Wednesday, Steve Jobs passed away. He is the co-founder and
former CEO of Apple, which he resigned from on August 24. He is the innovator
behind some of the most revolutionary products of our time. There is a lot that
can be said about Jobs; his history vast and filled with many lessons
about business and ambition. But I’m not going to write about his entire life
because many journalists have done a great job of doing this so far. Instead, I
would like to reflect on the biggest lesson Steve Jobs experience has taught
me: perseverance.
I was a freshman in high school when the iPod came out. At
that time, I didn’t quite know who Steve Jobs was and lately, within the past
few years, I have reveled in his presentations and the pieces of his past that
I discovered. The most surprising part of his past is to learn he was ousted
from the company he co-founded, Apple. Apple was created in 1976. After some success, in 1983, Jobs
hired John Sculley as CEO, an executive from Pepsico, hoping for a more refined
managerial contribution. In 1985,
Sculley led the board to fire Jobs.
The college-dropout who started his dream was now shut out
from that dream. There is no doubt that Jobs felt humiliated. In his 2005 commencement address to Stanford he stated:
I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt
that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had
dropped the baton as it was being passed to me… I was a very public failure,
and I even thought about running away from the valley.
What did he do? Well, he placed one foot in front of the
other and moved forward. Steve Jobs created NeXT Inc. The company introduced a
computer with great software and as WSJ.com notes “its operating system would
eventually become the foundation for OS X, the software backbone of today’s
Macs, after Apple purchased NeXT for $400 million in December 1996.” At that
time, Apple was suffering with “nearly $2 billion in losses in two years”.
Thus, Jobs was brought back in 1997 as CEO with a $1 a year salary.
When he returned back to Apple, he restructured the company
to focus on software and innovative products with great aesthetics. The iMac
came out in 1998, the iPod in 2001, the iTunes Music Store in 2003 and the
iPhone in 2007. The rest as we should all know is successful history and
profitable present.
After years to reflect on his on past, this is what Jobs had
to say about learning to deal with a very public firing:
I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired
from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The
heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner
again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most
creative periods of my life…
I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t
been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient
needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.
I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I
did. You’ve got to find what you love.
As a 25-year-old woman faced with pressure to be everything
the world often stereotypical defines as success, I already feel like I have
moments of regret regarding my education and career. But then, I read about
Steve Jobs and it lets me know that the best way to deal with failure,
embarrassment, and dark moments is to move forward. Tap into the part of you that
refuses to let others see you fall. I’m not saying that all of us will get
fired and then rehired to start multi-billion dollar companies - there is only
one Steve Jobs. The lesson is that whatever life has for you, you can still
find as long as you don’t let bad experiences stop you. The best revenge is
success from perseverance. The best legacy is picking yourself up.
If I could only thank Steve Jobs for one thing, it would be
for teaching us a great lesson on perseverance. He will be missed immensely and
never forgotten.
