Emily Davis

BUS-101-01
Jobs Paper
10/25/2023

Steve Jobs: a worldwide celebrity, entrepreneur, the American Dream. From a college

drop out to the CEO and founder of a multinational technology company, Apple. Steve Jobs

applied to Reed College at 17 years old, using all his parents’ savings to afford to attend. He only

saw degrees as job security and didn’t find the money well spent. After six months, Jobs

decided to drop out and be known as a drop-in attending classes for free for the next 18 months

before leaving the campus. His life decisions and experiences during and after this time shaped

Job’s future

During this time, Jobs had a girlfriend whom he cheated on with a woman named Julie.

Julie gave Jobs drugs which he consumed with his friend and girlfriend later in a field. Because

of his decision to drop out, Steve went around the world and stepped out of his comfort zone.

Although he had an attitude of superiority over everyone, he had bad hygiene and was rude to

his coworkers who he had a hard time working with. He also disliked wearing shoes, constantly

putting his feet on his desk and seeming unprofessional to his colleagues. Talking to his boss, he

got a job to fix a game by himself for up to $5000 if he managed to complete the project under

the tight deadline.

Jobs asked his friend Woz, a tech guy, for his help in the project on the side and offered

him a small amount of money. The amount offered was nowhere close to the potential 5 grand

Jobs himself was offered. They managed to complete the task and found they were successful

as a team. As they continued to work together, they wanted to form a small company working

with computers. They brainstormed names, where Woz came up with Enterprise Computers
and Steve Jobs came up with Apple. Jobs’ idea of a good company name was something simple

but sophisticated: something people know and want to have. Their first presentation on their

work was a failure, while Woz was presenting many of the guests were getting bored and even

getting up and leaving.

Only one person showed interest in their presentation and even confronted Steve about

a deal: Paul T. Homebrew. Homebrew offered Jobs $400 a machine for 50 units as a business

exchange. Jobs accepted but negotiated Homebrew to $500 a machine if he did it in less time.

Woz and Jobs set shop in his fathers’ garage for space to set up their work. Jobs hired some

random people he knew- Daniel Kotke, Chris Espinosa, and Bill Fernandez as the first employees

for their business. Steve Jobs took most of the control for himself over the company, and left

Woz following his orders sometimes spontaneously. Another person Jobs hired, Rod Holt, was a

technician who provided his services for $200/day. Jobs went through so many calls trying to

find investors but failed for several attempts until he came across Mike Markkula. A previous

employee for Intel, he feels Jobs will do great work and became the first investor for his

company.

During the company’s growth, Steve found out he got his girlfriend at the time pregnant.

Adamant that the child was not his, he wanted nothing to do with the baby or her and did not

want visitation or to pay child support. The kids name ended up being Lisa, coincidentally the

name of one of his products that he later releases. At San Francisco in 1977, the first computer

fair was hosted where Apple Computer, Inc. presented the Apple II. With dozens of people

showing support, it was a major turnaround from their first presentation.

 3 years later in 1980, Apple raised the bar at Apple Campus and risked failure in order to

be great. Steve Jobs fired people who did not share the same company vision, one being Daniel

Kotke and his 3 other starting employees whom he gave no options to. His behavior got bad and

started to change from care to greed of having the best, most successful product. His ego

started to grow even further, not only about himself but now his company. He wrote a page ad

taunting IBM which caused his employees to get upset and stopped Jobs from continuing work

on the Lisa project. When Bill Gates stole Apple software, Jobs furiously called Gates and

threatened and yelled at him. At the end of the call, he ends up throwing his office phone and

breaking it.

Jobs eventually took over the Macintosh project that Apple was developing. The

development of the Apple product the Macintosh was supposed to be and had to be simple. To

help him in the project, Jobs wanted to recruit more employees to expand the small team. Him

and a fellow colleague went around another section of the company collecting members from a

different team. As he went around trying to recruit, the people he sold his pitch to had their

computer unplugged and moved to the Macintosh development location.

Wanting the best marketer possible, he immediately wanted to hire John Sculley. Seen

as an impressive and highly knowledgeable marketer, John Sculley was already employed by

Pepsi at the time. Steve Jobs had to really sell Sculley in order to get him to leave his position,

and he was able to just by changing his mind set on his career. By Steve Jobs asking Sculley if he

wanted to die being known as a soda salesman or a person who changes history, John Sculley

was on board and motivated to be apart of Apple’s story.

 In 1984, Apple planned the release for the Macintosh. It was a revolution for the

company, although there was an issue that ended up arising. The Macintosh was supposed to

be made with simple materials for it to be an affordable product to the average consumer. Steve

Jobs, however, went above and beyond and strived for greatness. He used the top, most

expensive materials which made it harder for the company to sell it at a lower price. This was an

issue that was brought up during a celebration and had Jobs stressing out and furious over the

price.

Fast forwarding to 2001, Apple held a meeting where there were more than dozens of

individuals in one room observing Steve Jobs and his presentation. Jobs was able to finally tell

the public that the company sold over three million units of product and was still growing and

expanding their products constantly. Another release was about to be revealed, where Jobs

hyped up this new music player. A music playing device that can hold 1000 songs and is also

small enough to fit in your pocket: the iPod. It was seen as limitless.

Throughout the time in the company, Woz felt the tension between him and Steve Jobs

continue to grow as the company grew. Woz eventually sat with Jobs to discuss with him how

he truly felt and tried to explain himself. He asked Jobs if he knew why he (Woz) joined and

helped with what was a small project and followed it by saying he probably didn’t because he

never asked. Woz called out Jobs for his lack of interest in getting to being friends or show care

towards their relationship. Woz explains that he left the safety of his job at HP to help Steve

Jobs and to have the chance to do what he loved and to do it for fun. He tries to tell Jobs that he

changed, to which Jobs replies that he’s just “grown up.” Woz denies that statement.
 It took a while after Steve Job’s and Woz’s confrontational interaction, but Woz ended up

leaving Apple. He interrupts Jobs while he’s busy at late hours desperately writing in several

notebooks to tell him that he just resigned from his position. His explanation for leaving the

company was that he saw that Jobs was caring more for his product than his friendships. Woz

did not want to be a part of that environment any longer, and left Jobs on the ground, thinking.

Since the beginning of the company, Woz experienced little control or say in anything that was

being implemented. When Woz was proud of his own work, Jobs belittled him for being messy.

Jobs always treated Woz unfairly, but it got progressively worse as the company expanded and

Jobs had only his company and products in mind.

Works Cited:

Jobs 2013 (n.d.). Www.youtube.com. Retrieved October 25, 2023, from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1IEnTOb3CY

Wikipedia contributors. "Apple Inc.." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia, 22 Oct. 2023. Web. 26 Oct. 2023.