The Shoulder of Steve Jobs

Steve Paul Jobs of Silicon Valley, who passed away on October 5, 2011 as we all know, was the co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc. A surge of Apple’s website was caused by people from all over the world to mourn for the falling of a great man. The homepage of Apple’s official website was put on a series of numbers “1955 -2011” , which represents not only the record of Job’s overall lifetime but also the historic record of technical era. Steve Jobs, except for the identity of Apple’s chairman, was also a technological pioneer and a convincing orator. Now, let’s dig into the legendary life of Steve Jobs. 

On February 24, 1955, a baby was given birth in San Francisco; he was Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. Both Jobs’ biological mother Joanne Simpson and his biological father Abdulfattah John Jandali were high-educated academics; nevertheless, they were not married. It was almost impossible for a graduate student like Steve Jobs’ birth mother to raise a child by herself, so the baby was put up for adoption. A lower-middle class couple adopted baby Jobs and promised his birth mother to send him to college in the future. However, Steve Jobs only got a high-school certificate because his adoptive parents could not afford the high tuition fee of Reed College, a well-regarded liberal arts college founded in 1908. In order to alleviate their financial burden, Jobs chose to drop out from the university after studying for one semester, and he thought that it was the best decision ever. “I couldn't see the value in it (studying in college). It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting,” said Steve Jobs in his Stanford speech. The course Steve later audited for non-credit was calligraphy course which helped Jobs a lot in originating Mac’s functions, such as multiple typefaces and proportionally spaced fonts. He never thought that he could one day put what he had learnt into practice, as he said, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when he was in college; But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

As the founder of Apple Inc, NeXT and Pixar Animation Studios, Steve Jobs was the forerunner of high-tech equipments, but he was not born to be successful. While Steve was still a toddler, his family moved to Santa Clara county, later to be known as Silicon Valley (the world center of computer technology), where Jobs could commonly see all kinds of electronic devices and was fascinated by them. Living in such an environment enlightened Jobs’ interest in technology instruments. He decided to start his own enterprise and Apple was then founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976. At first, the company operated well, yet Steve Jobs got fired from the company he started with his own hands at the age of thirty because his visions of the future diverged from the other co-founders’ perception. He was depressed at that time, but not yet gave up. So, he founded NeXT and Pixar Animation Studios in succession, which respectively became a big hit with operating system and the blockbuster “Toy Story”. Then in 1996, Apple, the company that had gradually lost market share because of the releasing of Microsoft’s Windows 95, purchased Jobs’ NeXT Inc for $429 million dollars, and Steve Jobs returned to Apple with the official title “informal adviser to the CEO”. Steve once said, “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 (as the leader in Apple) was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner (of NeXT and Pixar) again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” After Steve Jobs’ return to Apple, the once-failed company back on track with a new, amazing consumer desktop computer: iMac in 1998. And once again, he shocked the world with iPod, iPhone and iPad. Steve Jobs’ Apple had grabbed the lead. “You could say: what’s the big deal? Anybody could have done the Mac production; anybody could have made the iPhone; anybody could create integrated graphs and fonts. Anybody could have done any of this. But the reality is—nobody else did it! So, that is the genius of Steve Jobs,” said Guy Kawasaki, former Apple software “evangelist” and co-founder of Alltop (an online magazine rack).

The most persuasive addresser ever must be Steve Jobs. What made Jobs, the man who always wore in his trademark black turtleneck and jeans on stage, a consummate speaker? It should first start from his profound understanding of the Mac products. Steve Jobs, who was one of the developers of Apple’s devices, knew well about all the functions, merits and defects of his own products. Hence, he could give the keynote speeches, which are also known as "stevenote", to perfectly introduce Apple's manufactures at the Apple MacWorld Conference. Aside from that, Steve Jobs was a demanding perfectionist. Before each speech, he practiced the manuscript over and over again. On average, he prepared a normal lecture for at least four hours and a MacWorld Conference for more than three months. He believed that strict drilling and big rehearsal were required to make the whole oration proceed with maximal fluency. Moreover, Jobs’ briefing was always concise. He once indicated that a page of transparency with more than three points would be too much, which would muddle the audience. Slides projected on the big screen should be clear and easy to read, so the audience could focus on what he said during the speech. Last but not least, Steve Jobs was enthusiastic and devoted when standing on the stage. His ardor could effectively influence the audience’s emotion. Jobs’ signature approach is known as the “Reality Distortion Field (RDF)” which is a term coined by Bud Tribble, the Vice President of Software Technology at Apple Inc, to describe Jobs’ charisma and his effects on people. With his vibrant speaking style and manner of exciting the crowd, Jobs always caught the audience in the right way. He was just like a mesmerist, and people spontaneously believed everything that came out from his mouth. One specific instance was given by Robert X Cringely, a technology journalist and former Apple employee: when Jobs said “And it ‘only’ cost... Eighteen hundred dollars!”, people all applaud. Yet, when they get home, they found that the computer they owned cost only 900 dollars. Then why is it good that only cost 1800 dollars? And worst still, “why do I buy one when I was on my way out?” The communications skills coach Camine Gallo, who once listened to Steve Jobs’ speech in a short distance, also indicated in Business Week that Jobs’ orations were highly attractive. He said that no matter you sold an iPod or a sandwich, a story was a story, and to charm the consumers was its main purpose. No matter there are so many fans of Apple rush to buy the “i-products” after Steve Jobs’ announcement of new-released products. Without Steve’s promoting of the Apple products, the company would not win the unprecedented fame and success.

To sum up, Steve Jobs was indeed a visionary in the Silicon Valley. To the whole Apple Company, he was an unrivaled leader and the founding spirit. To the high technology sector, he was an innovative developer with accurate foresight. And to the audience and buyers, he was a voluble and congenital lecturer. What Steve Jobs had innovated were not only the Mac products, but also the entire world. Sir Isaac Newton once said, “If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants.” For all the human beings on earth, Steve Paul Jobs was the giant, and now we are all standing on his shoulder.