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Steve Jobs did not come to earth with a good start. Born out of wedlock to a mother who could not afford him, he was setup for adoption right after birth. After attending a semester at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, Jobs felt that it was pointless to continue and called it quit. To make matter worse, at the age of 30, he was ousted from the company he co-founded. Certainly, his early life resembled a roller-coaster ride with more troughs than peaks. After such a crushing defeat, most CEOs would have given up corporate life and live in solitude with their big severance pay. Instead Jobs never lost his determination and marched on.

During his decade-long hiatus from Apple, he used this opportunity to explore the world to a greater multitude. Jobs met his future wife, Laurence Powell and eventually married her. He founded NeXT Computer to build the next generation computer systems. In fact, one of the systems produced, NeXTCube was used by Tim Berners-Lee to build the world’s first web server. He also groomed Pixar Animation Studio from an obscure movie studio to being a pioneer in producing fully computerized animation films with numerous box office hits.

At present, Jobs is a happily-married family man with four children. When The Walt Disney Company bought his Pixar Animation Studio in all-stock transactions for US$7.4 billion in 2006, he became the largest shareholder of the company overnight. And with the acquisition of NeXT Computer by Apple Inc. back in 1997, his Chairman and CEO titles were restored. In a span of less than ten years, Jobs transformed Apple from a dying company with a series of failed products to become one of the most coveted companies in the world with a portfolio of market breakthrough products. On hindsight, his “lost decade” was a crossroad that paid off really huge dividends.

To top it all off, when most people could hardly shift the consumer market even once, Jobs did it four times! Through the introduction of Apple II, he ignited the vision of making personal computers available to ordinary citizens; through Pixar Animation Studio, he showed the world that life-like, emotion-driven and fully computer-animated films are possible; through his invention of the wildly popular iPod MP3 players, he changed the way how music are distributed; and just a year ago, through the birth of iPhone, he raised the bar of mobile phones. In all his executions, he never swayed away from his basic belief that a killer product will always find its audience. Now, Jobs is not only the most famous comeback CEO of all time, but he is also a role model for aspiring entrepreneurs.

So what makes Jobs tick? Let me just quote a passage from the man himself in his commencement speech at Stanford University, “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your 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. 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 until you find it. Don’t settle.”

So what’s my takeaway from Steve Jobs’ life story? Here’s my two cents:

You may be born into an unpleasant world; you may encounter difficult situations; you may get lost in a crossroad; whatever circumstances that might have come across your way, they don’t matter. You can still achieve greatness in life as long as you never lose yourself in the process and follow these three basic principles:

1. Find what you love
2. Love what you do
3. Don’t stop until you can satisfy rules (1) and (2)

Related Links

• Biography of Steve Jobs
• The Birth of Pixar Animation Studio
• The Evolution of Apple Inc.
• iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business
• Inside Steve’s Brain
• Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World’s Most Colorful Company
• Steve Jobs’ Magic Kingdom
  
• Steve Jobs’ Best Quotes Ever

Isn’t the title enticing? Does it feel like it is encouraging you to break all rules to become a billionaire? Well, if it does, congratulate yourself; you are on the road to become a billionaire! For those of you who don’t, just dream of becoming one. (just kidding :p)

Humans by nature are rebellious. If they can live without rules, they will. Ironically, rules are created by humans for humans. Well, some rules are valid to enforce ethical boundaries, just like the Ten Commandments; some are crazy, such as Texas’ Castle Law; some are just guiding principles to help you navigate the world, and that was what Henry Ford broke.

Born to a prosperous family farm in Dearborn, Michigan, Ford was groomed to continue his family business as a farmer. At that time, agriculture was the main crop of the economy, so being a successful farmer sounded like a secure future. However, Ford disliked farm work, instead preferred to tinker with machineries. Not letting his comfort zone to deter him from pursuing his passion, at the age of 18, he left for Detroit to become an apprentice machinist. After working his way up to become a chief engineer at Thomas Edison’s Edison Illuminating Company, Ford decided to setup his own company. Despite of his innate engineering talents, Ford failed twice. On his third try, he finally managed to establish what is now known as Ford Motor Company.

In the course of his leadership and inventions, he broke many rules and made major contributions to humankind. He defied the popular belief that cars were only meant for the wealthy. By way of his vision, Ford evolved once a luxury item for the wealthy to become an essential transportation vehicle for ordinary citizens. For the first time in history, it was possible for one to go beyond their place of residence to look for new opportunities. Ford changed the urbanization landscape of many societies and indirectly helped to create the middle-class.

Furthermore, Ford stunned the world by paying his workers twice the prevailing minimum wage. As a consequence, he managed to improve workers’ morale and product quality, thus reducing employee turnovers and costs. Ford cultivated a new business mind-set to the importance of paying competitive wages to bring the best talents whose productivity gains far outweigh the initial cost.

Last but not least, being a pioneer in making cars readily available, Ford was instrumental in campaigning for the proliferation of gas stations and establishment of interstate highway systems. As a result, America’s infrastructure propelled it from being an agricultural country into an industrialized superpower. If Ford is still alive today, his net worth is believed to be around US$180 billion.

What can we learn from Ford? I would say Ford’s life exemplifies the rewarding byproduct when you

• Discover your talents
• Follow your heart
• Pursue your passion

For more information about Henry Ford:

• Henry Ford Today and Tomorrow - Special Edition of Ford’s 1926 Classic
• My Life and Work: An Autobiography of Henry Ford
• People and Discovery - Henry Ford
• The Time 100: Henry Ford
• Wikipedia: Henry Ford

Long before computers were ubiquitous as they are today, came along a man with a bold vision and tenacity to make it happen. And that man was William Henry Gates III or more commonly known as Bill Gates. Yesterday was his last day as a fulltime employee at Microsoft. For his next move, Gates is transitioning his role from becoming one of the greatest technopreneurs of all time to the greatest philanthropists in the history of mankind.

With so many media outlets covering his departure from Microsoft, I felt that it is pointless for me to reinvent the wheel to create another story. Instead, I have chosen to compile a list of articles to commemorate him and I would give my thoughts as a closing summary.

1. Microsoft Original Family in 30 years’ perspective
   
2. The Other Side of Bill Gates
   
3. Bill Gates’ Hits and Misses
4. Looking Back to Gates’ Good Old Days
5. Bill Gates’ Look-alike and a Brief History of his Haters
6. Bill Gates co-appearing with Steve Jobs at The D Conference
7. MIcrosoft Chronology
8. Bill Gates Now and the Future

Contrary to what many have claimed that Gates is an accidental billionaire, I would like to disagree. I think life does provide opportunity to become an accidental millionaire, but there’s certainly no coincidence in becoming a billionaire. Personally, I feel that Gates’ wealth is a byproduct of his hard-earned effort of building an obscure company based in Albuquerque, New Mexico to a Redmond, Washington-based company that have brought the world into computer age.

Being a human, Gates had done many good deeds as well as unpleasant ones. Instead of looking at someone’s achievement from blackened lens, I would like to share the five invaluable lessons we can learn from his achievements:

1. Gates was fortunate to discover his talent in computers and programming at a young age.
2. Instead of following the ordinary path pf graduating from one of the most prestigious universities in the world, Harvard University, Gates decided to dropout of college to pursue his passion.
3. He built his company based on a bold vision that one day computer would be available to every household or business.
4. Despite of the many ups and downs, he had successfully steered the company to remain competitive in an unfriendly and competitive landscape.
5. Unlike many leaders who hold on to power until their downfall, Gates releases his while he is still at his prime time. At the age of 52, he is secure enough to build a non-profit “Philansoft” to make a bigger legacy than he had already created.

so in layman’s terms:

1. Discover your talents
2. Pursue your passion
3. Visualize your big dreams
4. Never give up
5. Know when to move on

I wish him well and I hope he can execute successfully again in his next vision to improve the lives of millions of people.

Want to get wisdom from Bill Gates? Check out books written by him:

• Business @ the Speed of Thought: Succeeding in the Digital Economy
• The Road Ahead: Completely Revised and Up-to-Date