Fortune Magazine recently came out with a list of 25 most powerful people in business. Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the man behind the popular iPod, is named the world's most powerful businessman.What inspire me about Steve Jobs is his millionaire mindset of turning crushing failure into resounding success story. Steve co-founded Apple at the age of 21 in 1976. Within 4 years, the company was listed on the stock exchange and Steve was worth US$217 million at the age of 25.
As Apple continued its phenomenal growth, it was decided that professional mangement had to be hired to run the huge organisation. So in 1983, Steve hired John Scully to be the CEO. However, within two years, the CEO and directors at Apple could not get along with Steve Jobs and stripped him of all his duties, forcing him to resign from the company. To make the things worse, Apple sued Steve for neglecting his duties.
While those in the business world wrote him off, Steve who possessed the millionaire mindset, took it as a huge learning experience and took the proactive action of starting a new and better company called NeXT computers. He believed that he could develop a range of hardware and software that would be better than Apple at that time.
Did he succeed? Unfortunately, NeXT's hardware division became a huge failure. Undaunted, he again took the feedback and went on to found Pixar Animation Studio, which became a huge success in creating the first breakthrough fully digitally animated move 'Toy Story'.
In the meaning time, Apple Computer was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1995 after suffering from internal mismanagment and lack of new product innovation. The company was making losses of $800 million to $1 billion a year and its share price dropped from a high of $18 to $3.80. Believing that he could save Apple, Steve Jobs agreed to return as CEO for a nominal pay of $1. When Steve took over, he fired all the unproductive executives and spearheaded the launch of revolutionary products like iMac, iPod and iTunes. The revolutionary operating system he developed at NeXT was then evolved into the highly popular Mac OS X. As a result of these successful products, Apple turned its $1 billion loss into $1.3 billion in profits by 2005. Its share price also rose from $3.80 to a high of $75!
Looking back, Steve realized that if he never got fired from Apple, he would never have founded NeXT and Pixar Animation. If not for Pixar, he would never have become a pioneer in digital animation and if not for NeXT software he developed, Apple would never have the Mac OS X operating system that has made Apple a huge success today. It is for this reason that many millionaires believe that 'everything happens for a reason' and that 'adversity is often opportunity in disguise' provided you learn from your experiences and continue to take consistent action!
Following is the list of Fortune 'Power 25':
- Steve Jobs, CEO and Chairman, Apple
- Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO, News Corp
- Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs
- Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, Sergei Brin, Google
- Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway
- Rex Tillerson, Chairman and CEO, Exxon Mobil
- Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft
- Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO, General Electric
- Katsuaki Watanabe, President, Toyota
- A.G. Lafley, Chairman and CEO, Procter & Gamble
- John Chambers, Chairman and CEO
- Li Ka-shing, Chairman, Cheung Kong Holdings/Hutchison Whampoa
- Lee Scott, CEO, Wal-Mart
- Lakshmi Mittal, steel magnate
- Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase
- Mark Hurd, Chairman and CEO, Hewlett-Packard
- James McNerney, Chairman and CEO, Boeing
- Marius Kloppers, CEO, BHP Billiton
- Steve Schwarzman, CEO, Blackstone
- Carlos Slim, Chairman, TelMex and Carso Foundation
- Steve Feinberg, CEO, Cerberus
- Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo
- Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Group
- Bob Iger, CEO, Walt Disney
- Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO, LVMH
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