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I just finished listening to the book Icon, which is the biography of Steve Jobs. Jobs is best known for starting Apple computers with Steve Wozniak, his life long friend. But what I was really surprised to learn is that Steve Jobs also bought Pixar from George Lucas and made it into the world class animation studio that it is today. I also had no idea that Steve Jobs’ net worth is in the billions! I always pictured him as a desperate guy who wanted to get back to running Apple so bad, he took a salary of $1 per year.

Another interesting thing about Steve Jobs is his commitment to the Zen philosophy and to creative, elegant design. But it was his temperamental and stubborn management style which called his leadership abilities into question by the Apple board of directors. His inability to be flexible and adapt to the market is what got him fired from Apple. These conflicting elements of his personality made him seem all the more hypocritical to the people around him.

The other thing that stood out to me about Jobs’ history is that he has gone through some incredibly difficult times in his life. He suffered from and survived pancreatic cancer. He also had several massive traumatic business failures such as NeXT computers, getting fired from his own company Apple, and years of dealing with Pixar as a money pit before that company proved profitable. The initial millions he made at Apple from selling stock would have been enough for him to retire. But this guy is a die hard entrepreneur and has a passion for making money by selling gadgets that he thinks can change the world.

The really amazing thing about the Steve Jobs story is the magnitude of success he wound up having after such trying challenges. Pixar went on to partner with Disney and create movies that were more successful than any animation Disney had ever created! That includes Toy Story, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles and many other movies. Add those ticket sales to the revenues from licensing toys, DVD versions, games and clothing. You can see why Steve Jobs’ stock shares in Pixar made him a billionaire. His persistence and uncompromising expectations of excellence revolutionized an entire industry.

Then there is the success that most everyone knows about… a personal music player called the iPod. This was one of the first products that Jobs developed at Apple based on the recommendation of someone other than himself. Without Steve Jobs, Apple had many unprofitable struggling years selling the Mac. They finally asked him back and at that point he was a more mature person with a thriving home life and successful movie studio. He was less headstrong and took the advice of others to branch out into a new market. It paid off in the development of a product that changed the face of the music industry. The massive triumph of the iPod led to iTunes, an online music download service. This helped record companies offer consumers the chance to legitimately pay for music that was being illegally downloaded for free. Now iTunes even offers movie downloads and the iPhone is breaking a whole new set of boundaries!

As you can see, the book Icon showed me that there is much more to Steve Jobs that I thought. His story is truly inspirational, and here is a great video of him telling it…

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005