13A – Reading Reflection No. 1

What surprised you the most?  I think what surprised me most was the beginning of Steve Job’s life. Jobs was the son of a bi-racial couple John Jandali and Joanna Schieble who used to argue  about their race differences and eventually gave Jobs up for adoption. After being put up for adoption, Jobs was later adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. 
What about the entrepreneur did you most admire? One of the first projects Steve Jobs made was with Steve Wozniak and was called “Blue Box”. Blue Box used frequencies to make long distance calls and was beginning to be very applicable during the technology boom. However, their new invention was stolen from them at gunpoint. I admire how despite this scary instance, the two were still able to work together and create bigger and better products. 
What about the entrepreneur did you least admire? Jobs had an unhealthy relationship with Chrisann Brennan for five years and the couple had their first child together in 1978. However, throughout Brennan’s pregnancy Jobs would deny that the child was his. Although Jobs later said that he regretted the way he handled the situation, I still think it was of poor taste and shows a lack of character. 
Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? Due to personality clashes, Jobs temporarily left Apple and began working on a new project called “NeXT”. NeXT was used to help educational institutions with computing power issues. During his time with NeXT Jobs had many failures which included NeXT’s hardware ultimately flopping.
What competencies did you notice the entrepreneur exhibited? Steve Jobs was most known for his perfectionism. In his early days in Apple, Jobs was known for calling his employees work in adequate or for suggesting that his employees were below average intelligence. However, many came to know that he acted out in such ways because he wanted to create/market the best possible products. For example, when the Macintosh first came out, Jobs wanted everything for it to be perfect. Not only did Jobs want the Macintosh to run properly, but he also wanted packaging of the computer and distribution to be seamless. 
If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?
  1. When Apple first went to market, why did you pay your employees hourly instead of on a salary base?
  • When Jobs made this decision, he made a lot of employees miss out on the pay benefits of Apple’s take off in the market. I’d like to ask why he would do this to working people. 
  1. Was there an idea that you wish you could’ve done that you didn’t?
  • A lot of inventors don't carry out all the ideas that they have and usually only end up following one successful one. 

For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion? I think that Jobs view of handwork was investing all of your time with it and, at times, throwing others under the bus so that way you can get ahead. I agree that handwork takes a lot of personal investment, however I don't believe that you should degrade others in any way in order to make yourself succeed. 

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 12, 2017 at 12:10 PM

    I wanted to read about Steve Jobs for this assignment, but I was not able to get my hands on the book in time. Jobs was an impressive man and I have heard people mention his perfectionist mentality. While I think that trait is important, I do think that speaking down to your employees is not the way to handle it. I also never knew that his first invention was basically stolen from him.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownOctober 15, 2017 at 5:13 PM

    Hi Elizabeth I thought that your post was very good! I also read the book about Steve Jobs. Steve Job's life is an amazing thing to learn about. His vision for Apple and his work ethic to bring his dream to life are both things that I admire him for. In my career I hope to obtain a fraction of the success that Jobs did in his career.

    ReplyDelete
  3. luke gonzalezOctober 15, 2017 at 5:41 PM

    I also did my reflection on Steve Jobs. He was a truly remarkable human and I hope the rest of our class mates are able to learn and benefit from his story.

    ReplyDelete

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