Here is something new: Everybody is talking about Steve Jobs. I received a wonderful piece from my longtime friend, Mort Meyerson, who headed EDS and Perot Systems. He is now a full time Renaissance man — investor, music aficionado, intellectual, and altogether rabbinical wise man.
Here is what Mort wrote. Be encouraged in this sometimes vexing age.
Almost everyone has read the commencement speech that Steve did so I will poach on its first subject. He was adopted after his single mother gave him up for adoption. She wanted a college graduate couple to adopt. It almost happened but didn’t and he got a non high school graduate father and a non college graduate mother. His biological father was either Syrian or Lebanese.
I met Steve several times but spent a lot of time with him when Scully was with him at apple and after he was fired and started NeXT. We used NeXT machines in the 1992 Perot campaign and while they were gorgeous they were expensive and slow. So he had a tough beginning, he was fired from the company he co founded and he failed at his revenge start up after being fired. No matter what people said the investors in NeXT lost their money and it was a failure.
For most people this would have been the end or a flame out. He got back in Apple and invested in Pixar. He then became the success he always felt he would and should be.
Few people would call him warm and fuzzy, considerate of others or other such gentle characteristics. He was known to be brash, abrasive, demeaned others, threw temper tantrums etc. BUT he was a compulsive genius and Apple would not be what it is today without his tenacious traits. He knew what he wanted and reached and pushed to get it. He didn’t listen to committees or others (maybe a few) and kept his own counsel. He was private, very private until recently when he opened up a little.
So there you have it. Tough beginning, no college degree, some tough personal personality traits, failure galore and THEN He said he loves his children and wife and has a net worth of some $6.5B. He created a giant and impacted technology for the foreseeable future. Go figure.
RIP Steve-his send off by the world is quite amazing. While here think about the following:
Lincoln’s history from defeat to defeat to defeat THEN he became President of the USA and was wildly successful in a stressful national situation of Civil War.
- 1816 His family was forced out of their home. He had to work to support them.
- 1818 His mother died.
- 1831 Failed in business.
- 1832 Ran for state legislature – lost.
- l832 Also lost his job – wanted to go to law school but couldn’t get in.
- 1833 Borrowed some money from a friend to begin a business and by the end of the year he was bankrupt. He spent the next 17 years of his life paying off this debt.
- 1834 Ran for state legislature again – won.
- 1835 Was engaged to be married, sweetheart died and his heart was broken.
- 1836 Had a total nervous breakdown and was in bed for six months.
- 1838 Sought to become speaker of the state legislature – defeated.
- 1840 Sought to become elector – defeated.
- 1843 Ran for Congress – lost.
- 1846 Ran for Congress again – this time he won – went to Washington and did a good job.
- 1848 Ran for re-election to Congress – lost.
- 1849 Sought the job of land officer in his home state – rejected.
- 1854 Ran for Senate of the United States – lost.
- 1856 Sought the Vice-Presidential nomination at his party’s national convention – get less than 100 votes.
- 1858 Ran for U.S. Senate again – again he lost.
- 1860 Elected president of the United States.
Abraham Lincoln Didn’t Quit
Born into poverty, Lincoln was faced with defeat throughout his life. He lost eight elections, twice failed in business and suffered a nervous breakdown.
He could have quit many times – but he didn’t and because he didn’t quit, he became one of the greatest presidents in the history of our country.
Morton of Dallas
P.S. Good New Year to all my Jewish friends!
“The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.” Chinese Proverb
