Entrepreneur is the one who has the ability to develop, administer, run and organize a new business while bearing most of the risks to make profit. The word entrepreneur derives from the Latin word ‘prendere’ meaning to ‘take’ thus: entrepreneur is the one who takes risks.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of the nation. An entrepreneur uses all his abilities of leadership, rationality, innovation, bravery, creativity, independence and decision making. Entrepreneur is the person; entrepreneurship is the process of initiating a new business while enterprise is the object. An entrepreneur not only reduces risks but also increases the likelihood of success. He brought together people, knowledge, markets, production facilities and money to start new initiatives.

The economy which is simply the practice of demand and supply including consumption depends on various factors such as human capital, technology and labour. India’s economy ranked 3rd^rd in the field of new firms created in the entire world which contributes to the GDP majorly.

• Creating jobs: entrepreneurs start their own business and help other people also who are seeking for jobs. They employ variety of people in their business which further contributes to the economy.

• Capital creation: entrepreneurs contribute a large part in mobilizing wealth in the country from their profits. People take benefit from the success of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs attract investors from all over the world and contribute to the economy.

• Standard of living: entrepreneurs make innovations which further increase the standard of living of people. Innovations improve the quality of life.

• Exports: entrepreneurs try to expand the business throughout the world by exporting. This leads to an inflow of foreign currency thereby boosting the economy.

• Eradicating poverty: entrepreneurs help the country in eradicating poverty by generating employment and strategizing proper methods for the development of nation as India is already a labor intensive nation.

• Helping other sectors: entrepreneurs spread their business in spite of limiting it. The finished product of one industry can be used as a raw material for the other.

The purpose of doing the case study of Steve jobs is to understand the entrepreneur’s aspect from the mind of a billionaire.

The study aims to answer the following:

• How did a normal boy become a successful entrepreneur, Steve Jobs?
• How did he get fired from his own company?
• How does his entrepreneurial career contribute to the economy?

Birth

Two graduates from Wisconsin college, Joanne Schieble and Abdulfattah gandali fell in love with each other. The unwed couple had a son, Steve jobs in 1954. As they were unmarried, it seemed impossible at that to marry as Joanne’s father was tyrant and forbade her to marry. They were both just 23 years old, too young to marry, and it was difficult being a single parent due to the stigma attached to it. They couldn’t even abort as it was illegal to abort at that time. In 1954, adoption was the only option available at that time in US.

adoption

The unwed couple wanted the best for their son. The family of a lawyer who was on a waiting list changed their minds as they wanted a girl. So, the next one were Paul and Clara, machinist and accountant respectively. They have never been educated from college. But Joanne and Jandali wanted to give their son an educated family. But Paul and Clara promised to send him to college.

Schooling

Steve was innovative and intelligent since childhood as his step father was machinist, he cultivated an interest in electronics. His many friends were engineers from the neighborhood. He was loner at school and had very few friends. He was annoyed with the formal schooling system. He was a prankster in school and his teacher needed to bribe him to get the job done. The teachers wanted him to skip classes and go ahead for high schooling but his parents didn’t want that. His parents bought a new house in 1967 at Los Antlas close to Homestead high school which has ties with Silicon Valley.

College

He joined Reed College after high schooling as his parents promised so. His parents used all their life savings to get him admitted to the college as expensive as Stanford. But due to lack of direction, he lost interest in 6 months. So, he dropped out of the college. That time was the most difficult one as he was clueless about his career and future. Then, he started attending calligraphic classes which seemed interested in him. He learned typography and calligraphy in 18 months. He cultivated an interest in poetry and music too.

Enlightenment and Atari

In 1974, he joined Atari as a video game designer but after a few months, he left that and went to India to find enlightenment. He wanted to meet Neem Karoli Baba at Kainchi ashram. But Baba died before meeting him. Steve traveled all through the Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh where he met Haidakhan babaji.

After traveling to India for seven months, he returned to the US practicing Zen Buddhism. He rejoined Atari for arcade videogame breakout. He designed blue box. Had there been no blue box, there would not have been something like the Apple Company. He got 100$ from Atari which was a good start.

“All I ask is that Today, you do the best work of your entire life.”

STEVE JOBS

Advent of apple and journey to millionaire

Steve jobs and Steve wozniak (classmate of Steve jobs in Homestead high school) jointly founded Apple in 1976 when Steve was 23. They arranged funds through selling his own Volkswagen bus and wozniak sold his scientific calculator. In 1977, they launched Apple 2 at west coast faire. It was considered to be the highly successful micro-computer. Each computer cost $666.66 and their Apple 1 made a profit of $774000. After apple 2, sales increased by 700% to 139 million.

At the age of 25 years, he became a millionaire and was listed on the Forbes richest list. In 1978, Steve thought any company needs a good CEO to operate and manage the whole system. So, he decided to appoint John Sculley (CEO of Pepsi). Steve jobs convinced John by saying, “Do you want to sell sugared water or want to revolutionize the world by joining our company”. John convinced.

John and Steve had discord with each other due to their different beliefs as Steve wanted to have a closed system whereas John wanted an open system compatible with other systems as well. So, the Apple divided into sections within itself. Steve launched Macintosh based on lisa interface which had beautiful typography which steve learned 10 years ago. This concludes that everything you learn has value in life but it takes time.

Fired from his own company

With the growing competition from IBM and Microsoft, Sculley felt that Steve was hurting the company with the closed system. So, the panel of board of directors voted in favor of John and as a result, Steve got fired from his own company in 1985. Many people left including Woznaik. Steve felt completely depressed. The time he had spent working on the apple was wasted. He was publicly out. He didn’t know what to do further. He felt like leaving the city.

Starting over once again

After being fired from the company, he didn’t lose hope and did what he loved. And afterwards, he felt that being fired from the apple was the best thing as the heaviness of being successful was now changed into the lightness of being a beginner again. He met with David packard and bob noyce.

NeXT and PIXAR

Steve founded NeXT Inc. with $7 million investment and later he left with no money. So, he convinced Ross Perot, a billionaire and investor, to invest into his business. Sooner, PIXAR grew and in 1986, Steve purchased a company from George Lucas worth $50 million and profit grew to $4 billion. Later his company merged with Walt Disney, Steve being the largest share holder. First film was ‘toy story’ which became a huge success in 1995.

Revitalizing the APPLE

In 1996, Apple bought NEXT for $429 million and in 1997, Steve returned as Apple CEO. He revitalized the whole company. Then the company gained the position back and started to dictate again, by launching I Mac, Mac book air and iPod. The advent of iphone dictated the whole market. In spite of being expensive, people bought it. The condition of the company improved in 2007. The company had $199.99 share stocks and was earning a profit of $1.59 billion with zero debt.

When he was fired from apple in 1985, he met his love of life, Laurene Powell (classmate of Stanford business school). They married on March 18, 1991 and had 3 children living in Palo Altos. He also had a girl friend at the age of 23 Chrisann brenann and had a girl with him named Lisa with whom her interface name was named. He didn’t recognize his daughter Lisa until she turned 7. Lisa was an awesome writer. Steve regretted his girl friend and daughter for his ruthless behavior.

Battle with cancer

“if you live each day as it was your last, at some point of time, you will certainly be most right.”

Steve was much inspired with his quote and lived it each day as it was the last. Thinking so makes a person fearless about the things that don’t matter and prioritize the things one needs to. Thinking that someday you will be dead makes you follow your heart without the fear of being judged.

In 2003, Steve was diagnosed with neuronal endocrine tumor in his pancreas. That was the form of cancer which is incurable. The doctor advised him to take rest and he will be dead within 3-6 months. Doctor started crying when he saw an incurable tumor in his pancreas. Doctor told him to have surgery in case it can be cured. Steve further postponed the surgery 9 months. His staff was fearful as if his health reports were out, all the investors would pull out the money. So, he didn’t disclose his cancer. It was the first time he was facing death from nearby. In 2004, he had surgery, after that he was fine.

death

After being so close to death in 2003, he was saved. But in 2009, he suddenly started losing weight so his liver needs to be transplanted. He took 6 month medical leave. He suffered hormonal imbalance and again took a medical leave in 2011, his condition was constantly deteriorating. And in august 2011, he resigned from his job. On October 5, 2011 he passed away due to complications of that cancer at Palo Alto, California, US.

Steve always wished that for himself while his speech at Stanford, he told all the students to wish “stay hungry, stay foolish” for themselves.

Chhavi Sardana

Author

Chhavi hails from RGNUL, Patiala and spends most of her time reading novels. Her interest area is arbitration and constitutional law. For any clarifications, feedback, and advice, you can reach us at [email protected]