Can Jobs’ Legend be Copied?

On August 24, Apple’s board of directors officially announced that Steve Jobs had resigned as CEO and would be succeeded by Tim Cook. However, Jobs hasn’t left Apple completely but assumed the chair of the board. For Apple, of which Jobs is the soul, the news has added some insecurity to the future of the company.

There are few CEOs whose resignation can draw so much attention. That day, Jobs held a prominent position on every major portal website, with talk that Jobs’ leaving means the end of an era. In 1974, when 21-year-old Jobs started Apple Computer Company with some of his friends, even the most imaginative people could not have expected that a great brand was born. At present, Apple’s stock price is soaring. Last year it exceeded Microsoft and became the world’s largest technology company, this year it surpassed Exxon Mobil and became the largest market capitalization enterprise globally.

Jobs has not resigned to leave Apple completely. Kai-Fu Lee wrote in the preface of the Chinese version of Steve Jobs’ biography that Jobs himself was a legend, and his success truly could not be copied. Now that Jobs has really left, we cannot stop our near-divine worship of Apple and Jobs. We habitually want to deduce the reasons behind such an accomplished figure, hoping to find something to learn from after rational summary of this college dropout’s experience of becoming one of the most powerful CEOs in the U.S.

Rome was not built in a day. Apple’s growth also followed Jobs’ individual efforts in the course of business development; such efforts were timeless after an accumulation of years.

One such example is the concept of innovation. Jobs has a classic saying that the difference between leaders and followers is creativity. Chairman of the board of Qihoo 360, an anti-virus software provider, Zhou Hongyi sighed with regret that in the technology-driven era 20 years ago, when companies like Microsoft made technology cheap and popular, Jobs was already thinking 20 years into the future, a time when the market is driven by consumption. Jobs was one of the first to add aesthetic factors to products, and he proposed that technology should be mixed with liberal arts so that we can produce products that make our heart sing. Then came the colorful iMac and then the beautiful iPad. Other retailers failed to give Apple’s products an appropriate position, but Jobs proposed a new solution — the Apple Store, which has been built around the world and would later be called the wonder of the PC retail industry.

Another example is his pursuit of perfection. When it comes to developing new products, Jobs is perfection paranoid. He seeks precision in every step and detail, including design, user experience, industrial design and system design, and even the display of the motherboard needs to be as artistic as possible. Designers must put up with his nitpicking, modifying products over and over again, and even still may be denied.

Another example is his cooperation with competitors. When Apple and Microsoft announced cooperation on the Macworld Expo in 1997, the world was shocked. It turned out afterward that Jobs’ decision was right. In his opinion, the competitive years of Apple and Microsoft are gone forever. The cooperation would facilitate Apple’s stable development, and let Apple make significant contributions to the technology industry, which will promote its prosperity and development.

Jobs is like a mirror through which we see our own shortcomings. The comprehensive survey report of 15 years of China’s entrepreneurs’ growth and development shows that compared to businesses in developed countries, the overall innovative level of China’s enterprises is relatively low, and some creative aspects are even at entry level. When Apple’s iPad is popular all over the world, various fake versions of Apple products fill the Chinese market; when Apple’s product quality reached greater perfection, many home appliances manufactured in a small factory in a province in China were disqualified. While Jobs and Bill Gates reach an agreement, some companies in this industry in China still fight fiercely over prices, oftentimes scandalously.

Even though Jobs is no longer CEO of Apple, his name will not be forgotten. Perhaps Jobs’ uninhibited temperament cannot be competed with, and his legendary life cannot be copied, but we still hope that there will be similar figures in China’s businesses, creating an Apple of our own.