with Steve with funding from a millionaire investor.
In 1984, he developed the Macintosh, which was the first small computer with a graphic interface in its time. It had promise to revolutionize the whole PC industry.
However, bad business decision and internal stife with his CEO would eventually cause Jobs to leave his own company.
He went on to start two other companies; NeXT and Pixar. Pixar would be acquired by the Disney Company and NeXT would be acquired by his own Apple Computers Inc.

With the acquisition, he returned to Apple Computers Inc. in 1996 as interim CEO. From that time on, the rise of Apple Computers began again as the iMac would be developed.
The famous iPod and iPhone would later be developed and it would revolutionize the whole handphone and MP3 player industry. Under his leadership, Apple Computers Inc. became a force to be reckoned with.
In 2009, Jobs would have a personal net worth of $5.1 billion. However due to the need for a liver transplant, Jobs took a break from his work since January 2009.
Awards and Honours


1. Most Powerful Person in Business by Fortune Magazine in 2007
2. National Medal of Technology in 1985
3. Samuel S. Beard Award in 1987
Steve Jobs

Leadership Lessons


1.Persistence is the key
Steve Jobs was a very persistent person and it was most exempilifed through his exit from Apple. He would not give up, but went on to start NeXT computers which would eventually be acquired by Apple Computers Inc.
If Jobs was like most people, he would have given up and spent the rest of his life being bitter about his loss.
As a leader, you have to be ready to face setbacks. Setbacks are a part of life and whether you become successful or not often depend on your ability not to give up. It is all the more important to display this attribute, especially if you want to build a never-say-die team.
2.Innovation brings leadership
Jobs saw the power of innovation in building his company. Till today, we can see the innovating power of Apple Computers Inc as it continues to take market leadership in the industry.
If you want to maintain your leadership, you have to be the one who’s constantly up with new ideas, new initiatives, all in the spirit of moving your organizational mission forward. In whatever industry you’re in, your constant innovation in alignment with your mission will keep you ahead of the pack.
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on Steve Jobs Leadership


Steve Jobs Leadership


It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we'd given customers what they said they wanted, we'd have built a computer they'd have been happy with a year after we spoke to them - not something they'd want now.
A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.
I want to put a ding in the universe.
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
Pretty much, Apple and Dell are the only ones in this industry making money. They make it by being Wal-Mart. We make it by innovation.
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.
To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines.
Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.
I think we're having fun. I think our customers really like our products. And we're always trying to do better.