the journey is the reward

If I give you a tag line describing a person or phenomenon as "The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business", I am sure half of you would guess that person or phenomenon to be Steve Jobs. If you could not, then no worry. Just read iCon Steve Jobs by Jeffery S. Young and William L. Simon, and you will realize aptness of the tag line.

iCon is a story of whims and fancies of a college dropout whom the world today better knows as Steve Jobs. It tells us how sheer determination of a person can change the world. He did it with Apple, then with Pixar and then again with Apple. He dropped out of his college and never finished formal degree course, started apple at an early age [actually he did everything at an early age], then traveled to far lands in search of himself, came back more determined, then changed the way world looked at computers. Considering that he was thrown out of his own company, any one would think that he must be finished then. But not him, there came the long road to success. NeXT, then Pixar. The world saw it all. And then the ultimate return of the century. Apple was changed once he came back to join it. iTunes, iPod, iMac, Safari and now iPhone all scream his success story in words louder than the Hiroshima blasts.

But then is Steve Jobs only good-good thing. No certainly not. A rude person to the core, he did not care about anyone. Not even his friends. Loyalty had its own definition for him so did powers. He dreamt of something and then whole of Apple had to work their ass off to get that dream into reality. Nobody could ever question. Whoever came on the way, he was shown the door. And still he did create wonders or rather inspire people to make wonders. The world curses him for being a dictator of a boss but then no one ever really turned down the opportunity to work with him. For him it was always as simple as "my way or highway" and everyone chose the correct way.

You can be an arrogant, not-friendly, moody, impulsive, over-confident, i-can-not-lose type SOB but still there is always a Steve Jobs who in spite being all these, became a legend.

iCon is a nice read, and I would surely recommend it for anyone who likes to read about business leaders.

ps: Title is taken from one chapter of the book iCon. Steve Jobs also wrote a book by the same title.