WHY WE ARE NOT STEVE JOBS

By Guillermo Ceballos Serra

The death of Steve Jobs had a mega impact, that despite his health history, the chronicle of death foretold impacted us all in many ways, starting obviously by the loss of a human being regardless of his recognized brilliance.

The timely appearance of his biography, which I've only read some of the first chapters, has become a best seller in the business literature, further contributing to the reflection on his work and his legacy.

The world has lost one the creators of the present and future.

Surely it has also generated some controversial points, Steve´s character, his lack of tolerance of failure, which we note in his own biography or as I astonishingly heard a young student, is the creator of " marketing overvalued technology " .

Some of the topics that interested me more, has been the subject related to formal education and its relation to so-called "garage companies".

Some have thought of the weaknesses of formal education, since the most recent resounding business success, have emerged from young people who have abandoned formal studies to generate enterprises in the garages of their homes, leading to hyper successful business results, which universities, in due course, failed to follow and engage students.

Criticism involves implicitly or explicitly, that the university today, without specifying any institution, crushes entrepreneurship, taught to avoid the risks that distinguish the entrepreneur. Therefore, the mega winners, as Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and others had to leave school in the absence of challenges to their intellects.

Clearly, people gifted with some characteristics of genius may find general or specific aspects of formal education, are unable to attract brilliant minds. It is also true that teachers are not all brilliant, but many more who possess brilliant minds enhanced their capacity through higher education.

Neither the alleged phenomenon of garage firms began with Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. In fact millions of enterprises have emerged modestly in "garages" sheltered several later successful dreams.

William Hewlett and David Packard were two colleagues at the University of Stanford. In 1938 in the garage of Packard built an audio oscillator, an electronic test instrument used by sound engineers, initiating what is now HP. Certainly never dropped out.

It seems that all cases of successful garages stories come from the world of technology, obviously is not. Amancio Ortega Gaona, chairman of the Inditex group (Industrias de Diseño Textil SA) owns Zara, Spain's largest personal fortune, and seventh in the world according to Forbes 2011, began modestly in his dining room. He did not quit college; he simply did not enroll in college because it was far away from his possibilities.

There are thousands of examples of success stories with or without university guidance, but in general, in first place, “brilliant people” have more chances of being successful, and secondly "ordinary people" with the help of formal education.

Business schools later, analyze success stories, draw conclusions (build or help install the new paradigm) and enrich other less strenuous and less visionary.

As Joel Barker said, having a vision of the future is simply not enough. A vision without action is merely a dream. I think what distinguishes these particular people, they dare to pioneer paradigms. They are strong enough to be a minority. They are even capable of being the only ones to support a conviction even without all the information. They simply know and have the stubbornness to stay in their track.

In short, they are able, at some point in their lives, young or old, to break a paradigm or mandate, philosophy, business, perhaps a family mandate of any kind and take a new path.