What are the factors that contributed to the success and failure of Steve Jobs as a technopreneur?
According to the movie that I have watched and article that I have read, Steve Jobs owns the Apple Computer but how he became the owner of the said computer? Let me discuss about his biography and the success and failures in his life.
The wife of Abdulfattah John Jandali named Joanne Simpson gave birth to a cute baby boy named Steve Jobs on February 24, 1995, in the city of San Francisco. Due to born out of wedlock, they put up their son into adoption. So the new parents of Steve Jobs were Paul and Clara Jobs and since they both weren’t graduated in high school, so they promised that Steve Jobs will go to college. After that they moved to Santa Clara Country known as Silicon Valley now.
Steve Jobs took his first education in Cupertino Junior High located at Los Altos. So as Steve is growing up in Los Altos, he was increasingly curious about electronics that filled with his nieghbor’s garage.
Then Steve took his secondary education in Homestead High School. He was enrolled in electronics class with Mr. McCollum as their teacher. During his early age he showed already his entrepreneurial skills. At Homestead, there he met Steve Wozniak preferred called as Woz. Woz showed the “cream soda computer” which is Steve is interested. Years later they sell their invented machine so-called “phone phreaks”, it allows you to make phone calls for free. And since it is illegal they were caught by the police.
After then he took his tertiary education in Reed College, it is a private liberal arts in Oregon. Reed College has an expensive tuition, although his parents cannot afford it but they still pursue their promise to the real parents of Steve. Suddenly Steve dropped out his class in Reed College because he doesn’t feel his life there. So he find a job and employed in Atari, the first video game company which was created by Nolan Bushnell to whom he inspired of starting apple.
After his job at Atari, Woz show to Steve his computer works and Steve was impressed. So Steve suggested that they will sell their product. As Steve said “Well, even if we lose money, we’ll have a company. For once in our lives, we’ll have a company.” Through that Woz was convinced by that line and that was their stepping stone for building a company and that was called Apple.
Apple I was improved into Apple II it was the first computer that anybody who knew the BASIC language could use, it has also an eight expansion slot like the lot for disk II which is the floppy disk and the most success of Apple II is the VisiCalc which is the first spreadsheet ever. So they advertised their new product and after that they got many orders twice as much as the order of Apple I. That was the partial progress of their company.
But there something wrong inside the company, it is not about the employees, it is not about their product but it is about Steve which is their CEO. Steve was so cruel with his employees, he doesn’t want consideration, and all he wanted must be followed by his workers. He treated his employees like a slave that will work 24 hours a day. And there was an unfair treatment between the team of Macintosh and Apple II. Steve spoiled the Macintosh team, buying them some expensive things for the employees of the said team but the Apple II team received only a simple thanks to them. When Woz noticed the treatment between the two teams, Steve though that he was just joking but Woz is merely serious so Woz decided to quit to the company because he doesn’t like it anymore.
Then after that Bill Gates proposed to Steve about his program but Steve ignore it. But even though Steve ignore Bill’s program, Bill didn’t lose hope of insisting his work to Steve until Steve found out that Bill steal their program, Bill was still calm, he explained it all to Steve.
After a long time, John Sculley fired Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak now teaches computers to children and funds a ballet, Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 and Microsoft now owns a part of Apple Computer.
That is the end of the story. Steve Wozniak is the stepping stone of Steve Job’s success because through him he won’t build a company like that. Then Job’s success is also by the venture capitalist because without them, Apple’s product won’t be sellable. After that is when he gets rich.
But not all his achievement is positive, he has also negative achievement like his failures. His first failure is when he was abandoned by his real parents. Then root of his failure while he was on his company was his attitude. He was not good on the treatment of his employees that is why they don’t like him. The worker should work eight hours a day, but Job’s want 24 hours a day, is it good? For me no, it is not good. People also have their rest, even robots cannot work 24 hours a day because they have also a weakness.
In life there is a success and a failure. We are not born to be a perfectly successful person in the world. We also have failures in our life. Failure is an act of having a mistake. Failure serves as also our challenges and way to realize and correct the mistakes. There is a saying that “There is always an eraser on the top of the pencil” which means that obliteration can done after you write the mistake and it does not mean that once you commit a mistake you will suffer forever because God give us the chance to change what we have mistakenly done. Even though we commit many failures, we must not surrender, God is just testing our capability on how we handle such things around us and instead of losing hope, let us still fight for our journey because in God there is no impossible. After having our failure we realize that we are wrong in some aspects and that’s what makes us to be a better person. We can already continue our journey in the right path.
How do you see yourself as a technopreneur?
Technopreneur came from the word entrepreneur. Entrepreneur is the one who operates the business and manages all the factors of production. According to my research, there are many kinds of entrepreneur; one is what we called multipreneur who starts a business with a number of companies. Then second is minipreneur who doesn’t possess to have a huge capital, he/she just use small capital and expand it to make the business bigger. Then third is intrapreneur, it is the maximum number of entrepreneur, the one who use their creativities, knowledge and having goal of making corporation. But as time goes by and as the technology was developed and introduced, the word entrepreneur became technopreneur who is a new age entrepreneur who makes use of technology to come out with something new or to make some innovation. The business is generally marked with a high growth potential and high leverage of knowledge and intellectual property.
Being a technopreneur is not also easy, we have to be a risk taker and the fighting spirit. But all should have a limitation, we have to control sometimes like being a risk taker, we shouldn’t go for everything without knowing its outcome. In a business, we have to be kind of all people around us, not like Steve Jobs, what happen to him? His worker doesn’t really like him because he doesn’t know how to deal with people. So we should respect all people even though how rich we are, we must still learn how to bow with people, even though it is poor or not.
How about myself? Am I a technoprenuer?
When I graduated in elementary school, I was thinking about how will be a high school life is. And when I got enrolled in high school, I was so innocent and shy to talk with other people. But when I am already close with my classmates, we started to share our laughter and tears. Since I am already matured enough, did I think about business for my future? The answer is a big NO! I didn’t think about business nor gain more money and to be a rich person and all I know was going out with my friends, playing here, playing there, strolling here, strolling there, texting here, texting there, gambling here, gambling there, boyfriends here and boyfriends there. But all of that was limited because I still have a curfew given by my Aunt and beside of that I’m still serious on my study and I didn’t get a failing grade.
On year 2008, I finish my study in high school. I was deeply thinking on what course I will take in college and in what school will I study. I asked my classmates that where they will take their course and what course it is. Many chose Hotel and Restaurant Management; some chose Bachelor of Science in Education, Nursing, Engineering and one for Chemist. When I heard him saying “Chemist”, I said “wow!” And after that I keep on thinking about mine.
Since I’m living with my Aunt, I have to listen with her. She said that I will take my course in University of Southeastern Philippines and I will be the one to choose my course that will fit on me and close to my heart. My Uncle suggested to me about being a lawyer, I said “I can’t memorize those Republic Acts.” And when I remembered what my classmate said “Kwing, better choose BSIT aside from it is in demand, it is now popular and so called in-na-in due to our generation”. That line encourages me to be an Information technologist. So I decided to choose Bachelor of Science in Information Technology.
Look at me now, I’m currently studying in USEP with the course of BSIT.
Now talking again in business, that isn’t still in my mind. All I know is to finish study and show them my diploma and not a baby. My goal is to study because I want a good work. I thought that was enough, but when I met Mr. Randy Gamboa who is my teacher in Technoprenuership, he told us that “We should study not to be an employee but to be an employer”, that line makes me realize that my goal is just so simple and small, all I want is just for myself and I didn’t think of the others. Now I should be an employer so that I can employ who is unemployed. I extended my goal because of my teacher in technopreneurship, I learn about thinking in business and to be a rich person because having a fixed salary won’t meet our progress because we still have expenses in life. So our salary will be still deducted by those bills so how much is our extra money now? And that is why we have to be an employer gain more extra money and to get rich. I also learn from him that since I am from Davao, I will serve Davao and that is a good idea because through that, Davao will soon attain its progress. And being a venture capitalist soon, I’ll establish my company here in Davao.
As of now, my first goal is to finish my degree course and since I am still studying, I have to focus on it for the reason of meeting my dreams. And I don’t see myself as a technopreneur because I didn’t sell anything via technology, I don’t still have a company to be called a technopreneur and I didn’t gain income every week nor every month but for my future, I have many plans that make me a technopreneur. First is just being a full time employed in a particular company that gives a big salary. Then if I have already the amount of capital that I need, I will create a simple and small business. And if I gain twice than my starting money, I will invest more to make my business big and hire some worker. If my business will be hopefully successful someday, I will franchise a particular business because I really know and believe that the people number one choice is that business through that I will earn a lot of money. And after those plans, I can already help those needy people.
Would you take the same career path that Steve Jobs took? Why or why not?
We all have a purpose of living in this wonderful and big world. And since we already here, God give a mission to each one of us. This mission must be accomplished before we will meet our death. In our mission, there is always a challenge that tests us on how strong we are to go with our mission. Sometimes it deals with our weakness but that can’t beat us because we have some decisions to make whether which path will you take or what decision will you make. However, failures are always there to block you even how weak or strong you are, even how rich and poor you are and even who you are because there is no perfect in every corner is our life and in this world. Now when failure happens, there is always a chance and you can choose another path to take with, a path is a way whether right or left way or whether it is bad or good. It’s up to us and our decision which path we will take. It started since we are a kid. Just like for example, a kid was being told by his mother “don’t the candle”, but the kid was so curious about the candle so chose to disobey his mother and touch it then after that his finger was burn and through that the kid learn from his mistakes. That story means, if we choose the wrong path and commit failure, we realized that we did the wrong decision, so from that mistake we gain a new lesson.
If I am asked that would I take the path like Steve? Well my answer is a big YES because it is nice to build our own company. As what John Sculley said “s.” And it is also nice to hear that you are being idolized by many people for the reason of bringing future to them. “Well, even if we lose money, we’ll have a company. For once in our lives, we’ll have a company.” What an inspiring line. That was said by Steve to Woz when they both started their company. That line also persuades me to follow his path and make my own business that is why I want also to be the owner of a big and popular company.
Steve chooses the right path for him. Although at the start he has a failure of having his real parents but he keep himself good with another parents. He fought his weakness of being abandoned son by his biological father and mother and didn’t take revenge for them. He didn’t also influenced by the bad people around him like the drug addict, drug pusher, gambler and other possible people that can bring nothing with him but just a damage of his own self. Instead of being affected by the bad influence, he still go straight with his life because he care with his second parents and he is being disciplined and love also by them.
I have a similar experience with Steve because I am also an abandoned daughter by my father only. When I was in the womb of my mother, my father didn’t accept me as who I am even though I still came from his sperm that met my mother’s egg he still denied the truth. How unlucky I am. =( At first, I was really disappointed because having a perfect family is very very very happy but I this situation was really destined to me. But now I accepted already the truth and as of now having the age of eighteen, we have not yet talk to each other since I witnessed the beauty of the earth. Aside from that, I am still lucky like Steve because there is my Aunt and Uncle who were willing to stand as my parents and support me in every thing like for the expenses in school.
Now, I will strive hard in school and don’t let the bad influencer will ruin my life like Steve did. Even he stopped at Reed College, I will still go on with for my study and grab the opportunity that I am being financed by my Uncle to go to school and won’t waste this chance. I will be a hard working student for my guardians, so that they will meet their expectations on me and I won’t make things that can disappoint to them.
Even though how intelligent and how artistic the person is, but if he has a good manner can still bring down the person. Just like Steve, he is not good in communicating people around us. He treated his worker like slave twenty-four hours a day, if you caught sleeping in your table, he will get mad quickly that is why one time that he was being punched one his worker. And then Steve was fired by his own hired president of the Apple Company. So see? Even the nearest person to Steve, fired him. Steve really destroys himself by his personality. And I won’t let that happen to me. Even though I am a little bit strict and tactless, I will still control it because being not kind to others lead nothing but it will just ruin us. So when we get angry, we have to be calm and don’t be aggressive to people around us so that we will be still respected by them.
In my future, I will really build a business to gain more money and be one of the histories of my place. As one of the most over populated and somehow poor country we have, I generated an idea that the business I am going to build can really help to the graduate students who is still unemployed. I want to give some opportunity to them so that the product from academe won’t be useless and be the excellent worker of my company someday.
I will not only deal with business. I should have a happy and complete family to whom I will share my happiness. I won’t abandon my offspring unlike Steve did. Since I am already abandoned by my father, I won’t let my daughter and son to grow without father because I don’t want them to feel what a felt before, so my family should be complete and if problems may occur, I will stay calm on solving it.
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