Steve Jobs: The entrepreneur
In the previous blog, I wrote about the need to have certain knowledge as a precondition for entrepreneurship. My definition of entrepreneur is “Someone who has possession of unique knowledge and recognizes the business opportunity to transfer that knowledge into new product and assumes accountability and risks for it”. Of course, beside the special knowledge, an entrepreneur must have strong passion, motivation, “business smart”, and the desire to continue learning to succeed in this area.
You probably know that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are founders of Apple Computer. (For more information about Steve Jobs, please read his graduation speech at StanfordUniversity). After graduating from high school, Steve Jobs went to ReedCollege but dropped out to live like a “Hippie”, traveled to several places until he ran out of money. He found a job in an electronic store where he met Steve Wozniak. Wozniak is an “Electronic Hacker” who had passion for anything associated with electronics. He likes to take electronic devices apart then rebuilt them to learn how things work. Wozniak is also a college drop-out but because he was poor and could not afford college tuition. However, with a strong passion for learning, he continued to “sneak” into university classes until the school found out and asked him to leave. (He learns the basic knowledge in school). He also “sneaked” into engineering seminars and electronic conferences by pretend to be a food services person, so he could learn more. (He learns advanced electronic knowledge in conferences). One day he saw a demonstration for the Altair computer in a conference, he was so impressed and determined to build something similar to that. He began to design a computer prototype using Intel 8080 chip and showed to people at the “Homebrew Computer Club” at Stanford university (He invents an unique product). What he wanted was to prove that it is possible to build a small computer using simple components such as cassette tape and TV monitor. When Steve Jobs saw the prototype, he convinced Wozniak that together they could sell it and make some money. (The business opportunity). Based on Jobs’ encouragement, Wozniak agreed to form a company and Apple Computer was established in April 1976.
The first computer was the Apple I. It was built on a printed circuit board with a cassette tape as storage and had about 4 KB of Random Access Memory (RAM). Users had to hook it to a TV as the monitor. The computer was sold as an “assembly kit” only but it had some customers. Based on the feedbacks from users, Wozniak designed and produced the Apple II. This model had a monitor, an floppy disk drive, a key board and 48KB RAM. It was a huge success and made both Jobs and Wozniak millionaires. After the company was successful, Steve Wozniak returned to Berkeley University to finish his Bachelor degree in Computer Engineering (He want to learn more and of course he can afford the school now) and left Steve Jobs to manage the fast growing Apple Computer.
Steve Jobs was ambitious to make Apple Company better and bigger than IBM. He recruited students from top universities like Stanford, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon to build the next computer called “The Lisa” that he believed would be the most advanced and sophisticated personal computer at that time. Instead of using existing components like the Apple II, he wanted to base it on all the latest inventions, never use before. During that time, Apple Company grew so big with many millions dollars pouring in each month but Jobs had no knowledge of finance, accounting and business management. (This is the weakness of technical people, lacking business knowledge and skills) He hired John Sculley, an aggressive business manager from Pepsi Cola to work for him. The famous phrase that he used to lure Sculley to Apple was: “Why a talent person like you would waste your time selling sugar water to children when you could have a chance to join me and change the world. Together we could make history”.
With John Sculley to work as Apple’ Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Steve Jobs could devote all his time working with his technical team to build “The Lisa”. (Rumor was that Lisa is the name of a girl in Reed College that broke Steve Jobs‘s heart). Later the company changed the name Lisa to Mac Intosh or Mac). The Lisa was the first computer that has a sophisticated Graphic User Interfaces (GUI) and a “Mouse”. Because most components were new technology, never used before, the technical team and Steve Jobs had to spend so much time to make them work and no time for anything else. Without Jobs at the top, John Sculley seized the opportunity to staff the company with more managers, more people who were loyal to him and eventually took control of the company. Early 1984. He fired Steve Jobs and his technical people. Suddenly the entrepreneur who founded Apple Computer was without a job. (This is why technical knowledge is NOT enough, an entrepreneur or even a software engineer must have both knowledge)
Can you imagine yourself as Steve Jobs at that time. The founder lost control and received a lay-off notice from his own company. This was a “lesson” where Steve Jobs “learned” about the fact of life, about his ignorant in business knowledge.. After a long time of suffering, Steve Jobs realized his weaknesses but he did NOT gave up his passion. He went on to create another company: NeXt Computer, a company that was highly technologically advanced than others at that time. However, the business opportunity had passed. The weakness of Apple Computer allowed Microsoft to move quickly and captured the market.
For several years, Apple Company had no new product or new idea. John Sculley was a business person, NOT technical. His firing of technical team and replaced them by his friends had alienated many technical people who considered Jobs as their “Hero”. In the business market, Apple could NOT compete with Microsoft and its stock lost most of its value. Eventually, John Sculley had to resign, Apple Computer was ready to file for bankruptcy and some people suggested that Apple should hire Steve Jobs back. Apple Computer brought NeXt company and hire Jobs back as the new CEO in 2000. Steve Jobs was determined to bring the passion, the motivation, the advanced technology, and the “business skills” that he learned during his “Exile” years back to Apple. From then on, there was no looking back. Apple became more successful with many innovated products such as the Mac, the IPod, IPhone, and IPad etc. By this time, you probably know the rest of the story.
To answer the question whether entrepreneur needs college education. I think Steve Jobs MAY NOT need to have a college education (He already has the knowledge, the passion, the motivation and willing to accept the risks but most of all, he also has the desire to learn from life lessons and continue learning). Today there is only one “Steve Jobs” but there are million people who “Want to be Steve Jobs”. They only want to have his money, his fame, his fortune but they do NOT have the “Knowledge”, the “Passion”, the “Business Smart”, the “Ability to identify opportunity”, the willingness to take “Risks”, and the courage to learn from “Life bitter lessons” that Steve Jobs also possesses. That is why there is NO other Steve Jobs.
If you still want to be “Steve Jobs”, you must start with what he started: Having passion in what you do, learning more about technical knowledge, motivate even when you are down, courage even when your life become bitter and unbearable, and most of all, willing to learn nonstop even from “bad life experience”. Where do you build this kind of characters? In College, of course. My advice: Please study hard and stay in school. Do NOT let anything distract you from your goal, do NOT let any small failure brings you down, do Not let anything discourage you, follow your dream, follow your heart, form teams to share knowledge, having a lifelong goal to continue learning. Why do you learn these things in college? Because you may fail few times in classes, but by learning from them, you will NOT fail in life. College is where you are learning and preparing to face something larger, bigger, and more challenging: Life itself.
Today, technology is a new field but has a lot of potential and opportunities. By choosing this field to study, you are making the right decision. I believe the future of this field is very promising with more new discoveries and more opportunities. To answer your question: Do entrepreneur need College education? My answer is: “Definitely Yes”.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
