The Great Men's Cross 5: Steve Jobs 2

Steve Jobs: The Successful Drop-out

....................The Great Men's Cross 5: Steve Jobs 1

Do anything for knowledge (How Jobs dropped out)

Jobs then enrolled at Reed College. Reed was so expensive and Jobs’ parent could not sufficiently afford it such that they spend a lot of their life savings on Jobs’ education. Jobs girlfriend Brennan had no plan to attend college and she used that opportunity to support Jobs when Jobs told her he was going to drop out because his parents was spending a lot on his education. Jobs rather audited his classes and attended calligraphy class which would later help him in life.

Jobs recounted that at the time he attended the calligraphy class not as an official student but for the knowledge, he slept on the floor of his friends’ rooms, hat to pick and return coke bottles to earn money for food and had to get free meals weekly at the temple. Jobs would later say if he had not attended those calligraphy classes, the Mac might not have had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts it had (No knowledge is a waste).

Love what you do

The age of computer was young and it was very promising when Steve Jobs bumped into it. At that time, degrees in computer science were few, and those on the field are the mathematicians, physicists, zoologists and those into music. These people loved it then and were less concerned about the money. Jobs claimed that there were people who started companies just to make money; however, the big companies of today didn’t start the venture for the money but for the love of the profession or the industry.

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Leave your comfort zone and be less emotional

At the middle of 1972, Jobs moved back to San Francisco where he rented his own apartment. Then, Jobs and his girlfriend were not in a regular relationship and things were falling apart. Jobs best friend, Steve Wozniak designed another version of Pong, a classic video game, handed the board to Jobs. Jobs then took the game to Atari Inc. At Atari, Jobs was believed to have designed the game and was immediately offered a job of technician. Nolan Bushnell, the cofounder of Atari described Jobs as a difficult but valuable being and was believed to be the smartest guy in the corporation. In 1973, Jobs was known to live a very simple life so as to save money.

Friends like Blood

At Atari, Jobs was asked to create a circuit board for Breakout, an arcade video game. There were a lot of chips on the board and the company offered to give him US$100 for every chip removed from the machine. Since Jobs had just little knowledge of circuit board, he rushed down to his best friend Wozniak and promised to divide into two whatever is given to him after the job. It was a surprise to the Atari engineers when Wozniak reduced the chips to just 46. This design was so tight that an assembly line could not have done such a perfect job. Jobs was given $700 instead of $5,000 and gave Wozniak $350.Wozniak would later say after ten years that if he knew Jobs was paid $700 for the job and needed it so badly, he would have given Jobs the whole money.

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Wozniak later designed a low-cost digital ‘blue box’ that could manipulate telephone network and allow free long-distance calls. Jobs saw this as an opportunity to make money. Jobs strategized on how they would sell it which was later successful and Jobs felt electronics could be fun and still be profitable. In 1994 at an interview, Jobs claimed that the blue box took them six months to build and that was the secret and foundation of Apple. This made them believe they could also compete with the large companies and beat them.

What is driving you

Jobs explained that he alongside Wozniak invented the Apple because they could not afford to buy their own personal computers. Also, he claimed that the computers sold in the market were not useful for the purpose they needed it and they saw a need to create theirs.

Wozniak designed the Apple 1 computer in 1976 and showed it to Jobs and Jobs opined that they sell it. Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne started Apple Computer which is now known as Apple Inc. in the garage of Jobs’ home. Wayne didn’t stay long before left Jobs and Wozniak as the primary founders of Apple. The two deliberated and concluded to name it Apple after Jobs spent some time at a farm’s apple orchard and told Wozniak about it. An engineer, Mike Markulla brought Apple’s attention to Arthur Rock who later invested at a start $60,000 into Apple. In 1977, Wozniak designed the Apple II and it was the first consumer product that was sold by the Apple Computer and was very successful.

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Money shouldn’t change your Personality

Jobs developed a uniform for himself because of its daily convenience and to create an identity for which people would know him. He went to work wearing a black long-sleeved mock, turtleneck and made by Issey  Miyake, sometimes called St. Croix brand, Balance 991 sneakers and Levi’s 501 blue jeans. He claimed this was inspired by a mathematics professor at Brown University, Stuart Geman.

The Fallible part of Man

With success at Jobs Company, his relationship with Brennan his girlfriend was highly severed and complicated because Brennan was also working at Apple. Brennan later got pregnant for Jobs. This took her few days to report to Jobs who felt bad on hearing the news. Jobs never told her to abort the pregnancy but also showed no interest in the pregnancy. This made Brennan more confused and was afraid to discuss it with her parents. Her friend, Kobun later advised her to keep the pregnancy.

Brennan then resigned from Apple as she could not stand seeing Jobs everyday not concerned about her pregnancy while her belly pops up every day. Brennan picked up menial jobs like cleaning to take care of herself and the pregnancy. Whenever she asked Jobs for money, he refused to give her. At the age of 23, Jobs had his first baby, exactly the age his parents had him on May 17, 1978……......To be Continued

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Never see your situation as the worst, only see them as the steps you must climb to grow.

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