Check this Sunday's edition of the New York Times (it's free to register. I certainly highly recommend their daily mailing lists on news, and in particular the Deal Book !).
Today's edition features a story on Steve Jobs. (excerpts here + the picture are reproduced without prior permission, and of course copyright is retained by the NYT. If it is a problem, I'll take it off, just email me).
I have long admired the man (OK, it is an easy one, like Einstein right ? Actually the only pix Steve keeps in his office is one of Einstein they say.). I really believe the guy is close to a genius (not in being an ultra gifted kid like Mozart, but in really understanding what he does.)!
- His first venture was Apple Computer, with buddy Woz (Steve Wozniak). Jobs did not invent the micro computer (invented by a vietnamese-born Frenchman I think back in 1974). Jobs did not invent the Human Machine Interface using the tryptic windows/ icons / mouse, it was "borrowed" from the Xerox PARC! While Woz concentrated on building the motherboard for the Apple I (it did not have a screen then, but a composite signal to hook onto TVs), Jobs concentrated on building a business. He even hired a suite for an afternoon, filled with his friends dressed up as co-workers, in preparation for a VC due diligence :) The Apple Corporation was born.
- Jobs developed then what has become a legend in the tech world: a very very bad temper. I have known people that have worked closely with him. He is both the charismatic leader and the irascible boss. He builds upon his close team, zooming on his one idea of the moment. Eventually, by concentrating too much on the Macintosh, the CEO he had just hired (John Sculley from Pepsi) got rid of him. Jobs went on to found the now extinct and beautiful NeXT Computer corporation. I think this was the first time Jobs introduced design into industrial computing, something he would use again later. NeXT black boxes didn't sell well, coming too early to market, but introducing such novative features as Display Postscript.
- NeXT didn't kill Jobs optimism. He co-founded Pixar, the 3D animation studio (a revolution then) that has produced such hits as Nemo. He still runs it.
- Eventually Apple market share declined and was on the verge of going bust. In hindsight, industry observers blame Apple for not opening its OS to competitors, for not licensing its technology to others, etc. Maybe. Apple is the last company today I think to build both its proprietary hardware and software. Customers (don't know why) love it though. Jobs was pulled back as interim CEO. I remember watching on CNN an interview on Larry King Live when Jobs said "I'm dropping the i from my title". Waow! That was an earthquake in the Valley: Jobs is backl And so he was. The iMac with is colourful plastic screens, the new ads campaign featuring Yo-Yo Ma and Jeff Goldblum were instant hits. Apple returned to the black and design computing was back. (the only challenger I see is AlienWare, although targeting a very different consumer segment).
- Needless to mention here Apple's innovation spirit with early launches of palmtops (Apple's Newton) and WiFi (Apple's Airport).
- Last year, Jobs did it again. He launched iTunes, pushing to a full stop all the controversy that had been roaring for years on music piracy. Needless to say that Apple is not making any money from iTunes (it is running at a loss, with "only" 50m downloads after one year (at $0.99 / song, ie $50m revenue). The real trick here is in complements (something Andy Grove from Intel, very insightfully, added to Michael Porter's 5 forces.) iPod sales for the first quarter this year were 807,000. What are the margins on these devices ? The sell reatil at $299, $399 and $499 on Apple's Store. Do the math !
Apple has spun a generation of entrepreneurs such as Jean-Louis Gassée (formerly from BeOS) and Guy Kawasaki (still with garage.com), in a very similar way Larry Ellison's Oracle has created guys such as Tom Siebel (from Siebel Systems), and Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com).
As the NYTimes article puts it:
"The iPod's success is also the clearest indication that Mr. Jobs, if he is to successfully revamp Apple, will ultimately win not by taking on PC rivals directly, but by changing the rules of the game." "Mr. Jobs has long been an arbiter of what is cool in technology" "Since returning seven years ago to Apple, the computer maker he helped to establish in 1976, Mr. Jobs has created a fusion of fashion, brand, industrial design and computing."
For those of you that have not yet watched the man in action, I highly recommend watching each of Jobs' Keynotes at MacWorlds. Seldom do CEOs display such mastery of salesmanship and perfect mastering of rhethorics.
Why else would the crowd cheer him as a rockstar when he unveils the 9 cooling fans of the latest G5 PowerMac computer ?
Finally, give some thought to the conclusion in this article:
"Because Apple was an early leader in the Wi-Fi market with its airport wireless networking base station, the reasoning goes, the company may be hard at work on a line of digital mobile phones that would take the company into the fast-growing voice-over-Internet-protocol, or VoIP market."
Food for thought!
