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Abstract
With the
passing away of Steve Jobs, one of the greatest man ever in the
technology realm, some found that they were at a loss to lose such
a great innovator. The only one Steve has passed away, but his
legacy will remain, which is the predominant issue to be discussed
below. The information is based on a survey on the Internet by our
group members and analyze Steve Jobs` ingenuity and
entrepreneurship on the basis of the info gathered via the
questionnaires on the Web as well as the knowledge we have learned
about Steve Jobs which clarified the actuality as to the two
questions: what his entrepreneurship was and how it
evolved.
Table of Contents
Introduction…………………………………………………… 4
About
entrepreneurship…………………………………………… 5
Research
design…………………………………………………… 5-6
Methodology………………………………………………………. 6
Result……………………………………………………………… 7-10
Discussion………………………………………………………… 11-15
Further
research…………………………………………………… 16
Introduction
About
Steve Jobs: Steven Paul Jobs was an American business magnate and
inventor. He was the co-founder of Apple and served as its chief
executive officer from 1998 to 2011 until he announced his
resignation due to health problems. He passed away on October 5,
2011.
Jobs'
history in business has contributed much to the symbolic image of
the idiosyncratic, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur,
emphasizing the importance of design and understanding the crucial
role aesthetics play in public appeal. His work driving forward the
development of products that were both functional and elegant has
earned him many devoted followers. His success was not just out of
luck, but by a series of failure. He had a deep-seated interest in
technology when he was young which is in part because that his
father was a man dealing with machines every day. In April 1 1976
he launched the latter worldwide known Apple Computer Company
together with his friends. No one had expected the Apple Company to
be a most valuable corporation in the world thirty six years later.
Nor did anybody have ever assumed that Steve would someday be fired
by the company he started and then he returned, rejuvenated the
company again. By building one of the planet’s most successful
companies from his garage, he exemplified the spirit of American
ingenuity. By making computers personal and
putting the Internet in our pockets, he made the information
revolution not only accessible, but intuitive and
fun. And by turning his talents to storytelling,
he has brought joy to millions of children and grownups alike.
Steve was fond of saying that he lived every day like it was his
last. Because he did, he transformed our lives,
redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats
in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the
world.
1 About
entrepreneurship：Entrepreneurship is the process of exploring the
opportunities in the market place and arranging resources required
to exploit these opportunities for long term gain. It is the
process of planning, organizing, opportunities and assuming. Thus
it is a risk of business enterprise. It may be distinguished as an
ability to take risk independently to make utmost earnings in the
market. It is a creative and innovative skill and adapting response
to environment
2. Entrepreneurships can be
further divided into more detailed parts as to innovation,
adventure, cooperation, tolerance and the will to
succeed.
Research
design
Our
research is devised as a form of questionnaire which is classified
in four dimensions.
Considering that the Apple
products are so popular nowadays, we care about how consumers or
potential consumers make their choices before they purchase Apple
products, hence, the first question is” What the main factor it is
that affect you most when you decide to buy an Apple product?”; As
with many other distinguished entrepreneurs, Steve Jobs was also
abundant in some profound characteristics such as innovation,
adventure, cooperation, tolerance etc.. So here comes the second
question as “Among these exceptional characteristics glittering on
Steve Jobs, which one do you prefer ?”; It is well known that Steve
Jobs started his business in his parents` garage in California with
no more than $1500, nevertheless 36 years later the small cluttered
garage now turns into the most valuable corporation in the world,
thus, question arises: “What was the leading factor on which Steve
Job’s success depended?”; Last but not least, that the Apple
Company has been competing and fighting with Microsoft for several
decades is widely known. Taking account of the
CEOs of these two gigantic corporations, lots of people unusually
find it that there are too many similarities between Jobs and his
counterpart, Gates. Both born in 1955, they experienced the booming
electric technology and developed interest in computer science,
which contributes to their starting business in the middle of 1970s
and becoming extremely rich before their 30th. Still the
companies they set up decades ago are most influential corporations
in the world at present, so the last question come up with is about
which one do people appreciate , Steve or Gates.”
Methodology
The
research is based on an investigation which is conducted online.
About 300 respondents participated in our research project. Since
our topic is “Steve Jobs and entrepreneurships” that is a broad
topic and it is not an easy job to conduct the survey within the
campus or in Chengdu city, we decided to conduct the survey via the
Internet expecting that the scope of the participants is broad
enough. As mentioned above, the research is made up of 4
multiple-choice questions, and
each illustrates the result of public view on the subject we are
researching. Below are the links of our survey was
conducted:
http://vote.weibo.com/vid=1600893
http://vote.weibo.com/vid=1600881
http://vote.weibo.com/vid=1600933
http://vote.weibo.com/vid=1600909
Result
These
pictures illustrated below are the outcome of the survey which is
the first-handed information .
The
question is about which one you think is the most exceptional
characteristics Steve Jobs had as a successful
entrepreneur. There are 5 choices to choose from,
and each participant can choose no more than 2 choices, innovation,
adventure, cooperation, tolerance, willingness to
succeed. The detailed information is as
follows:
The most
distinguished characteristics of Steve Jobs`
entrepreneurship
Amount of
the respondents: 62
Amount of
the choices made by the respondents: 88
Characteristics
ratio3
Innovation
50%
Adventure
28.4%
Cooperation
8%
Tolerance
4.5%
Willingness to succeed
5.7%
Other
3.4%
The
question is about which one you think is the key factor on which
Steve Jobs` success depended.
There are 4 choices to choose
from, and each participant can choose only one choice from “booming
times”, “exceptional personalities”, “opportunity and luck” and
“other”. The specific information is as follows:
Amount of
respondents: 65
FACTORS
ratio
Booming
times
35.4%
Exceptional
personalities
53.8%
Opportunity and
luck
9.2%
Other
1.5%
The third
question is about why you choose Apple
products.
There are
5 choices to choose from, and each participant can choose no more
than 3 choices from “because they are products promoted by Steve
Jobs.”, “because I love Apple brand”, “because I love the design of
Apple”, “because I feel cool using Apple products” and “other”.
Here is the information below:
Amount of
respondents: 120
Amount of
choices made by the respondents: 164
Reason
Ratio4
They are
promoted by Steve 5.5%
I love
Apple
brand
15.9%
I love the
design of
Apple
43.9%
I feel
cool using Apple
19.5%
Other
14%
The question is about which one
you prefer better, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Here is the
information:
Amount of
respondents: 84
Person
Ratio
Steve
Jobs
57.1%
Bill
Gates
42.9%
Discussion
When
talking about Steve Jobs` legendary career, we are confused by his
perishing characteristics. He was a man “you can never work with
him twice”. On one hand, he was a man who was rebellious, stubborn,
arrogant and particular about everything, however; on the other
hand, he was a genius, visionary, innovative, wickedly smart. These
are the components of a great thinker. The paragraphs below reveal
the issue that what was entrepreneurship of Steve Jobs and how it
was developed.
The first
question as to which one you think is the most exceptional
characteristics Steve Jobs had as a successful entrepreneur offers
6 choices to choose from. Many a respondents chooses “innovation”,
which accounts for 71% of all the respondents participated in. Yet,
40% of the participants favor “adventure”, then the rest of the few
people choose other choices. So it can be read from the result that
the most influential characteristics within Steve Jobs as an
entrepreneur is innovation and adventure. As Steve Jobs has put it
“you can`t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect
them looking backward”, we look backward his life. Soon we find it
that this dots in his early life determined his success some years
later Reed. For instance, he was not interested in the course
offered in , a college which is most expensive then in America, so
he dropped out and continue to audit classes in Reed. One of the
course he had took was calligraphy in which he learned about serif
and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between
different letter combinations, about what makes great typography
great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way
that science can`t capture, and he found it fascinating. None of
this had even a hope of any practical application in his life, but
10 years later, when he was designing the Macintosh computer, it
all came back to him. It was the first computer with beautiful
topography and multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.
At that time, no one had the thought that a machine should be
artistically modified, but Steve did. He invented the idea of a
computer equipped with a mouse and being friendly, namely,
graphical user interface which still shaped the contemporary pc
industry and his innovation shines.
The second
issue is about which one you think is the key factor on which Steve
Jobs` success depended. Most respondents (53.8%) think his
exceptional personality led to his success, while some (34.5%)
believed that it is the booming times that contributed to his
success in that the 1970s is a suitable age to start business.
Recalling what Steve Jobs had experienced in his early life, we
have to admit that no single factor can individually leading to his
success, but it is all the factors that collectively contributed to
his success including booming times, exceptional personalities，
opportunity and luck. All these are the key components involved in
his feats. He was not a model boss or human being, tidily packaged
for emulation. Driven by demons, he could drive those around him to
fury and despair. But his personality and passions and products
were all interrelated, just as Apple`s hardware and software tended
to be, as if part of an integrated system. He was obsessed to Zen
when he was young which made him think different with
others.
He liked
simple stuff, believing that simplicity is the ultimate
sophistication. He had an eye for fashion. Every time an Apple
product was promoted, it would become a hit. Still we cannot
discount the factor of times. He started his company in a garage in
1976 when the computer technology is so prosperous. The Intel
Company invented the microprocessors which were suitable to install
into a personal computer. Steve foresaw the promising market in
personal computer field, so he determined to set up his own
company. after his company was set up 5 years, he was a billionaire
and at then he was 25.
The third
question comes as why you choose Apple products. When it comes to
Apple products, we often think them fashionable, cool and well
designed. In our survey, 60% of the respondents favor the design
most when considering buying Apple products, 26.7% of the
respondents think it fashionable and cool to have an Apple product
and 21.7% of respondents just like Apple and they buy it. We know
that Apple products stand for fashion and youth.
They are designed simply, but there is something behind,
sophistication and technology. They are the smart devices combined
with creativity and the most sophisticated technology. “This is a
company inventing the future.” It is not strange that Apple
products are so well received.
The last
question is a choice between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. There is no
doubt that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are among the greatest CEOs in
the world. Too many similarities can be found between them. The
outcome reveals that 57.1% favor Steve the rest favor Bill. Perhaps
the roller-coaster life of Steve is more inspiring than the life
Gates has leaded.
Further research
We have
prepared for a long time for the research in which more than 300
people have participated .Yet, we find some bugs in our
questionnaires, such as in the third question many a respondent
chooses “others”, but we cannot figure out what they are referred
to. Given more time, we can design the question again to unfold the
untold truth.
References:
[1] Quoted from president Obama
10/06/2011
[2] From Wikipedia
[3] Because each people can choose more than one
choice, only the number of choice made by those participants is
counted and the number of the participant is left out, which
explains why our data is different from the info gathered on the
Internet.
[4] Steve Jobs by Walter
Isaaccson
[5] The commencement address delivered by
Steve Jobs in June 12, 2005
[6] Dream like Jobs; succeed like
Gates by Li Changxun Korean, 2010
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