Five Entrepreneurial Traits Possessed by Steve Jobs

One of the entrepreneurial traits that Steve Jobs had possessed is persuasion. Initially, to sell more Macintosh computers, Apple Inc. invented iPod, followed with an app of the iTunes Music Store. In 2003, Jobs negotiated with the music company which wouldn’t give the permission of their songs to the company like Microsoft to sign up with him. He persuaded, the Apple company was not that big at that time, and most of the users might start sharing songs from iTunes because it was a new thing for them. He continued argued, the record labels looked at Apple’s tiny market share, which is a low percentage of the whole PC market, and reckoned they’d sell about a million songs per year. The company accepted his offer. Only in U.S., Apple sold a million when iTunes had released in the first week. It sold 3 million within a month. Nowadays, Apple sells apps, books, TV shows, films, as well as the music. Without Jobs’ persuasion skill, Apple will not be here at all.

Besides, Steve Jobs had a high level of self-confidence. When he was designing the iPhone, he planned to replace the surface to a scratchproof glass, instead of plastic. So, he met with the CEO of Corning, Wendell Weeks, which had developed and discovered “gorilla glass”. Jobs wanted a huge shipment of gorilla glass within six months but Weeks explained that Corning didn’t have that such capacity. He strongly disagreed Weeks’ premise. He was so confident that Corning could make it. His self-confidence made Weeks to change his mind and called his managers to produce gorilla glass all time.

On top of that, Steve Jobs showed the trait of tolerance for failure in his life. Like Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Jobs was a college dropout. He spent only 6 months in Reed College because his adoptive parents could not afford such an expensive education. Although he didn’t complete his study, but he still never gives up his hope. In 1973, He was interested in Eastern spiritualism. To save his money to India to study Eastern culture and religion, he took a part-time job designing video games for Atari. 

Furthermore, Steve Jobs had also a high level of initiative. He renewed his friendship with Wozniak when he returned to the U.S. from India. Wozniak tried to build a small computer because of his hobby. But the visionary Jobs took the initiative because he believed that the device had the marketing potential. Jobs convinced Wozniak to go into business with him. Jobs and Wozniak set up shop in Jobs' parents' garage, dubbed the venture Apple, and began working on the prototype of the Apple I in 1975. Jobs sold his Volkswagen microbus and Wozniak sold his lovely calculator, Hewlett-Packard calculator to generate the $1,350 in capital they used to start Apple. 

Lastly, Steve Jobs is a problem solver. Jobs introduced Macintosh as home computer in 1984. But the consumers could not afford because it was too expensive, which its cost was $2495. He tried to pitch Macintosh to business computer, but with little memory, no networking capabilities and no hard drives, almost none of the America companies wanted it. Jobs still believed that Macintosh would be a success. But due to company’s loss, he sold his Apple shares and quitted in 1985. Jobs didn’t escape from his problem. He tried to solve it by launching NeXT. After 12 years, Apple Company acquired NeXT, brought Jobs back to his company. He became CEO again in the following year. He drove his company to the greatest success, from iPod to iPhone and iPad.

Steve Jobs' Biography

Steven Paul Jobs, also known as Steve Jobs, was the co-founder, chief executive officer (CEO) and chairman of Apple Inc.; founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT Inc.; CEO and primary investor of Pixar Animation Studios, and a member of The Walt Disney Company's board of directors. He was born on 24 February 1955, in San Francisco, California.

His biological parents were Abdulfattah “John” Jandali and Joanne Schieble Simpson. They were both unmarried at the time. Due to his girlfriend's family objected to their relationship, they give up the baby for adoption. Then he was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, and grew up with one sister, Patricia (Patty).

In 1972, Jobs enrolled Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Because of his adoptive parents could not afford him a university education, he dropped out of the college after one semester. He spent the next 18 months to learn calligraphy. He was taught by Robert Palladino.

In 1975, a member of Homebrew Computer Club named Steve Wozniak, invented the Apple I computer. It drew Jobs’ attention with the marketing potential of such a computer. Then he and Wozniak formed Apple Computer Company.In Apple Inc., Jobs created a lot of invention. There are Apple II, Macintosh, iMac, MacBook, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, and iPad. Unfortunately, in 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour. After battling pancreatic cancer for nearly ten years, he passed away around 3pm on October 5, 2011 at Palo Alto, California. He was 56 years old.