The book referenced in this post.
One of my goals for the New Year is to read more. But before I dive into my next book (either Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics by Yasheng Huang or Lords of Strategy by Walter Kiechel in case you wanted to follow along), I wanted to do a final reflection on the last volume I read at the end of 2011: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Normally, I am skeptical about biographies published before or shortly after the subject has left us, as there will inevitably be a lot of spin and control done to ensure “accuracy” in the eyes of the source. You may as well call these biographies autobiographies, as the author must satisfy the subject in addition to his audience. With that said, I took away a few lessons from the novel which I’d like to share.
Steve Jobs on India.
While most people know of Steve’s activities and accomplishments in his later years, few are aware of his deeds during his youth. Some curious decisions that Jobs made as a young adult include the recreational use of hallucinogens such as LSD, turning down a near-certain scholarship from Stanford for Reed College and deciding to prioritize a pursuit in Eastern spirituality. In fact, this passion led Jobs from dropping out of Reed College to living in India for over seven months. Steve later said that it wasn’t until he lived in India did he begin to have a better understanding of Western culture. When reflecting on India, Steve said “Coming back to America was, for me, much more of a culture shock that going to India. The people in [India] don’t use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world. Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a big impact on my work.” From this, and my own experience, I believe that living abroad fundamentally changes people for the better and is something that should be more strongly emphasized in the American education system.
Steve's creation after he founded NeXT.
A famous anecdote from Steve’s life was his firing from Apple and how he ended up back as CEO roughly a decade later. What few people realize is that between his firing in 1986 and his reintegration with the company in 1996, Steve’s vision for Apple had not changed at all. Steve had always believed that Apple should be “a wonderful consumer products company.” In 1986, the Board of Directors at Apple did not recognize Steve’s dream and ability. But despite his ousting, Steve continued to follow his passion by starting up another electronics company: NeXT. Although he lost his job, he refused to give up on his career, which opened the opportunity for Apple to buy NeXT and allowed Steve to go back to Apple. The truth is that talent evaluators are human. And humans, by nature, are flawed and regularly miscalculate. Steve’s abilities as a CEO were belittled in 1986, some would say due to his unpleasant personality and difficult management styles. But Steve did not give up and continued to invest in his core competencies; which eventually led to directing Apple to the largest company in the world.
Steve's famous closing line.
Steve took a number of big decisions in his lifetime – this much is obvious. From creating the Lisa, to being a big part of Pixar, the list of risks that Steve took is extensive. The biggest surprise of this isn’t so much that he made huge decisions, but rather how nonchalant he made the process seem. In fact, Steve had a more difficult time deciding on what kind of dryer to use for his house than figuring out what his next career move was going to be. This suggests to me that a big decision does not have to be a big deal. Meaning, you don’t need to proportion your resources into making decisions based on the scale of ramifications for your decision. If you have a big opportunity, sitting around overanalyzing the outcomes isn’t always the best idea – the optimal timing to execute the opportunity may pass you by. Instead, don’t shy from risks, since risk and reward as we know it are generally positively correlated.
Words to live by.
Well, time to move on from this book to the next. Thanks for reading!
