Reading Reflection No.1

For my reading assignment, I read Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in Steve Jobs, Apple, leadership, entrepreneurship, or even business in general. The book was excellent, and I have nothing but good things to say about it.  

• What surprised you the most?
• I think throughout the book I was surprised at the quirkiness of Steve Jobs. Previously I had read about the fact that he was a weird person in the way that he wanted to achieve success. But I really never knew how much of a weird individual he was in the way he handled things. The way that he motivated his employees and would obsess over ideas was astounding. Along with this comes his dedication to perfection. Jobs was dedicated to doing everything he could perfectly, and would not stop until it got to that level. Which in his head, perfection was likely never possible.
• What about the entrepreneur did you most admire?
• He was never satisfied with his success. Despite selling a number of like 6 million units with the Apple II, he wasn't satisfied with the product he had created. Then when the Apple III and Lisa computers came out, he wasn't satisfied with those either. I think the ability to not be satisfied with a little taste of success says a lot about a person. I think it says how much that person wants to take their product/innovations/ideas to the next level. I also admired the way that he motivated his employees, he was able to tell them that anything was possible. It was his way of "distorting reality," he wanted to do so in order to make his employees think they could do anything, in turn, this would motivate them in ways no one could think of. 
• What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?
• I least admire the fact that when his then partner got pregnant, he dismissed that the child was even his throughout the pregnancy. I think that this was definitely one of his low points as a person. At least he expressed regret over how he handled it, but I still think that he had major flaws when it came to him as a person. The other thing that I least admire about him was that his intensity and pursuit of perfection took away from him as a person. He wasn't much of a family man because of his intensity and weird personality quirks. 
• Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?
• Jobs encountered adversity all of his life really, he had to battle with people over the fact that he was such an odd individuals with quirky behaviors. That was one of the reasons he was demoted early on with Apple. He had to claw his way back up to the top of Apple in order to assume full control of the company. Jobs had a commitment to perfection his entire life, and it could be seen with so many different aspects throughout his career. 

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? 

Persistence. Steve Jobs had a persistence for whatever he wanted to achieve that was incredible. Perfectionism also comes to mind. As I mentioned previously, Jobs was a perfectionist to the 10th degree. He wanted to keep developing his products until they were perfect pieces of art that could be used by everyone. The other competency that comes to mind is his intensity. Jobs' intensity was incredible, those that worked with him mentioned the fact that he pushed everyone around him to aspire for creating something better/higher. 

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

His trip to India. I guess this confused me because he was headed in a direction of success, and even got a job at Atari by walking into their headquarters and demanding it. The direction of success that I refer to is not the fact that he was headed in the direction of creating or innovating, but he was doing something productive after having dropped out of college. So, stopping work and going to India to pursue his interest in eastern culture kind of confused me. Throughout his career, he did this thing where he would kind of drop off for a little bit and come back with this determined demeanor. I think the fact that he left Apple multiple times and came back made him who he was. I think that him leaving and coming back so many times meant time for him to think of ideas and develop them with time. 

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

- What drove you to be so persistent to create/innovate throughout your life, was there something inside that you held from when you were a child, or was it just something you always had? 

I would ask this because as I mentioned earlier, he has to be one of the most persistent people I have ever heard of. I think the impression of persistence on his part stuck with me when I read about him going to Atari after he had dropped out of college and saying he wouldn't leave until he had a job there. 

- What is your definition of perfection? 

I would ask this because throughout his life he sought perfection. I don't think that he knew what perfection was in his mind. I think that he thought he would find it once he got to it. But really, he just kept innovating and developing new products in his journey to perfection. I would just like to see what his take is on perfection and how to get there. 

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

I think that Jobs opinion of hard work was achieving perfection. Which I think he would probably tell you that perfection never happens. That once a creator makes a machine that he feels satisfied with, he has failed. Because that was Jobs' attitude about innovation. He felt that innovation was continuous and it needed to keep happening in order to at one point reach perfection. I share the opinion of hard work needing to keep happening.