"P" is for Passion

Steve Jobs passed away this week. As a hardcore Macintosh user, I am the first to recognize the huge impact this man has had on my life. Seeing the tributes continue to flow in, there is no doubt that he has impacted almost everyone and his legacy will continue to do so long after his death. Everything already feels different with him gone.

It seems ironic to me that while Mr. Jobs is being recognized as one of the greatest CEOs of modern times, that recognition tends to gloss over exactly what made Steve Jobs different. It wasn’t just a matter of taste, as Steve would put it, but more about passion. Steve Jobs loved Apple and he believed in what Apple was doing. His vision was always about the long term future of the company he ran, not instant shareholder gratification. I can only imagine what our economy would be like now if all CEOs actually managed as if their responsibility lay with the company rather than the shareholders.

Somewhere we have lost our way. People are using the stock market as a roulette wheel — buying and selling stock in companies they don’t even care about in an attempt to make a quick and easy profit. As long as this continues, corporate strategy will continue to revolve around shareholder greed rather than company need.

Steve Jobs took Apple from the brink of collapse to make it the most valuable company in the world in just over ten years. Apple’s shareholders have made gigantic profits and they did so without having the company’s future compromised for quick and easy shareholder gratification. The answer to much of the world’s financial crisis may be found in Steve Jobs’ approach. Whether or not our greed allows us enough vision to recognize it remains to be seen.

“I was worth over $1,000,000 when I was 23, and over $10,000,000 when I was 24, and over $100,000,000 when I was 25, and it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money.” - Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011)