Steve Jobs – A Legendary Entrepreneur and a Great Innovator

The Following is an edited version of Steve Job’s   Stanford Commencement Address in 2005 which has many things to learn from Steve Job’ Life- Passion- Success- Failure and Perseverance
                                                                                                                                                                                Dr. SK Prasad

1. Connecting the dots in life

Steve Jobs shared about his life, where he was given away for adoption by his unwed natural mother. His adopted parents promised and fulfilled the promise to give him a college life. He chose to drop out of college after 6 months, because it cost his adopted parents a lot of money and he had no idea what the college degree would do for his life. He stayed on as a college drop-in for another 18 months. He could then attend the courses that he liked, instead of those that he did not like but had to take to fulfil the degree’s requirements.

This experience speaks about his views on flexible and passion driven education than structured learning. The educators are to take leaf from his experience, particularly Indian education which is driven by strong structures and rigidities.  He reflected the true mind of a student who excels in a liberal education environment rather than a caged learning environment. This was successfully shown in Amir Khans 3 –Idiots also.

It wasn’t that he knew exactly what he was doing back then. He took a journey off the well-beaten path. It was scary, but he wanted to follow his curiosity and trust that things will turn out ok in the end. He did not see the dots when he started out. They only connected when he looked back with hindsight.

2. Love what you do

The second principle of success shared by Steve Jobs is ‘Love what you do’
He loved what he did and grew Apple Inc. within 10 years to become a US$2 billion company with 4,000 employees. Then, he was fired at age 30 because of differences in vision with Apple’s board about the company’s direction. He became a high-profile ‘failure’, known throughout the world for being fired from his own company. Ironically, that loss gave him the lightness of being a beginner all over again. From there, he founded NeXT Computer Inc.  (which was later sold to Apple and he re-joined Apple) and Pixar Animation.

His life demonstrated that failures or perceived failures will transform into success when. you have genuine love and passion for what you are doing, you can cope with it, as he has demon-strated by bouncing back stronger than ever.

3. Facing the certainty of death

His thoughts on life and death are found to be similar to Indian philosophy explained by Lord Krishna in Geeta  He has learnt from a young age to understand human mortality. Death is the destination that we all share. Instead of being morbid about it, he used it to follow his heart; to do what he felt was necessary. His message  “not  to be trapped by living other people’s life for us, but to find the courage to follow our heart and intuition”. Indeed, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had to deal with various illnesses along the way. Yet, he went on to create the hugely successful iPhone and iPad even while fighting his illnesses.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish
Steve Jobs concluded his Stanford talk with the phrase, “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”. It was something he read when he was a young man, and it became his guiding principle throughout life.  As we continue to use our iPhones and iPads, or enjoy the next Pixar movie, let’s remember that the man who gave these to us advised us to stay hungry and to stay foolish- “ Trust in your own instincts, follow your heart and if required, break free from the secure”.