Pirates of the Silicon Valley

Pirates of the Silicon Valley

Actually, when I heard that we will have a film showing of the said movie, I was excited! Imagine, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs on the big screen! The two premiere world tycoons of the 21st century! I didn't even know that there was a movie in tribute for them and depicting their lives. Some of my friends said that it was the most "boring" movie they've ever watched, but for me, I was very curious. Maybe it was different for me, because I am IT-inclined.

As I watched the movie, the story and the characters weren't I've expected them to turn out - it was the opposite. I thought that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, in some way or another, have taken "different" paths, like the "smooth-sailing" one. It turned out really different; I thought that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had similar characteristics and outlooks in life, basing on their state of success. Obviously, both of them were so ambitious. But they have so different characteristics all in all.

To end this overview of the movie, even though it didn't turn out to be the way I expected it to be, the movie was great. It is inspiring and informative in some weird way. Informative in a way that I can relate to the terminologies, and I'm also familiar with the scenarios of the movie.

I can say that there were many factors that contributed to the success and failure of Steve Jobs as a technopreneur.

For me, these are the factors for Steve Jobs' success:

* Passion. Steve Jobs(2005) once said that "You've got to find what you love." It wasn't only for money that he strived for his business to progress, but also it was really his passion. He doesn't do those things because he is pressured to do it, but it was different to a passionate man. He does those things because he loved it. He worked passionately and he didn't notice that his business was growing. His passion for work was one big factor for his success.

* Knowledge. To start a small-scale business, it is a prerequisite that a person must know the nature and concerns of the business. The person must be knowledgeable in the field that the business is in; in Steve Jobs case, technology and programming (although most of the work was done by his friend and business partner Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs was also well-acquainted with electronics and programming). If a person who starts a business is knowledgeable, and he/she becomes the manger, he/she will not be fooled if one of the employees is making a bogus business. In this way, the person can also impart his knowledge to his/her employees, and in turn it will make the business progressive, like what happened to Steve Jobs' Macintosh and the Apple Series.

* Perseverance. It is also evident that, throughout Steve Jobs' journey to success, he had the quality of being perseverant. He burnt almost a dozen or even a hundred midnight candles just to make business plans and also speeches on how to persuade his clients. For me, this is an important factor that drove Steve Jobs to his success.

* Wittiness and Persistence. In fact, Steve Jobs was a risk-taker; even though there was no guarantee that his product would sell and his efforts would pay, he still insisted on his ambitions. He took every opportunity that came his way and he never wasted time to fulfill what he wanted to do. He persistently continued and persuaded every businessman that he knows would help him in his grand plans. Even if he was fired from apple, he didn't stop there - he later joined Pixar and Walt Disney. He was witty and persistent by nature - two important attributes that businessmen must-have.

* Connections and Friends. Given the situation that he had met the only ace among his deck of cards which is Steve Wozniak, he had many connections to many people that are of the same involvement in the field of technology. And the connection grew and grew as his business expanded - it's like a complicated computer network where big people in businesses are interconnected. He was benefited from these alliances because they shared common goal and wealth. He hired many influential people in his company, even John Sculley who was the manager for the Pepsi-Cola company before entering Apple. He used these connections to break in to what it seemed to be closed doors, and eventually these doors opened for him to expand his business more.

* A Good Speaker. In nature, Steve Jobs is charismatic. Every word he says seemed to be believable. He was very persuasive that his clients and customers where convinced immediately before he knows it. He was very good in "sales talk", complementing to Steve Wozniak who's got the brains but not the convincing powers. Before Steve Wozniak even finished the computer, it was already considered sold. Thanks to Steve Jobs.

* Smart and Clever. He was very smart enough to fool his competitors in business. At first there were many companies that had edge in terms of the product. But before it will outsell his product, all he had to do was to take the initiative of persuading the owners to sell the product and then copy the feature that will make Steve Jobs' computer on the edge of technology that has never been present before. He convinced Xerox to sell their product to him, but his black propaganda was to steal the "mouse technology". In some other sense, it was a form of cheating; an indirect