Choosing a historical figure to spend a day with

Steve Jobs

If I were to spend a day with anyone in the world, past or present, I would choose Apple CEO Steve Jobs. He went from having an unexceptional background and education, to being the eventual leader of the most profitable corporation in the world, a corporation that he founded. His visionary outlook for consumer products, as well as his inability to accept any product that is less than "insanely great," have positioned Apple as a corporation with an incredibly large fan base. His Apple Corp. colleagues always tell stories of Steve Job's unruly temper and inexplicable ability to distort reality to his audience to make them believe in the unbelievable.

Steve Jobs was a master of showmanship; he exuded confidence and enthusiasm in every public performance, and he never allowed presentations to become bland affairs. Every product rollout was to be an earthshaking event, as Apple saw itself at the forefront of technology in the 21st century. Steve Jobs could teach me how he uses his performances to promote the brand, and how the brand (and its customers) then promote Steve Jobs as the only CEO who could get things done correctly for Apple.

Perfectionist is an adjective that is often applied to Steve Jobs; he looked for flaws and would rework entire products in order to achieve both the look and the feel of the product he wished for. (Japern, 1) the iPod became the most popular mp3 player in the world by far due to the fact that no company had come up with a simple way to store, download, and play music on a handheld mp3 device. The iPod fit well in one's hand, and used the track wheel to quickly sort through and select individual tracks. This was a revolutionary product which would eventually lead to the iPhone, and later the iPad, both of which being the offspring of the earliest iPod mp3 player. Steve Jobs made sure that his devices were simple and beautiful, and I would be interested in learning how to devote so much passion into the products I am going to be working with in the future.

The 'reality distortion field' is a catchphrase that was attached to Steve Jobs because of his willingness to do whatever it took to get his way in every situation. In his biography, Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson gives the subject of this phenomena a full chapter entitled "The Reality Distortion Field: Playing by His Own Set of Rules." (Isaacson, 117) He would lie to his coworkers, create fake deadlines, and refuse to yield to design choices of his, which caused a lot of friction in his workplace. This attitude got Jobs fired from Apple in 1986, and he did not return to Apple HQ again until 1997 after his successful stint with Pixar Studios during the peak of their movie success, including such films as Toy Story and Finding Nemo. He is clearly egotistic, but this trait is not always a bad trait to possess when leading a multibillion-dollar business.