Steve Jobs Greatest Business Tips [Video]

Script:

there needs to be someone who is sort of
the keeper and reiterate er of the
vision because there’s just a ton of
work to do and a lot of times you know
when you have to walk a thousand miles
and you take the first step it looks
like a long ways and it really helps if
there’s someone there saying well we’re
one step closer you know that the goal
definitely exists it’s not just a mirage
out there so in a thousand and one
little and sometimes larger ways the
vision needs to be reiterated I do that
a lot
well I’ve forgotten how much work it
actually is to start a company it’s a
lot of work and you’ve got to do
everything you’ve got to come up with a
name you’ve got to come up with a logo
even I mean in addition to designing the
product you’ve got to figure out what to
design you’ve got to figure out how
you’re gonna get it to the marketplace
you’ve got to do a part number system
you’ve got to go get bank accounts
you’ve got to set up charts general
Ledger’s get a management information
system get a little kitchen set up get a
coffee maker all this stuff well my
first saying is that the honeymoon is
over all of those wonderful things that
we got for just being are now sort of
just old news
we are like every other startup we’ve
been a company now for six months and
yes you could say that well we had a you
know lawsuit for four of those months
and we had this and that but the bottom
line is the world doesn’t really care
what the world cares about is what we
produce we’ve been a startup for six
months we’ve been spending money like
we’ve in a start-up for six months and
in some areas we’ve really produced a
lot we’ve got a lot to show for six
months in some areas in other areas we
don’t have a lot to show for six months
so I hope that throughout this retreat
we tend to make sure that our feet are
on the ground and we realize that we’re
going to be judged like every other
startup from here on out and that is by
what our product is and how timely we
bring it to market and getting a
consensus on a common vision we wanted
people that were insanely great at what
they did but work we’re not necessarily
those seasoned professionals but who has
on at the tips of their fingers and in
their passion the latest understanding
of where technology was and what we
could do with that
technology and who wanted to bring that
to lots of people so the neatest thing
that happens is when you get a core
group of you know ten great people that
it becomes self-policing as to who they
let into that group so I consider the
most important job of someone like
myself is recruiting one of the things
I’ve always found is that you’ve got to
start with the customer experience and
work backwards to the technology you
can’t start with the technology and try
to figure out where you’re going to try
to sell it and I’ve made this mistake
probably more than anybody else in this
room and I got the scar tissue to prove
it and I know that it’s the case and as
we have tried to come up with a strategy
in a vision for Apple it started with
what incredible benefits can we give to
the customer where can we take the
customer not not starting with let’s sit
down with the engineers and and figure
out what awesome technology we have and
then how are we going to market that and
I think that’s the right path to take
you’ve got to find what you love and
that is as true for work as it is for
your lovers your work is going to fill a
large part of your life and the only way
to be truly satisfied is to do what you
believe is great work and

the only way to do great work is to love what you do

if you haven’t found it yet keep looking
and don’t settle as with all matters of
the heart you’ll know when you find it
and like any great relationship it just
gets better and better as the years roll
on so keep looking don’t settle did you
ever want to give up did you ever think
of giving up oh there were moments where
it was pretty tough there have been
moments but no I don’t think so I don’t
think so the first year or two was the
hardest and there was no personal
computer in 1975 it
it’s fight it’s very hard to believe
well that’s why we made one we made one
because we wanted one and we there
wasn’t one so we had to make one did you
know that when you’ve made the personal
computer though that this will become a
major industry I mean did you know like
this no no it took about eight years
before we started the sensit I had a
partner named Steve Wozniak was a
brilliant guy and he did most of the
engineering on the original Apple one in
the Apple two and after about a year
what we showed it to her we just made it
for ourselves and and we showed it to
her friends and they all wanted one and
so we were busy making these computers
by hand for our friends and we it was
taking all of our life all of our spare
time and so we decided we better
manufacture a hundred of these to get
you know so that we can not have to
spend the rest of our lives making them
for our friends and that’s how we got
into this we didn’t think about starting
a company we were just doing it for
ourselves and then our friends and then
the circle got bigger and bigger and
bigger now there’s 25 million people so
you’re having fun oh yeah
we’ve always had fun doing this so many
young people are aspiring to become you
know startup venture you know venture
companies and write emulate something
like Apple for themselves and sometimes
people come to me and say I want to
start a company and I say why it’s all I
want to make lots of money I say forget
it that’s not a good enough reason most
people that have started companies
because they want to make lots of money
I haven’t seen very many of those
succeed the ones that succeed are people
that come sometimes they don’t even want
to start a company they just have an
idea that they want to get out express
out into the world and oftentimes they
have to start a company because nobody
else will listen to them the company of
10,000 people how do you permeate the
message throughout all the employees
what do you say to them well you
permeated by example ultimately and in
other words when something’s not quite
good enough do you stop and make it
better or do you just ship it you know
and everybody watches when you to see
how the senior management makes those
decisions and what we’ve tried to do is
stop and make it great
before we ship it we have problem stop
and
them and and by example you can say
anything you want but everybody watches
very carefully when you’re in a
difficult situation what decisions you
make when values you have they would
like to know how you do it and you know
it’s probably very not that’s not that’s
probably not easy to do yeah you know we
try to hire really smart people but we
have a very simple organization and we
try to focus and do very few things well
and focusing is hard because focusing
doesn’t mean saying yes it means saying
no so we say we decide not to do a lot
of things so we can focus on a few
handfuls of things and do them well and
I think you know everybody working the
company wants to do something great they
want to be excited about what they’re
working on and and they want to be
recognized for it when if they do a
really great job so we just try to allow
people to do the best work of their
lives at Apple and get it out to twenty
five million customers that we have and
that’s very exciting and when you’re
working on something and you know this
works out up to twenty five million
people are going to use this it’s very
motivating and it’s not just twenty five
million of our customers but other
companies tend to follow us you know it
takes them a few years but other
companies tend to copy what we do if it
works and and so we can influence the
whole industry do you see what do how do
you see yourself ten years from now you
know my my headlights are not that good
I don’t know I don’t really think about
it you know I think about a year or two
three down the road we have some
projects at Apple that are sort of maybe
four years down the road five years
probably like three or four at the most
because things change too much you can
be going down a path you say well in
five years I want to be here but then
something new happens and you you just
say forget that I want to be over there
so most of this five-year planning that
I’ve seen in my life
some of its essential but most of it
changes too quickly so we tend to look
three four years it’s about as far ahead
as we can see so you keep yourself in
the butt
I guess okay now is the time to change
you know one of the things I don’t see
is I don’t see it myself I don’t see it
in the red and enough of the rest of us
is I don’t see that that startup hustle
in other words if we zoom out at the big
picture it would be ashamed to have lost
the war because we won a few battles and
I sort of feel like I and some of the
rest of us are concentrating too much on
the smaller battles we have to brat and
we’re not keeping the war in perspective
and the war is called survival the war
is called not run out of money until we
get our product on the market some
insights and some fundamentally
different experiences which I thought
might be very beneficial to their lives
because of this germ of an idea a few
years ago and that’s an incredible
feeling to know that you had something
to do with it a and B to know it can be
done to know that you can plant
something in the world and it’ll grow
and and change the world ever so
slightly
[Music]
whether next can be a viable business is
something only time will tell but Steve
Jobs passionate commitment to his vision
is clear and his certainty that it can
be achieved and is worth achieving is a
conviction to be observed in all
successful entrepreneurs