Steve jobs how is he doing

Jobs found himself in the driver's seat again and took some drastic steps to turn around Apple's decline. Jobs followed this up with a list of successes from the iPod in to the iPad in The years between saw Apple dominate the smartphone market with the iPhone, open up an e-commerce store with iTunes, and launch branded retail outlets called, what else, the Apple Store.

Starting with the iPod in , and then continuing with the iPhone and iPad over the next decade, Jobs rejuvenated the ailing Apple, putting it at the forefront of technology and communications. It's impossible to sum up Jobs' career in a single article, but a few lessons stick out. First, innovation counts for a lot, but innovative products fail without proper marketing.

Second, there are no straight paths to success. Jobs did get wealthy very early on, but he would be a footnote today if he didn't return to Apple in the 90s.

At one point, Jobs was kicked out of the company he helped create for being hard to work with. Rather than change, he bided his time, then took over again, and this time his attitude was seen as part of his genius. There is much more to be learned from the life of Steve Jobs, as there is in the life of every successful entrepreneur. The sheer hubris of the entrepreneurial spirit, the idea you can do something bigger and better than it has ever been done before, always bears watching and studying, whether to imitate it or just to marvel at what that hubris can create.

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I Accept Show Purposes. Your Money. Personal Finance. Your Practice. Popular Courses. Woz said it would take months, but Jobs stared at him and insisted he could do it in four days. Woz knew that was impossible, but he ended up doing it. Those who did not know Jobs interpreted the Reality Distortion Field as a euphemism for bullying and lying.

But those who worked with him admitted that the trait, infuriating as it might be, led them to perform extraordinary feats. One day Jobs marched into the cubicle of Larry Kenyon, the engineer who was working on the Macintosh operating system, and complained that it was taking too long to boot up. Kenyon allowed that he probably could. Jobs went to a whiteboard and showed that if five million people were using the Mac and it took 10 seconds extra to turn it on every day, that added up to million or so hours a year—the equivalent of at least lifetimes a year.

After a few weeks Kenyon had the machine booting up 28 seconds faster. When Jobs was designing the iPhone, he decided that he wanted its face to be a tough, scratchproof glass, rather than plastic. He stared unblinking at Weeks. You can do it. He knew that people form an opinion about a product or a company on the basis of how it is presented and packaged. When he was getting ready to ship the Macintosh in , he obsessed over the colors and design of the box. Similarly, he personally spent time designing and redesigning the jewellike boxes that cradle the iPod and the iPhone and listed himself on the patents for them.

He and Ive believed that unpacking was a ritual like theater and heralded the glory of the product. For example, when he was creating the new and playful iMac, after his return to Apple, he was shown a design by Ive that had a little recessed handle nestled in the top. It was more semiotic than useful. This was a desktop computer. Not many people were really going to carry it around. But Jobs and Ive realized that a lot of people were still intimidated by computers.

The handle signaled permission to touch the iMac. That happened even with the movie Toy Story. After Jeff Katzenberg and the team at Disney, which had bought the rights to the movie, pushed the Pixar team to make it edgier and darker, Jobs and the director, John Lasseter, finally stopped production and rewrote the story to make it friendlier. The same was true for the iPhone. The initial design had the glass screen set into an aluminum case. One Monday morning Jobs went over to see Ive. The problem was that the iPhone should have been all about the display, but in its current design the case competed with the display instead of getting out of the way.

The whole device felt too masculine, task-driven, efficient. A similar thing happened as Jobs and Ive were finishing the iPad. At one point Jobs looked at the model and felt slightly dissatisfied. They needed to signal that you could grab it with one hand, on impulse.

They decided that the bottom edge should be slightly rounded, so that a user would feel comfortable just snatching it up rather than lifting it carefully. That meant engineering had to design the necessary connection ports and buttons in a thin, simple lip that sloped away gently underneath.

Jobs delayed the product until the change could be made. As a young boy, he had helped his father build a fence around their backyard, and he was told they had to use just as much care on the back of the fence as on the front. It was the mark of an artist to have such a passion for perfection. In overseeing the Apple II and the Macintosh, Jobs applied this lesson to the circuit board inside the machine.

In both instances he sent the engineers back to make the chips line up neatly so the board would look nice. This seemed particularly odd to the engineers of the Macintosh, because Jobs had decreed that the machine be tightly sealed. And once the board was redesigned, he had the engineers and other members of the Macintosh team sign their names so that they could be engraved inside the case. Jobs was famously impatient, petulant, and tough with the people around him.

But his treatment of people, though not laudable, emanated from his passion for perfection and his desire to work with only the best. Was all his stormy and abusive behavior necessary? Probably not. There were other ways he could have motivated his team.

Jobs promoted an initiative for environmentally friendly products during his time as CEO. Apple utilizes eco-conscious materials such as recycled aluminum, plastics, and papers in its products to conserve global resources. Likewise, all Apple products are Energy Star qualified, which means they follow the requirements set forth by the Environmental Protection Agency EPA for energy efficiency. Carrying on Jobs' legacy, Apple has also enacted plans to be carbon neutral by As the initial creator of upscale, user-friendly technology, Steve Jobs' accomplishments continue to have profound effects today.

The competition created from the introduction of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad has revolutionized the technology industry. Consumers have benefited from developments in phones and computing and have a wider array of choices when purchasing computers, phones, and tablets.

While Jobs' influence on technology was apparent, his philanthropy has gone widely unrecognized. Jobs donated to various charitable causes, and he also sought to lessen the long-lasting environmental impacts of Apple's products by changing the company's environmental policy.

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I Accept Show Purposes. Top Videos. Getty Images. Jobs didn't want to get fired. He didn't want to start over. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.

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