MASA KECIL STEVE JOBS

Semua produk Apple terinspirasi desain Joseph Eichler, pengembang real estate kesukaan Steve Jobs. (Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com)

Untuk menuangkan saripati kehidupan Jobs dalam kertas, Walter Isaacson membutuhkan 1200 lebih lembar kertas. Tak mengejutkan karena Jobs adalah sosok yang gimana ya… udah hampir kayak nabi di zaman modern ini. Kalau semua produk Apple adalah kitab suci dan pemilik perangkat Apple adalah penganut ajaran Jobs, itu artinya dia seorang yang sukses besar. Mirip seorang pemimpin ‘cult’, punya kuil sendiri (Apple Stores), warisan yang terus digemari dan diamalkan (Mac, iPad, iPhone, Watch, TV, Music) dan hebatnya juga terus diperbarui agar tak usang.

Buku ini mengandung 42 bab yang diawali dengan penjelasan orang-orang yang terlibat dalam kehidupan Jobs. Mereka digambarkan sebagai karakter sebuah naskah drama. Seolah mempersiapkan pembaca dari dini agar Isaacson sebagai penulis nggak harus repot menjelaskan X itu anunya Jobs, Y itu anunya Jobs. Jadi pas cerita ya udah cerita aja ngalir. Kalau pembaca lupa siapa adalah apanya Jobs ya tinggal balik ke halaman karakter. Clever!

Bab pertama menceritakan masa kanak-kanak Jobs yang sebenernya tragis. Ia anak kandung dari hubungan di luar nikah. Ayah biologisnya mahasiswa kelahiran Suriah Abdulfattah Jandali, anak bungsu keluarga terpandang dan tajir melintir di negaranya (raja minyak, literally) dan ibu biologisnya Joanne Schieble yang cuma mau memberikan anaknya pada ortu angkat yang lulusan sarjana. 

Steve Jobs bayi kemudian diadopsi Paul dan Clara Jobs yang sejak awal mengatakan bahwa Steve anak adopsi jadi nggak ada drama ala sinetron Indonesia atau K-drama gitu ya. 

Tapi meski minim drama, tetap saja ada luka batin. Ada perasaan tidak diinginkan yang ia harus hadapi seumur hidupnya, yang Isaacson katakan diduga  keras juga menjadi alasan kuat Jobs menjadi begitu terobsesi dengan kontrol. Control freak, istilahnya. Ia nggak bisa mengendalikan fakta bahwa ia lahir dan tak diinginkan ortunya maka hal lain dalam hidupnya harus bisa dikendalikan agar hidupnya tak tambah kacau, begitu mungkin instingnya menuntun.

Ada betulnya kalau sebelum kita jadi orang tua, kita harus menyembuhkan luka batin sendiri karena jika dibiarkan, luka batin itu akan kita ‘wariskan’ ke anak-anak kita. Steve Jobs saat dewasa juga melakukan kesalahan yang sama dengan Abdulfattah. Ia memiliki anak di luar ikatan pernikahan dan menelantarkannya, meski kemudian ia menyesali dan mengakui anak tadi.

Penelantaran ini semacam tema utama dalam hidup Jobs. Jadi tidak ada salahnya menganggap jika tahun tahun pertama kehidupan anak adalah fondasi. Sekali ada yang salah, kurang pas, ya makin besar makin parah kalau nggak langsung dikoreksi. 

Isaacson juga menulis penelantaran ini membuat Jobs sangat keras dan kasar. Berdarah dingin, gitu deh. Sakit hatinya ditelantarkan itu jadi luka permanen dan mencap ortu biologisnya sebagai bank sperma dan telur semata. Ortuku cuma Paul dan Clara, katanya.  

Tapi Steve tanpa Paul Jobs bakal jadi kayak anak anak biasa. Paul-lah yang memperkenalkan asyiknya mendesain, menciptakan dan mengutak-atik barang apapun. Paul mengajarkan pentingnya kesempurnaan mendesain perabotan, dan ini bakal jadi bekal yang maha penting bagi Steve saat ia merintis karier di bidang teknologi.

Paul memang bukan lulusan sarjana yang tajir kayak Abdulfattah tapi justru itulah yang membuat Steve punya kemampuan bisnis yang bagus. Paul sering mengajak Steve cilik berburu suku cadang dan komponen bekas lalu menawar dengan sadis😂. Keahlian ini sangat vital buat pebisnis karena memang kalau berbisnis dengan mindset “ya udahlah mahal dikit nggak masalah” itu ga bisa. Kalau mau untung gede ya kudu sadis pas nego. 

Nah di sini kalo kita mau bahas soal privilege, Steve sebenernya ya punya privilege ( punya ortu kandung yang pinter dan kaya karena itu artinya proses perkembangan janin terutama otaknya prima banget, ia tinggal di pusat perkembangan ekonomi dan teknologi dunia) dan kelemahannya sendiri (luka batin sebagai anak adopsi). Tapi yang penting ia bisa mengoptimalkan privilegenya dan berhasil mengkompensasi kelemahan dia. 

Satu sosok yang menginspirasi Steve ialah Joseph Eichler, pengembang real estate terkenal di California. Desain rumah Eichler dikenal minimalis dan resik, rapi. Mari Kondo approves pokoknya. Tapi semua itu bisa didapat dengan biaya terjangkau. Dinding dan pintu geser terbuat dari kaca, pilar yang dibiarkan telanjang tanpa dekorasi, dan lantai berpenghangat yang ga bakal bikin masuk angin kalo ketiduran di atasnya. Steve ngomong kalo desain Eichler ini mengilhami dirinya bikin produk dengan feel yang mirip. Minimalis, rapi, dan yang penting ‘murah meriah’. Desain ala Eichler dicoba diterapkan Steve ke Mac dan iPod pertama.

Meski Paul jago nawar, bukan berarti dia jago jual. Karena gigih dan mau nyoba profesi baru di real estate, dia ngabisin duit buat bayar lisensi agen real estate tapi hasilnya nol. Keuangan keluarga ambruk dan Steve jadi kena imbasnya. 

Setelah dewasa Steve sadar Paul ga cocok jadi agen real estate karena ayahnya itu ga punya mental penjilat atau sikap suka menyenangkan orang lain dan mengarang apapun agar keinginannya tercapai. (*/)

12-Inch MacBook Air, Another Incremental Innovation The World Badly Needs

It was rumored yesteryear already. To be frank , it’s quite stale as news. But why is this still news? Because it’s Apple that produces it. The world doesn’t care about what innovation Axio, Advan or Raspberry Pi would bring out to the market.

They say the new tech fascination would be released in the summer of 2015.

And as always, the selling point is the thinness. But if you wish to have the generosity of ports in the new product, you’ll be disappointed. Only one 3.5mm audio jack and a single USB-C connector are left. So the 13-inch model still wins.

There’s no mention about the battery durability. But if it can last 12 hours just like the 13-inch version, that’ll be great also.

The price could be between the 11 and 13 inch model.

Let’s hope the prediction is worse than the fact later on. Yet, I suppose I’ll stay with my old 13-inch one.

Truly I cannot understand why Apple has to produce the 12-inch in the first place? Tim Cook seems to want to confuse Apple fanboys and girls after applying the same strategy in the iPads.

Now, your decision making prior to buying a MacBook Air has never been as easy and simple as before.

Wait, that doesn’t include the processor and memory variations. 128, 256, 512 GB…??! I couldn’t care less.

On The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship: Arrogance, Unkindness and Being a Total Jerk

I tell you, entrepreneurship not only brings money to you but also brings out the worst in you. You may think I’m ranting groundlessly but that holds true in a (relatively huge) number of cases.

Only this afternoon, I heard sickening news from my fellow worker. He offered this generous advertising offer to one of the best culinary franchises in the country. The 29-year-young owner himself answered the call. The company I work at is not a small emerging startup. It’s huge, but the Achilles heel of it is that it does not specializes in culinary businesses or advertising.  And he blew my coworker off just like that. The highly pragmatic CEO asked if he would get what from the ad. “What benefits can you deliver to us for certain? Can you guarantee?”  My hunch is the man was talking like a boss to my coworker. I can tell that from the way my coworker told the story. It was a tragic phone call to him.

I, along with probably millions of people in the country, know who this man is actually. We know him by the well-known franchise. I knew also they are now aiming to expand overseas, too. But in spite of all the success, does he has the right to dish a company, which happens to be a lot bigger than him? I don’t know. I don’t  wish to be judging. I’m a yogi and being judgmental is not taught in our class.

So I found myself reading this aspiring writeup nicely crafted by Vinod Khosla, a far more seasoned entrepreneur and investor in the mecca of entrepreneurship ‘universe’, Silicon Valley, than our cocky franchisor previously mentioned. He nicely put there, “What matters is that you don’t have to make the above tradeoffs.” The tradeoffs Khosla meant refers to the proposition which Ben Austen of WIRED.com wrote, that  “you can either be a jerk and successful or decent and mediocre.” A very tough choice uh?

Austen points out the two extreme poles of being an entrepreneur which embodies in the figures of two Steves: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. These two Steve are perfect models of the proposition above. Jobs was a jerk and damn successful as a world-calibre entrepreneur. His net worth was billions of dollars or more than that (couldn’t care less), which he couldn’t make use of to help cure the cause of the death (pancreas tumor, if I’m not mistaken) or regain his life which only spanned around 56 years. Jobs, unlike other generous entrepreneurs, was depicted as someone with outstanding level of kindness and generosity. Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek magazine stated that “Jobs isn’t widely known for his association with philanthropic causes”, compared to Bill Gates‘s efforts, as stated by Wikipedia.

And in the other side of the spectrum is Wozniak. As a scientist and programmer, Woz does ace academically. Look at his list of honorary doctorates:

Steve Wozniak’s Honorary Doctor of Engineering degrees

  • University of Colorado at Boulder — 1989
  • Kettering University — 2005
  • North Carolina State University — 2005
  • Nova Southeastern University — 2005
  • ESPOL University in Ecuador — 2008
  • Michigan State University — 2011
  • Concordia University in Montreal Canada — June 22, 2011
  • State Engineering University of Armenia — November 11, 2011
  • Santa Clara University — June 16, 2012

Besides all the achievements, Woz still alocates his time for charity and the like:

Since leaving Apple, Wozniak has provided all the money, as well as a good amount of on-site technical support, for the technology program in his local school district.[1] Un.U.Son. (Unite Us In Song), an organization Wozniak formed to organize the two US Festivals, is now primarily tasked with supporting his educational and philanthropic projects.[1] In 1986, Wozniak lent his name to the Stephen G. Wozniak Achievement Awards(referred to as Wozzie Awards), which he presented to six Bay Area high school and college students for their innovative use of computers in the fields of business, art and music.(Wikipedia)

So if I happen to be asked, which one I would like to become, I think I am inclined to becoming Mr. Wozniak. How about you? Have your say in the comment box below.

What It Means To Be a Real Entrepreneur

 

I actually spotted this article in a local publication generally available in the taxi network in  Jakarta. Very tickling, I must say. “Entrepreneur”, “entrepreneurship”, ah you’ll never know how many times I’ve typed these two words on my keyboards in the recent two years. It is such a routine I think I can type them with my eyes closed right now.

 

The article writer seemed to enthusiastically point out that the definition of a real entrepreneur is not to be taken very lightly. It is not that easy to reach that entrepreneurship “paramount”.  Ok, you have a startup at home or in your own bedroom or, like the late Steve Jobs, in your dad’s garage. So what? You have wealthy acquaintances claiming themselves to be angel investors or even demon investors. Who cares? And it is totally OK if you print out a set of business cards with your name on each of them and a CEO, CFO, CMO or whatever title you have in mind to fill in the blank and distribute them all along the way. Cannot care less. You mingle with one of the most-hyped startup founders and young entrepreneurs .No one notices! You might think,” Wait until my startup and I get covered by local, national, international journalists or TV stations or bloggers or business sites or tech blogs”. But wait, that’s fame, not entrepreneurship. You’re an entrepreneur, not an attention-demanding celebrity.

We have now arrived in the era when entrepreneurship and the thoughtless use of the word and its derivation is so prevalent. Is that all what it means to be a real entrepreneur?

Back to the article I read, the writer classifies the ‘caste system’ into 4: a self-employed person, a manager, a business owner and an entrepreneur as the acme. Yet, the writer stated something I chose to digress. Autopilot???

If I may assume, the definition lacks one thing: innovation. It is the core of entrepreneurship. And by stating there must be an autopilot system, I also assume an entrepreneur delegates FULLY all the tasks in his company/ies to the staff s/he hires. But then, if there is an autopilot system applied to the system, how can it be innovative at the same time? Because autopilot causes monotony to a certain extent whether or not s/he likes it. And monotony, repetition is the enemy of innovation.

 

And as far as I can observe, an entrepreneur may leave the micromanaging tasks but s/he can never leave the assignments of a concept creator. An entrepreneur is simply born that way, endlessly worrying about the next journey to take. And because the business-as-usual affairs have been well taken care of by manual workers and professionals, s/he now focuses more on the perfection of existing achievements and/ or hungry for subsequent ‘blasts’, business ideas that provide greater and more profound impact on the surroundings.

Any thoughts? Feel free to drop me a line or so of your comment.