How have Steve Jobs and Bill Gates
so effectively influenced the positive outcome of their companies? They both
have their own life principles and rules of success, but neither of them
learned these principles in a college course. Rather, these men learned their
paths to success by experience and “being in the right place at the right time.”
Jobs came up with “Seven Rules of
Success” that can be found here, all of which reflect his personal and almost
spiritual take on life. The most important thing to Jobs was passion. He was
big on the idea of doing what you love over anything else. His goal was to
create and sell dreams, not products. In making all of his products simple, he
was able to accomplish this. It is my opinion that his products seem to appeal
to many different types of consumers due to their simple design and how every
product seems to have a soul of its own. Jobs’ passion drove him to his success,
and it is evident that he didn’t need a college degree to pursue his dreams.
Similarly, Bill Gates also had a
list of rules he was rather fond of. The list is eleven rules kids won’t learn
in school, and was first featured in the book Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves,
by Charles J. Sykes. This list can be found here. By looking at the similarities
and differences between Gates’ list and Jobs’, I get the sense that the reason
Gates has been so successful is that he is well grounded. He didn’t drop out of
college for the same reasons as Jobs, but rather he saw an opportunity and acted
on it. It is clear to me that, like Steve Jobs, Gates didn’t need the college degree
to become successful, but for slightly different reasons.
Both Jobs and Gates dropped out of
college to follow their passions, though Jobs had a more personal connection to
his work, while Gates was a man of opportunity, and it is hard to say which
approach has been more effective in marketing Apple and Microsoft.
Both of the photos in this post are from Google. The photo in the upper left is of Steve Jobs and a co-worker with the first Macintosh computer. The photo in the bottom right is of Bill Gates holding a guidebook to the original Windows operating system.
Both of the photos in this post are from Google. The photo in the upper left is of Steve Jobs and a co-worker with the first Macintosh computer. The photo in the bottom right is of Bill Gates holding a guidebook to the original Windows operating system.
I find this comparison between these two figures extremely interesting considering we almost all use something these men have created. I have had prior knowledge to this topic but it always suprises me hearing how both Jobs' and Gates dropped out of college and actually bettered themselves. Should this type of action bring on an influence in students attending college today? Could the example these two provided show others how doing what you believe in is really going to end up in your favor or were these two just extremely lucky? Either way seeing the approach they each took really is the big question but is there one that is better than the other? Maybe provide some examples of how each approach shown has bettered others.
ReplyDeleteYour topic really intrigues me. I think a lot of people would talk about the obvious successes of both Gates and Jobs, but I enjoyed the approach you have taken about correlating their success to their lack of college degree. I think most people treat Jobs and Gates as the exceptions to this rule of a college degree equaling success (and to some extent I believe this is true), but I really liked how you included both of their rules for life. As someone who truly believes that passion is the most important quality in life, I tend to identify with the rules you posted from Steve Jobs especially. Have you done any research or found any statistics on the rate of success from other college dropouts? I’m just playing devil’s advocate but maybe this would further help you come to an answer on your question. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteI guess the question that remains is, how many other people dropped out of school to pursue some "great" idea that went nowhere? For every Jobs and Gates, how many frustrated, not-wealthy people are still trying to make their dreams come true?
ReplyDeleteIf the "lesson" or "answer" that comes out of your inquiry is that people should follow their passion, you have to admit that's not going to be fruitful for everyone. We can't all become the next Jobs or Gates. So, what can we still learn from them that we might be able to apply or simply appreciate on a smaller scale?