Steven Paul Jobs

"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful, that's what matters to me" (Steve Jobs). This quote, by Steve Jobs (1955-2011), accurately describes himself and shows that he doesn't care about fame or fortune. Jobs only wants success and satisfaction. Throughout his working life to his passing, success is what Jobs had always expected and received. He was able to save enough of his own money to go to India, he was able to create the first personal computer, and he was able to lead an incredibly successful company, Apple. Jobs co-founded Apple, a company that made personal computers, with one of his colleagues and high school peers, Steve Wozniak. The company made them multi-millionaires before they were thirty. Over the years, Jobs gained a lot of fame and fortune. Despite this, Jobs is an inspirational hero in our society from three character traits: ambition, determination, and productiveness.

Jobs' ambitiousness makes him an inspiration because setting good goals allows for more success in life out in the big, bad world. One of Jobs' greatest ambitions began when Steve Wozniak began the project of the creation of a computer that could be desktop-size: "One member, a technical whiz named Steve Wozniak (1950-), was trying to build a small computer. Jobs became fascinated by the marketing potential of such a computer" (Laura B.). In the time in which Apple began, the only computers humankind had known had few functions, an almost minuscule screen, took up a whole room with hardware and could only be purchased by large companies. Jobs and Wozniak wanted to take that computer and make it able to fit on a desktop and open it up to the public. Thus, the Apple I was born. The Apple I was a great success and made the "two Steves" a truckload of money. Though Jobs may seem to have been a very attentive student: "He dropped out of Reed College, in Portland, Ore., took a job at Atari Corporation as a video game designer in early 1974, and saved enough money for a pilgrimage to India to experience Buddhism" (Britannica Biographies). Dropping out of college is very ambitious because it means that you could have better things to do with your life. This also very risky because being a college drop-out could extremely affect your future in negative ways. Fortunately for Jobs, he was successful in reaching his goal of embracing Buddhism after dropping out of college. Ambition was something that Steve Jobs possessed and makes him an inspiration because one of the first steps to success is setting good goals.

Jobs' determination to have prosperous products helped lead to his success in life. As Jobs led Apple, he was determined to have focused employees so: "He relentlessly filtered out what he considered distractions" (Isaacson, Walter). Jobs was determined to keep a distraction-free environment. With said environment, employees could focus on what designing or building a product that might one day become successful. After he lost his job at Apple: "Jobs quickly started another firm, the NeXT Corporation, designing powerful workstation computers for the education market" (Britannica Biographies). Jobs did not want to stay idle for the rest of his life, so he created a whole new company which could make powerful, educational computers. He was determined to make a successful product out of NeXT, even though Jobs did later end up making NeXT just a software company. However, NeXT was able to have a little bit of success. Jobs was a determined worker because he wanted to have a satisfying product from all of his work. 

Being productive in his life made Jobs an inspiration because the idle hardly accomplish anything. As Apple's profits began to dwindle, its CEO believed that it was time to leave Jobs behind, but: "After leaving Apple, Jobs invested $7 million of his own money to start a new computer company, NeXT, which aimed to reach the educational market, mainly selling high-end machines and software to colleges" (Steve Jobs). Jobs had the chance to enjoy the rest of his life as a multi-millionaire. However, Jobs is a man who cannot stay idle and wants to do something important with his life, so he created NeXT. Unfortunately, NeXT was not the most successful company Jobs had worked with, but: "NeXT was not, however, the end of Steve Jobs. In 1986 Jobs purchased a small company called Pixar from filmmaker, George Lucas (1944-). Pixar released Toy Story, a huge box office hit." (Jobs, Steve). Again, Jobs had the chance to stop what he was doing and just settle down for the rest of his life in idlety. However, Steve Jobs was too productive and wanted to be completely successful, so he went on to do "something wonderful" with Pixar. Jobs created Toy Story, the first full-length computer graphics ("cg") film, and it was a huge success. Again, Jobs had made a truckload of money. Even though he had several chances to retire and be unproductive, Jobs tried to do something new that would hopefully be successful, even though some of the time his ideas were not successful. This also makes Jobs an inspiration because, in order to be successful, you must be doing something.