The news is awash with retrospective pieces on the accomplishments of Steve Jobs. Rightfully so, accomplishments should be celebrated.
As innovative and redefining as Job's successes are, I have become more enamored with his failures. More specifically, in his ability to fail forward. There is a lot that we can learn from Steve Jobs failures, whether we are in marketing, social media, communication, leadership, or are just students of life.
Every product that Steve Jobs creates turns to gold, right? I mean, there is the iPod, the iPhone, iTunes, the iPad, and the Mac. Then there is the Lisa computer, the hockey puck mouse, NeXT Computer, the Rokr, iTools, and the G4 Cube...
Steve Jobs has had epic success, but he has also had epic failure.
To be clear, Steve Jobs has had no fewer opportunities to throw in the towel than most. For much of his life, he did not receive the accolades that he now gets.
Jobs was an "unwanted child," he was given up for adoption by his birth parents. At the outset of life, he was rejected by those who should have loved him most. The rejection of a parent is something that many never overcome.
To the dismay of his adopted parents, Jobs dropped out of college and never finished.
Throughout the 70's, 80's, and into the 90's, he lived in the large shadows of other tech titans, namely Bill Gates and IBM.
During his first stint at Apple, the company released the Apple I and II. Both sold a mere hundreds of units in the face of the new PC juggernaut.
In 1983 Apple released a personal computer called Lisa. Jobs believed so much in it that he named it after is daughter. It was the first computer to combine a graphical user interface with a mouse, it could be expanded to support up to 2MB's of RAM, it had a new feature called a screensaver, a numeric keyboard in addition to the regular keyboard, and it had a built in calculator with paper tape; all very revolutionary. Lisa cost tens-of-millions to develop and the tech community (even Apple insiders) derided its name. It sold so poorly that Apple was forced to dump thousands of unsold units in a Utah landfill.
In 1985 Steve was fired from Apple, the multi-billion dollar company that he created, by those who had profited on his back.
He went on to create NeXT Computer. Ever heard of it? You're not alone. Steve banked his entire Apple fortune on its success, but it never made a profit.
In 1998, shortly after Jobs return to Apple, the company released the hockey puck mouse. From a design standpoint it was slick. From a utilitarian standpoint, it quickly became a joke. It was round and it rotated too easily making it imprecise and awkward to use.
In 2000, Apple released the G4 Cube which was hailed by the media as a revolutionary product that would change the way people looked at personal computers. It did. But the cube did not sell.
In 2000, Jobs and team launched iTools, which went through several evolutionary iterations (.Mac in 2002, then MobileMe in 2008). It was an innovative cloud based service that allowed users to sync their data across various devices, among other things. Unfortunately, most of the services that MobileMe provided for a fee, were eventually offered by Google for free.
In a 2005 joint venture with Motorola, Apple released a product called the Rokr. It married a cell phone with the ability to download and play songs from iTunes. It failed.
In 2010, Apple integrated a social media component to iTunes called Ping. It hasn't taken off. I'm eager to see what the next iteration of Ping will look like. Unfortunately, its future is a bit hazy sans Steve Jobs at Apple.
For the past several years, Jobs has battled pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest forms of cancer. Often, in addition to debilitating disease, some with such maladies are plagued with feelings of inadequacy. They come to believe that their bodies are somehow deficient. During this sickness, Jobs and team developed some of the most world changing products, including the iPhone which revolutionized cell phones, and the iPad, which created a new market altogether.
Steve Jobs knows epic failure.
In a 2005 commencement address to graduating Stanford students, Jobs said of his failures," they increased my determination and will to succeed; they helped me sort out real friends from pretenders; they helped me seek out and build support systems I would not have needed if I succeeded immediately; and they helped me focus my life on what mattered most."
What I've learned from Steve Jobs failure:
- Steve Jobs did not, as best I can tell, define himself as a failure as a result of a professional or personal failure. His self-worth and ability to create was not discernibly affected.
- Steve Jobs learned from failure and became better because of it. He didn't abandon his ideas altogether. He learned what had failed and eliminated it. He learned what was successful and capitalized on it. The Rokr begot the iPhone. The Lisa begot the Mac. iTools begot the upcoming iCloud.
- Seve Jobs built an intentional network of support where he was able to seek help and advice when the going go tough.
- Steve Jobs allowed failure to focus his life. He did not abandon. He analyzed, reevaluated, and re-executed based on what was important to him.
So Steve Jobs failed. I hope that I can fail so well.
Rest in peace, Steve.