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| Steve "The Pear" Jobs / caricature - 2009 |
When I write about people, its only because I see something that is worth learning from.
If you start out as freelancer or artist its good to see how successful people have done things before us to adapt and apply it as far as possible to our own business and time. This is why I recommend to read biographies. Warhol and Dalí where also great entrepreneurs who were equally personally connected with their art until today.
If you start out as freelancer or artist its good to see how successful people have done things before us to adapt and apply it as far as possible to our own business and time. This is why I recommend to read biographies. Warhol and Dalí where also great entrepreneurs who were equally personally connected with their art until today.
I guess the one of Steve Jobs will be a great inspiration to geeks, artists and entrepreneurs alike.
One common thing all great artists share is the passion and the sense to put the status quo into question. This is not an option, this is necessary!
When Jobs decided to connect himself with the "product" publicly on the stage for the first time, he eventually acquired a taste for attention.
I guess the change of the target market, from creative people and designers to mainstream in the last 10 years, made the product no less than a productivity tool, but additionally a status symbol. And like it or not - this is art.
- Changing the way we interact, communicate and see things, is art.
- Making connoisseurs out of customers is art.
- Building companies whose goal it is to always raise the bar (Pixar, Apple) ... is art.
- Moving an audience with moving images is art.
- Giving always the best and pushing others to do the same is what makes great art possible.
Promises and shipping deadlines go very well together if you can focus and Steve definitely knew how to focus even in hard times.
The one difference between Coca Cola and Apple will always be that everyone will know who (Co-) founded Apple, but only few know who founded Coca Cola ( its John Stith Pemberton btw.) The other difference between Coca Cola and Apple is that Coca Cola will probably stay the same in 50 years, because they only need some campaigns and a new product every 2 years, while the market of Apple develops so fast its even possible that a big company just starting out will buy Apple in 10 years, who knows.
Sure, we don´t need the founder of a company to know that a Ferrari is worth the bucks, their vision is incorporated in the products through strict principles that are there to maintain the quality even when they are gone. But in the most cases we only know the products, or did you ever saw Mr. Starbucks giving a keynote, or Mr. Lufthansa talking about the new airbus? Its not necessary, and yet we embrace if a company comes through with personality. But personality is just there to create momentum, what stays is the product, maybe a biography and a lot changed minds.
Sure, we don´t need the founder of a company to know that a Ferrari is worth the bucks, their vision is incorporated in the products through strict principles that are there to maintain the quality even when they are gone. But in the most cases we only know the products, or did you ever saw Mr. Starbucks giving a keynote, or Mr. Lufthansa talking about the new airbus? Its not necessary, and yet we embrace if a company comes through with personality. But personality is just there to create momentum, what stays is the product, maybe a biography and a lot changed minds.
I don´t know how Jobs was personally and I never saw a Keynote, but eventually I don´t need to know all this to see a great inspiration in him.
Only a few entrepreneurs are brave enough to start over just because they have to and do it successful.
The only person which I recall that had done something similar is Richard Branson who created a magazine with the age of 16, later Virgin Records and an airline.
When reading quotes from Steve Jobs, he stated that money wasn´t the driving force. But when you know that money is the thing that makes new inventions possible and keep a company running, he eventually did it all for the money.
Satchel Paige once said:"“Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching.” I think Steve did all this and even more, and I guess he had a more fulfilled life than others with 80+ years.
And in the end the amount of money a person earned in his life isn´t important at all, it only matters what he/she does with it. I think its important to realize that we always have the chance to do better, to get better at the things that matter to us, but we have very limited time.
The worst scenario I imagine is to have ideas for a whole century and just a few days left.
"Stay hungry, stay foolish." - (only a fool will accomplish what everyone else thinks is impossible, because only a fool will try)
R.I.P.
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