Reading Reflection Number 1

Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson

1. About Steve Jobs:
• I was surprised by how gruff, heartless and manipulative Jobs was, and by how accepting of those trait he was. Gurus and geniuses like Jobs are painted to be these perfect, awesome human beings, because of what has did for the world by creating Apple. But really, he has nasty character traits like the rest of us, and honestly probably much worse than the rest of us.
• I admired Jobs's determination. Everyone told him that his visions for the personal computer were outlandish and impossible, and instead of being dicouraged his response was to prove them wrong and do the impossible.
• I did not admire how Jobs treated his friends, especially Wozniak. Apple definitely would not have become what it is today without Jobs' drive for perfection and ability to get what he wanted from others, but Wozniak was the engineering genius behind the first Apple computers. Apple would not have existed at all without Woz Jobs was heartless to his other friends as well, like Daniel.
• Jobs encountered plenty of adversity and failure from a young age. He grew up knowing he was adopted and feeling abandoned because of it. He also was fired from his own company, Apple. He was treated for cancer, multiple times. Through all of these storm clouds, he sought the silver lining. Though he had feelings of abandonment, Jobs also had a recognition that he was special, and that his parents chose him specifically. When he was fired from Apple, Jobs created 2 new businesses, one of which Apple later bought (bringing Jobs back into the company), the other of which is Pixar. And through the cancer, he
2. Two competencies that Jobs exhibited were the ability to manipulate others into complying with his requests, and the ability to make his creative ideas come to life no matter the costs.
3. One part of the reading that was confusing to me was Job's opinion on his use of LSD as a young man. Jobs swears that LSD helped enlighten him and open up his creativity and his will to give something back to humanity. I guess that confuses me because I don't expect a self-made billionaire to attribute a large part of those traits that made him so successful to a psychedelic drug. Then again, Steve Jobs was definitely not the typical businessman nor predictable.
4. Two questions I would ask Jobs are "What do you think the next 10 years holds for technological advancement?", and "What do YOU think was your greatest accomplishment?"
5. Jobs seemed to see hard work as absolutely non-negotiable. When one of his team members might have appeared to be slightly slacking off, Jobs cut him out with no empathy. To Jobs, if you didn't love the work you were doing and put your whole heart and time into it, then he didn't need to deal with you. Do I agree with this? I mean, I have a good hard-work ethic and I whole-heartedly believe that if someone doesn't love their career, then they shouldn't be in it. But I wouldn't be as intense as Jobs was about it...however, I also will not be a millionaire and famous by the time I'm 23.