3.2 TASK 1 – Section B: Steve Jobs and His Entrepreneurial Traits

3.2.1 Biography

Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco, California, on February 24, 1955.  He is the son of Syrian named Abdul Fattah Jandali and Joanne Carol Schieble, whom were unwed and placed him for adoption when he was in early age. Steve was adopted by an Armenian couple, Paul and Clara Jobs, who raised him after that (allaboutstevejobs.com).

Young Jobs grew up in a neighborhood of engineer who was work on electronics, and this shaped his interest in the field that his grew up (allaboutstevejobs.com). Therefore, he learned confidence, tenacity and wants to become a mechanic. When he was 23, Jobs has a relationship with a woman whom he didn't marry and have a daughter named Lisa N. Brennan Jobs, Because of he was intelligent and innovative thinking, that administrators wanted to skip him ahead to high school—a proposal that his parents declined.

Besides that, Jobs co-founded Apple Computers with Steve Wozniak. Under Jobs' guidance, the company’s revolutionary technologies including the iPhone and iPad are now seen as dictating the evolution of modern technology. After the release of Apple II, the company's sales totally increased.  However, when the sales crash on the time of introducing Macintosh, majority of directors and top executive of Apple company believed Jobs was hurting Apple and led to Job’s ouster from Apple. Therefore, Jobs left Apple in 1985 and begin a new hardware and software enterprise called NeXT, Inc. but sold to Gil Amelio, who was a new CEO of Apple company after few years. The following year Jobs initially invested in Pixar Studios to produce animation films and the studio making Jobs become Disney's largest shareholder. Although Pixar is very success, but Jobs still wanted to reinvent Apple. The following year, Jobs returned to his post as Apple's CEO.   

In year of 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  He returned to work after a six month break but resigned his position in August 2011.  Lastly, he died on 5 October 2011.

3.2.2 Entrepreneurial Traits

1. Open Risk Taker.

As an entrepreneur, Steve Jobs is an open risk taker. In the early 1980s, Jobs and his small team designed the original Macintosh. He never spoke about maximize profit or any cost trade-off, but he just focus on making an insanely great product. He believed that focus on making product great will bring the profit come along (Isaacson, 2012). Unfortunately, this brought a result that the machine is over cost and led Steve Jobs ouster from Apple. But the Macintosh was really succeeds the revolution of home computer, and it proved that Jobs’s theory was right, profit will follow when you focus on making a great product.

Besides that, John Sculley, who ran Apple after ouster of Steve Jobs for 10 years, led Apple into a bad situation which Apple is facing a serious problem in financial statement. In 1997, Steve Jobs returned to the Apple and rescue it from near bankruptcy (Guglielmo, 2012). When he returned, he shifted Apple focus back on making innovative product. He told his team members, they just have to focus on four great products, and all the other products should be canceled. By sticking to this strategy, he saved the company. If he is not an open risk taker, he won’t returned to rescue a company which is almost bankruptcy, and leading the company become profitable, growth, and stronger than before.

2. Observant

Being an observant is one way to unleash your inner creativity. For Steve Jobs, he is really an observant. He observed that people nowadays needs something that is simpler. When he creating a new product, he wants the things, no matter software or hardware, is simpler, faster, and easier to manage. He announced that simplicity is the ultimate challenge for Apple (allaboutstevejobs.com). And that is the one of the reason that Apple can market their product in the market with successfully.

Besides that, once he was making Apple’s product iMac, he only focused on making it useful for managing user’s photo and video, but it was left behind with music. After Jobs observed that he missed that part, he decided to create an integrated system in music industry. The result was the combination of iTunes, the iTunes Store, and the iPod, which allowed users to search, discover, buy, organize, and listen to the music better than they could with any other devices (Roberto Verganti, 2011).

Furthermore, his characteristic also shown when he observed that some of the people may not like the display of iPhone, which he felt it was too masculine. After that, he asked his team to change iPhone’s display. While in another situation, when he was making iPad, at a time he looked at the model, he felt that the iPad didn’t casual and friendly enough for people to use it. Then he delayed the product until the change could be made. “Our goal is to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest,” (Snell, 2010) he said. This entrepreneurial trait that Steve Jobs having was helped him and the product that created by Apple, was successfully sustain and growing stronger and stronger in the market.

 3. Visionary

Steve Jobs is an entrepreneur who was visionary. For instance, when he leading his team for making product, one member asked him should them do a survey first to know what is wanted by the customers. Jobs rejected the suggestion and reply that customer wouldn’t know what they want until they shown them (allaboutstevejobs.com). It required the intuition about desires that haven’t formed by people. Caring what customers wanted is different from keep asking what they want. Steve Jobs bring his version, intimate intuition about the desires of his customers. That is the feeling that based on your experiential wisdom, which can be more powerful than intellectual. And that is the way that Apple can always making innovative product. Because Jobs leading Apple to create the new things that haven’t shown by others in the world before, so they appear Apple’s product such as iMac, iPhone, iPad, have always shock the people when they are introduced to the world. And there is the way that Apple’s product become popular and welcomed in a lot of countries.

4. Team Oriented

Every entrepreneur should have their team for sustain in the market. A business or corporation could not build successfully if the company leader being a lone wolf. Steve Jobs is a believer in face-to-face meeting. He gathered his executive team every week without a formal agenda to grab some new ideas together. He also spent every Wednesday afternoon doing the same thing with his marketing and advertising team. He didn’t agree that creativity will come out through the email or online discussion. He believed that ideas will come from a random discussion. “You run into someone, you ask what they are doing, you say ‘Wow’, and you will have a lot of ideas that given by them immediately,” Jobs said (Isaacson, 2012). As a result, Jobs and his team really contribute a lot for digital world on making product perfect, innovative, and emerge the revolution of digital world.

5. Proactive

Proactive can describe a person who making things happen, instead of waiting things happen to you (vocabulary.com). An entrepreneur should be proactive in making decision. After the iPod become a huge success, Jobs start worry that the other competitors would start adding music players to their handsets. So, he cannibalized iPod by creating a new product, which is iPhone (Thomas, 2012). “If we don’t cannibalize ourselves, someone else will,” he said. And the following is iPhone also became a huge success for Apple, Jobs, and thus for the mobile phone market. Furthermore, he also contributed to help in transform seven industries such as personal computing, animated movies, music, phones, tablet, and etc. For example, he created Apple II brings the revolution for personal computing. It shows that Jobs always acting as a proactive to be a leader in the digital world, and he always creating a new things which never shown in world before.