Becoming Steve Jobs summary

In founding his own company and designing the Apple 1, Jobs had discovered his purpose in life. He and Wozniak even convinced a local small-business owner to distribute their machines. Soon enough, they were selling a dozen computers every few weeks. Fewer than two hundred units of this first model were ever sold, but this success was nonetheless energizing.

Riding the momentum of their first attempt and Wozniak’s assurance that he could build a much better machine, they went to work on their second computer, the Apple II.

In the late 1970s, Jobs’s life was a rollercoaster; he was in his early twenties and he had thrown himself full throttle into his career, forgoing a social life and even going without sleep.

In many ways it paid off and, when Apple went public in 1980, Jobs’s shares made him worth $256 million. However, by icing out early contributors like Bill Fernandez and Daniel Kottke, Jobs isolated himself within the company. And then he and Wozniak began to grow apart.

Though forced out of Apple, Jobs was not about to give up. He was ready to plot his tech revolution and, with investors and the media hailing him as a genius, he was certain he could be a great CEO. He was also certain that he was the only person alive who could create such amazing products.

So, in 1985, he founded the computer company NeXT. But success didn’t come as readily as he’d assumed it would.

While Jobs struggled to pull together his vision for NeXT, which was drifting disastrously, another tech star was rising. This was Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. During the 1990s, his company was dominating the industry as NeXT and Apple alike began fading into the past.

In fact, by 1991, Microsoft was already the world’s leading software company. This might have had something to do with the fact that, while Apple and NeXT didn’t license their operating systems for other manufacturers, Microsoft’s operating system, Windows, became the industry standard for every personal computer not produced by the other two companies.

So the release of Toy Story put Jobs back in the spotlight. Nonetheless, NeXT was still struggling. The company’s products weren’t selling and Jobs’s dream that the company would produce the world’s next great computer was toast. It was by far the low point of his career.

Things were so bad that Jobs shut down production entirely, shifting the company’s focus to software development, specifically its operating system, NeXTSTEP, which at least brought in a small profit.

So Jobs succeeded in transforming Apple from a deeply troubled company into a soaring business, but how exactly?

First, he trimmed the firm down to a size that was appropriate to its resources. In the process, thousands of employees were laid off, but Jobs was able to inspire those who stayed to buckle down and create a whole new line of incredible products.

In his forty-nine years, Jobs had never experienced a serious medical condition. But then, in 2003, he was diagnosed with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. Luckily, the tumor turned out to be slow-growing and more treatable than was first thought.

However, while the Stanford doctors that Jobs enlisted told him he needed immediate surgery, Jobs himself wasn’t so sure. Ignoring their advice, he opted first for an alternative, less invasive treatment: an augmented diet.

In 2007, there already existed devices that were being described as “smartphones,” like the BlackBerry and the Palm Treo. All of them were fine for checking email, finding a contact in your address book or checking your calendar. But when the iPhone first hit shelves that summer, it clearly offered something different.

In many ways, it was the world’s first truly smart phone.

So Apple was doing better than ever, but the same couldn’t be said of Jobs. His cancer never went away, and his health was declining. But, despite this fact, his illness also never overshadowed the daily business of Apple. While the board of directors began to discuss succession plans, for most people at Apple, Jobs’s declining health was a total mystery.

After all, even as his health deteriorated and he knew time was running out, Jobs refused to give up. Because of his dedication, the company released the MacBook Air in 2008 and, two years later, the iPad. At the time, the former product was Apple’s new “it” device. It was thinner than any previous laptop – effectively the computer equivalent of a supermodel.