Steve Jobs
By Walter Isaacson
Did you know that the name for Apple Inc. came from Steve Jobs working in an apple orchard? Did you know how paradoxical Steve Jobs was? He was an artistic-technophile. He was a vegan who binged on unusual diets. He tried to live the tenets of Eastern religion by meditating and focusing on the paradoxes of life which led him to believe in the power of intuition and experiential wisdom. P. 49 As a student he was bored with routines, but excited about creating and learning. As a boss, he was tyrannical, focused, creative, focused, decisive, and sometimes mean. He was a product of the 60s and the synergy of the energy created in Silicon Valley, being in the right place at the right time. “This is a book about the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.” Highlight Loc 280-281.
I read the biography of Steve Jobs because I wanted to understand how formal education affected him and whether or not another Steve Jobs could emerge from our current educational system or would we test him to death and refer him to special education.
His parents “…felt a lot of responsibility once they sensed that I was special. They found ways to keep feeding me stuff and putting me in better schools. They were willing to defer to my needs.” Loc. 496-97 His father was a craftsman and taught Steve that doing things well was important. If you built cabinets, the back wall, even though no one saw it, should be as artfully and skillfully done as the front that everyone saw. Steve carried that over to the inside of computers, design of packaging, and design of circuit boards. His demand for this perfection and attention to detail drove many of his staff crazy. They did not understand that this was part of his vision. Even though repairmen were the only ones who saw the inside of a computer, he demanded that the circuit boards were laid out with style and planning.
Steve was different, to say the least. He was smart and his parents knew it. They made certain that he had a good education. In fact, two educators recognized his unique strengths and “saved him from ultimate boredom. One of his teachers recognized that he was gifted and gave him accelerated learning, plus helped get him advanced a grade so that he was more challenged. She reciprocated by getting him a hobby kit for grinding a lens and making a camera. ‘I learned more from her than any other teacher, and if it hadn’t been for her I’m sure I would have gone to jail.’ It reinforced, once again, the idea that he was special. ‘In my class, it was just me she cared about. She saw something in me.’” P. 39
He dropped out of college because the requirements were meaningless to him. “He had a very inquiring mind that was enormously attractive,” said the dean of students, Jack Dudman. He refused to accept automatically received truths, and he wanted to examine everything himself. Dudman allowed Jobs to audit classes and stay with friends in the dorms even after he stopped paying tuition.” - Highlight on Page 41 | Loc. 985-89 One of the classes that excited him was calligraphy. Because of that he demanded that the computer have different fonts which may not be part of our computer packages to this day if Jobs hadn’t taken this class.
This reminds me of the movie “Sliding Doors” starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Her life is very different because in one scenario she makes the elevator before the door closes and in another scenario, she does not. Her life goes in two entirely different directions. But for Dean Dudman and Jobs in a calligraphy class, I would not be using Comic Sans for a font.
After he and Steve Wozniak created a computer in Jobs’ garage, his life took many fascinating twists and turns. His passionate belief in making technology for the user led him to making constant improvements and changes, sometimes to the consternation of his co-workers. He “emphasized that you should never start a company with the goal of getting rich. Your goal should be making something you believe in and making a company that will last.” P. 78 Loc. 1603-7
His company stressed three values: “The first was empathy, an intimate connection with the feelings of the customer: ‘We will truly understand their needs better than any other company.’ The second was focus: ‘In order to do a good job of those things that we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.’ The third and equally important principle, awkwardly named, was impute. It emphasized that people form an opinion about a company or product based on the signals that it conveys. ‘People DO judge a book by its cover,’ he wrote. “We may have the best product,…if we present in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities. “ P. 79
His belief “that design philosophy: ‘Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.’ “P. 80 is intriguing. What do we do in education? We make it way too complicated. What could we, and should we, simplify? What would Jobs say is our real focus?
As tyrannical as he was, “Jobs worked hard to foster a culture of collaboration at Apple. Many companies pride themselves on having few meetings. Jobs had many: an executive staff session every Monday, a marketing strategy session all Wednesday afternoon, and endless product review sessions. Still allergic to PowerPoints and formal presentations, he insisted that the people around the table hash out issues from various vantages and the perspectives of different departments.” P. 362
How can we get that honest collaboration across hierarchies in schools?
His creative ideas came from this constant collaboration. “Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘Wow,’ and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas.”
Page 362 “He takes contrary positions to create more discussion, because it may lead to a better result. So if you don’t feel comfortable disagreeing, then you’ll never survive.” P. 460 His teams were across job roles and responsibilities so that the ideas were coming from different types of users. How often do we really do that in education?
When I read the book I kept looking for his creativity and focus to provide an idea for recreating education. He, like many others, really did not provide any insights. “ Murdoch recalled that Jobs was somewhat dismissive of the idea that technology could transform education. But Jobs agreed with Murdoch that the paper textbook business would be blown away by digital learning. “ P. 509 “In fact Jobs had his sights set on textbooks as the next business he wanted to transform. He believed it was an $8 billion a year industry ripe for digital destruction.” P. 509 “In addition, he held meetings with the major publishers, such as Pearson Education, about partnering with Apple. ‘The process by which states certify textbooks is corrupt,’ he said. P. 510 ‘But with the iPad, then they don’t have to be certified.’“P. 518
“Jobs also attacked America’s education system, saying that it was hopelessly antiquated and crippled by union work rules. Until the teachers’ unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform. Teachers should be treated as professionals, he said, not as industrial assembly-line workers. Principals should be able to hire and fire them based on how good they were. Schools should be staying open until at least 6 p.m. and be in session eleven months of the year. It was absurd, he added, that American classrooms were still based on teachers standing in front lecturing. P. 545
When asked to talk to business leaders and the President of the US, he found that there were things “Republicans had blocked. Jobs found this an annoying example of how politics can lead to paralysis. ‘The president is very smart, but he kept explaining to us reasons why things can’t get done,’ he recalled. “It infuriates me.’ P. 546
“The nasty edge to his personality was not necessary. It hindered him more than it helped him. But it did, at times, serve a purpose. Polite and velvety leaders, who take care to avoid bruising others, are generally not as effective at forcing change.” P. 565 He didn’t invent many things outright, but he was a master at putting together ideas, art, and technology in ways that invented the future.” P. 566
“Steve Jobs thus became the greatest business executive of our era, the one most certain to be remembered a century from now. History will place him in the pantheon right next to Edison and Ford. More than anyone else of his time, he made products that were completely innovative, combining the power of poetry and processors.” P. 566
His biography was well-written and intriguing because Steve Jobs was such a fascinating person. My continued wonderment is are there other Steve Jobs in our classrooms that we are not recognizing, encouraging, or acknowledging? How do we make our schools more responsive to unique gifts?
It’s a fun and worthwhile read!!!
Buy the book:
http://kubitzeducationalservices.com
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