Bill Gates: how he became so rich

        Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, was born as a baby on October 28, 1955 in Seattle. His parents were William H Gates II, an attorney, and Mary Gates, a schoolteacher. By no means under privileged, but neither was he born to a fortune.

       From an early age he had an interest in computers and started programming them at age 13. He went to study at Harvard, but dropped out to pursue his 'small' business called Microsoft. He and Paul Allen adapted the BASIC programming language for use on the Altair 8800 - the first successful personal computer.

The real visionary deal Bill Gates made was buying a disk operating system (DOS) from another company and providing IBM with MS-DOS for their personal computers. And as the saying goes, the rest is history.

      He married Melinda French on January 1, 1994 and the couple have three children Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe.

      In 1995 Bill Gates ventured into writing with the book The Road Ahead. He followed this up with Business @ the Speed of Thought. Both books have spent numerous weeks on the New York Times' best-seller list.

       He ranks as the richest person in the world. So how rich is he? Estimates in 2004 put his wealth around $46 billion. Lucky kids, you might think, but Bill Gates reckons he'll give away most of his wealth and leave only a small portion to his kids. He has already created the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation whose aim it is to bring technology to the under privileged.

       Though there seems to be continuous investigations into Microsoft's business practices, the fact remains that Microsoft software made computers accessible to everyone. And we have Bill Gates to thank. Thank you Bill!

Article from here.

Guy Kawasaki: Make Meaning

“If you make meaning, you will probably make money. But if you set out to make money, you will probably not make meaning and you won’t make money.” 

I’ve been writing a small number of articles about Entrepreneurship particularly about Technopreneurship and somehow I got some helpful and motivating ideas to start my own business.  I’m pretty sure that on one of my articles, I had mentioned there the main reasons why I wanted to set up my own—and Making money is on the list. Well, honestly, I love the idea that owning a business will give you the ability to earn much more money than you are likely to ever earn in your day-to-day job. And also considering the fact that it would be better to be your own boss rather than doing what you’re told. However, recently I learned that this reason must not be the essence of entrepreneurship. People having this kind of principle are the people who most likely fail. This knowledge was based from the talk of the awesome man named Guy Kawasaki to the Stanford Technology Ventures Program in Stanford University. Guy Kawasaki, in case you don’t know him, is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. He was once an Apple Employee helped to market the Macintosh way back 1984. Currently, he is the Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, a seed-stage and early-stage venture capital fund that willing to invest in extraordinary entrepreneurs who have the ability to build great teams and great companies.

                This guy was first introduced to us by our facilitator through a video clip. A 2:52 minutes lecture that talks about the core or real essence of entrepreneurship. He said that the true essence of entrepreneurship is about making meaning. According to him, making meaning first would probably make money, but making money first would not probably make meaning which means you won’t make money. Since all of us or most of us dreamt of starting our own business, having the right reasons for staring a company must be given vast importance.

 

Wrong and are the most common reasons in starting up a business

                Actually, there are a lot of reasons that encouraged people to establish their own business, and the most common of them, as I mentioned, is about “making money”. Many people started a business without considering the things that must be considered. They are the people who constantly keep their sight into themselves and not to the people that surrounds them. These people are also the cause of the increase in business failures every year.

Here I gathered most common reasons (which I learned were wrong) that most of the starters consider as motivations:

-To get rich quick and won’t have to work much

Judging by their behavior, most people have an obsession with wealth. Politicians promise to create it, most popular magazines are filled with gossip about those who have it, and the average person spends much of their adult life trying to obtain it. We are creatures obsessed with money, partly for what it can buy, but also as a thing of value in it. Money is a massive motivator for an entrepreneur. Dreams of wealth are what attract people to start their own businesses; chasing those daily, weekly or monthly targets keeps you on your toes and gives you constant new goals to shoot for, and the desire to develop and grow a business to reap the rich financial rewards is strong. However, thinking about money first would not bring you a sweet success since it would make you focused only on the quantity and not on the quality; this would soon bring you to your downfall.  Remember that the world of business is full of risks and challenges.

 

- So I can have more time with my family and friends

The most commonly held fallacy about entrepreneurial life is that owning your own business will somehow offer you more freedom.Anyone who responds with the “it’s for the freedom” answer either has never owned their own business and has a troublingly fantastical view of the responsibilities of such a position, or alternatively has just successfully completed their exit strategy making them instant millionaires. Either way private investors are likely to consider this response to mean that their money would be best offered elsewhere.

You can assume that all private investors will know that the life of an entrepreneur is far from easy, and that any suggestion of freedom is likely to indicate inexperience or a lack of drive, neither of which should you be advertising if you’re hoping for their financial support.

-so I can be my own boss and no one can tell me what to do

                As a successful business owner you can name your own schedule. Vacation? Days off? Take them whenever you want. No one can say anything when you come in late, leave early, or take a three-hour lunch. If your business is a successful, well-oiled machine you can do what you want and you deserve to do what you want for all the hard work you’ve done! Ultimately this can mean more time with your family (maybe you’ve even employed your family). Also, if you have enough wealth from your business you can afford what you need when it comes to healthcare options and you aren’t tied down to what a company is offering you. However, you will always have responsibilities, but if your business is successful the responsibilities become less of a burden. Things eventually fall into place. Part of it can be fun! You want to be your own boss so you can make the decisions. You decide how to market your product. It’s a big responsibility because you’ll either fail or succeed, but it’s a fun responsibility because you’re in charge! As your own boss you take on a tremendous amount of responsibility. First, you’re responsible for making your dream a success. That’s a lot of hard work. Secondly, you’re responsible to your investors (that includes family who have invested their future in you). Finally, if you have employees it is your responsibility to make sure they are doing their jobs and that the business is doing well enough to keep them employed. Bills must be paid and payments must be collected. Marketing and advertising is another responsibility. You have to be sure all these wheels are turning all the time. A well-oiled machine takes time to build and takes constant maintenance. You didn’t want to become your own boss so your life would be less stressful, did you?

Topic note:

I believe that reasons for launching a business will encourage you to do better, pick you up when you’re pushed down, and allow you to be proud of what you have achieved that’s why it is very important that we should start our business in right reasons. Now, how can we identify and know the right reasons/reason in stating up a business? Here are the learnings I acquired from the talk of Guy Kawasaki that might help you:

We should make meaning first

Creativity and innovation are not ends in themselves. Their ultimate objective is to create meaningful new value. In today's article, let's get a better understanding of the concepts of value creation and meaning. 

Guy Kawasaki relates the following advice to would-be entrepreneurs: "The core of entrepreneurship is about making meaning. Many people start companies to make money — the quick flip, the dot.com phenomenon. I have noticed that those companies that are fundamentally founded to change the world, to make it a better place, are the companies that make a difference. They are the ones that succeed. My naive and romantic belief is that if you make meaning, you probably make money. But if you set out to make money, you will probably not make meaning and you won't make money. So you need to make meaning — that should be the core of why you start a company." 

Similarly, making meaning — and not making money — is at the core of creativity and innovation. 

Now, exactly what does making meaning connote? And how can we do it?

 

Making meaning implies adding significance or value to something; doing something that is novel, relevant, appropriate, worthwhile and highly useful. 

For example, in the context of Bangkok, you probably agree that opening another spa or internet cafe does not create much value, while coming up with an innovative traffic and transport concept for the metropolis represents a significant value proposition. As Guy Kawasaki points out, making meaning is all about making our world a better place. We can achieve this noble objective by following one of three paths toward meaningful value creation: 

- increase the quality of life

 Many truly great innovations in the history of humanity greatly increased the quality of people's life. Can you imagine how our daily lives have changed by the invention of the personal computer? What about mobile phones or the internet? How about air conditioning or electricity, not to mention airplanes, cars, and other means of transport. We need to ask: How can we increase the quality of life of our customers with what we're doing? Over 100 million products sold testify to how the iPod has increased the quality of life for music lovers around the world.

-Right a wrong 

Take note of problems you encounter as you go through life on a list and look for ways to turn these problems into business or innovation opportunities. What annoys you and needs to be fixed? What does not work as well as it should? What is poorly designed and needs improvement? What unmet and often unarticulated need has not yet been addressed by the market? What really sucks and could be changed for the better by you? Online music is a good example: P2P-sharing services allowed people to easily find their favorite songs online. In October 2003, Apple righted another wrong by offering a legal way to acquire songs online with the opening of the iTunes Music Store. 

-Prevent the end of something good

 As the world changes, people vary in their perception of which of these changes are good and bad. Is there something good, beautiful, or wonderful that is about to come to an end due to changes in the environment? If you just cannot stand the fact that something good is about to end, turn the problem into an opportunity to start a business, an innovation project or a social movement. For example, in Africa, national parks with premium safari lodges help to preserve the beauty of the African wilderness while creating job opportunities for the locals and tourism income for the country and its entrepreneurs. 

Conclusion:

"Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success," said Thomas Edison. Like Guy Kawasaki, the world's greatest inventor understood: To make money, first focus your innovation efforts on making meaning. Make it your prime motivation to engage in creativity and your main judgment criteria for innovation. 

References:
http://blog.angelsden.co.uk/index.php/2010/11/top-5-reasons-for-starting-a-business/
http://thinkergy.com/resources/articles/true-innovation-is-about-making-meaning.html

LESSONS I LEARNED FROM STEVE JOBS COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

"If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right."

           Among the points delivered by Steve Jobs on his commencement address, this quote hammered into my mind. It reminds me of the fragility of life, that it has an end. And when that ends comes, nothing in this world , not even all its combined wealth and riches, not even all of man’s wisdom and knowledge can stop it—and most of all no single person knows exactly when it comes. In that I realized that I really need to make most of my time. I believe that every day, life gives me a lot of opportunities, unfortunately, sometimes I’m too blind to see them, and if a see them, I think of better to come. This maybe the reason why I keep on doing the same thing all over again, and keep on waiting to amazing things that in a snap would change my life.
It’s no surprise that again after reading his speech as a commencement address for the graduates of Stanford University way back year 2005, I’ll be able to learn something great from him once more. Since I got a little bit of knowledge on his life, his sacrifices, hardships and success, I started to become one of his huge fans. Although I’m not an Apple user (which I hope I am), his every word greatly cause an impact to my life today.
What are those things I learned from his speech? Here, I have the list:

• About connecting the dots


“You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”


           I believe that as we make out decisions everyday we’re actually creating dots. Those dots maybe created out of our spite, or for a purpose, will somehow make good connections. This thing I learned from Steve…we have to trust in every decision we make that they will work out alright. You know, one of the difficult things that I’m going through oftentimes is actually making my own decisions, and most of all trusting in them. Whenever I decide, of course, I feel that I’m in charge of my decisions, and my life…I feel afraid to know that if it won’t turn well, I can’t find someone or something to blame on but myself. Thank for this lesson, this reminds me to have conviction on everything I do and posses. Just like what he did, at the very young age, he decided to drop out on the University his in, and stated to find what he really interest him. That time, he didn’t know where he was heading and had no idea of the consequences that might happen. Though it was pretty scary, he just trusted on his guts and believed that it would turn alright. That’s why he considered it as one of the best decisions he ever made.
Like Steve, maybe, I can’t see for now how the dots made are connected to my future, but soon I know I will be able to see the connections between them. As the saying goes” Everything happens for a reason.”

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.”

• Find what you love. Don’t settle.

“And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”

     The statement above motivates me to keep finding what I truly love. Honestly, until now I haven’t found yet the thing I wanna do unto the rest of my life. Even entering in college doesn’t provide me assurance of my future nor to figure out what I truly love although it helped me find it.
What I hate about myself is the fact that what I want varies on the things that happened to me. For example, of I see a person happily sewing; I then want to be like him. That’s why it is difficult for me to figure out what or who I want to become. But I do believe that somehow, soon, I’ll be able to find what I love to do. “Keep looking. Don’t settle. You’ll know when you find it.” These are what I hold. If only I am as fortunate as Steve who discovered his interest at the very young age, I won’t make confusions to myself.

• Don’t be afraid to start over

“I had been rejected, but I was still in love.”

      What I like about Steve is his determination and passion to continue on moving. Even though a lot of prying eyes had been looking at him all the time, they did not become a hindrance for him to stop doing what he loves. Like what he advices, "Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice."
As we all know, at 30 he was being fired from the company he helped to start. He was devastated from that happening, but he slowly realized that his passion actually fueled him to start over.
He never got afraid to establish himself for a second time. And guess what, he considered the event to be the best thing that could ever happen in his life. “I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

• Have courage to follow your heart and intuition
 

     Being courageous is one of the things a man must possess in order to surpass all the challenges that life might offer. I believe that courage does not come from the strength but from the heart-- the root of all. Following your courageous heart, you will meet today’s challenges from a place that is real and authentic. This is the foundation for real personal accomplishment and professional success. This makes Steve Jobs one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the history.  
Without the courage to follow your heart’s desire and your intuition is same as living without a dream. It is all useless to discover what you love if at the very first place you can’t actually fight for it, right?

• Stay Hungry and foolish

“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

 


        These are the last words delivered by Steve Jobs as he ended his speech. All he want to mean on these four worded statement was that we should never stop discovering, creating, and innovating whatever difficulties we can encounter in every second of out borrowed life. Like what he said, we need to make most of our time. Our life is just limited…and making the most of it, by doing what we love, can make though not contentment, but satisfaction. 

(All quotations came from Steve Jobs)

Would you take the same career path that Steve Jobs took? Why or why not?

          We recognized Steve Jobs as a great technopreneur. No question on that. SJ's inevitable skills in the field of technology made him one of the wealth icons. His name becomes synonymous with money. BIG money, that is. Steve Job's is such an inspiration especially for the youth craving for knowledge. Just having thoughts that he started his career at very young age and become successful bring me to reality that I must also begin the steps towards my future. Steve Jobs is just another awesome creature. He is an incredible human being created by God to transform the people’s lifestyle.

It’s just amazing to know that the wonders of technology came only from enormous ideas of a young man who tried taking his passion into action. His remarkable breakthrough in the field of technology brought hope and opportunity for all people. Just try to imagine having no personal computers nowadays, think of it. Isn’t that boring? Computers takes a bulky part in our daily life at this modern times since everything seems to be moving because of  it. I’m not a worshipper of Steve Jobs neither I am to other famous icons, I’m just one of his fans.

Well, you might guess that my answer in the question up there would be ‘yes’…well, yes! You are wrong!.. ‘EN-OW’! its no. though I truly admire Steve Jobs for his unusual view of the future, it didn't convinced to take the same career path as he took. The reason? He simply didn't fit to my “standards” of taking a career (we all have different standards anyways). His determination to stand out among his opponents was extremely awe-inspiring, however when he came to an extent of breaking the rules of nature, now it is a ‘no...no…’.

           Steve is known for his horrific behavior and personality. He was  described by his employees as demanding, erratic, terrible etc. and these were the  reasons why he was fired from Apple. But because of his undying passion, he was welcomed back to Apple.

Based from the film, Steve Jobs showed a lot of non-flattering behaviors. He’s an abusive employer, a drug user and a family wrecker. I have no idea why he acted like that. Actually, while I’m watching the film, I tried to find something that can be the reason of his devastating character but I found nothing. Maybe it’s a nature to change especially when there are a lot of pressures around you.

One more thing why I’m just not into following Steve’s path was because of his management style. His approached about anything and everything seems so unpredictable. He just fired his employees with no reason. He loved seeing his employees competing, and consent them even if  it would eventually lead to disagreements.

And above all why I choose not to follow his career path ‘cause I have my own way of making myself successful. I may not be passionate about making big things and marketing big products, but  I believed I have the factors to be successful in my field through my own ways. We can never tell. 

What are the factors that contributed to the success and failure of Steve Jobs as a technopreneur?

          Passion, persistence and charisma are just three of his lethal combinations. Who would think that a shaggy nerd of 60’s changed the way we lived life and approached to it? A man with nothing that ended with something! And that something wasn’t just something! It was something great that every living creatures with human brain hoped for—becoming successful. True, Steve Jobs did a really an excellent job! He is now an object of envy and admiration and at times, animosity. He is desired by many people today. His life story is earnestly followed, dissected, gossiped about, and his example imitated. His words are taken seriously and his advises are obeyed for they could mean financial and personal success.

        Steve Jobs was not born with silver spoon on his mouth. He’s a product of rags-to-richest story. He did not receive acclaim of his inventions that sudden. He worked for it. Along with his aspirations are his unrelenting efforts and dedication to his multifarious undertakings in this life.

        But here’s the question, what are the factors that took him to get to the top? Well, certainly, it’s not because of the mound of ectodermal outgrowths’ which have accumulated between his upper lip and nasal passages that brought him on the pinnacle (I’m talking about his moustache! =)). Now let’s break it to pieces!

        First, Steve Jobs has a Passion. He just simply loves what he’s doing. Even from the days of his youth, he kept on exploring, learning and understanding the complexity of things. Through the familiarity and skills imparted by his father who was once a machinist, Jobs was encouraged to hone his skills. He constantly learning, building new things while still having fun. Though Jobs, at his early age, didn’t have any idea what exactly he would become in his future, all he knew he existed to change the world. It wasn’t until he met Wozniak (who soon became the co-founder of Apple), he began to realized his purpose --- “revolutionizing the world of personal computing”. Together with Wozniak, they perseveringly strived. They exerted everything within their means and performed best and achieved what Apple has now. Steve’s Passion pushed him to become innovative and creative. It was his passion alone that kept him on moving, working and inventing despite being fired from the company he used to helped exist. What the distinguishing factor of Steve, he’s not like to those people who would just turn back and get destroyed after a devastating crisis. I believed, only death can stop him from innovating and being zealous. Steve Jobs taught me an important lesson; our knowledge is not a prime necessity to become victorious. It’s our Passion. Passion alone can make us alive. There’s no question how a person do extremely well on a field he/she simply love. Exactly like what Steve said “The only way to do great is to love what you do.”

          Second, Steve Jobs has a Vision. Despite the fact that he was just a speck on the business he choose to live in, it did not became a hindrance for him to overshadow of how he view his future. Steve Jobs simply kept on continuing on his career, never feared taking risks and go in directions that were less traveled. His vision of changing the world gave him a large amount of self-confidence. He always aspired putting his company on the top of the list—and he did! Steve Jobs had the ability to think in new perspective. He never refused new ideas ( In his office, even though he’s sort of rejecting his employees suggestions, in truth, he actually kept on considering them. ) He employed various strategies—along with either so-called “Brilliant Ideas” to ensure the realization of his plans.

        Third, Steve Jobs as a charismatic leader. The ideology and tactics of Steve bring wealth to the Apple Company. His charisma hammered his opponents including IBM. Steve was good in persuading people. He’s good in presenting and marketing their products. He could make a ‘No’ a ‘Yes’ or the other way around. Though Steve’s management style sucks, at some point, still it was effective. It made his employees compete with each other like what happened between Apple ll and Macintosh teams. Bringing so much noise on the company and eventually makes a good effect on the part on the company alone. According to him, “Creativity springs from fear”. As far as he could, he wanted to make his employees feel they were under Martial Law. He’s good in manipulating people; however he’s not good of noticing he’s also being manipulated, like what Bill gates did on him. But after all, still Steve is living with his principle. And it’s up to you if you are into it or not—it’s not his problem anymore.

Fourth, Steve has both determination and persistence. Steve treated his obstacles as stepping stones instead of stumbling blocks. He just kept on learning and inventing by constantly experimenting with those circuit boards. Despite being someone who has nothing, he was still able to stand on his ground. He remained determined and persistent. He refused to be discouraged and never let disappointments get the upper hand. That’s the good thing of being like Steve Jobs. The challenges spurred him on to greater effort.

       Lastly, Steve Jobs is simply smart. Though people of his time viewed no clear indications (especially in computer industry) on the advancement of technology, Steve Jobs made it. Jobs creativity and innovations proved them all to be wrong. Even if he was dropped out in college, his skills and talent keep him on track. One of the distinguishing factors of Steve is that he just keep on exploring. He simply did nit like sticking into the results of the other people. He would rather like people would depend on the results of his thinking. Hr gave new approaches to old techniques. Better and brilliant that no one could ever imagine until brought into reality.

      On the other hand, Step Jobs was not a consistent icon of success. He too experienced failures. Being fired from the company he helped to exist was the hardest thing that ever happened to Steve but somehow the greatest opportunity for him to be innovative in other aspect of technology. In accordance with what I’ve read on the net, Steve jobs management style was always been being gossiped about. He was horrible, arrogant, demanding, inconsistent, etc as they described him and through viewing entirely the movie “pirates of the Silicon valley” he really are. If the great advisor says in order to have a smooth relationship with your employees, you must be nice to the people around you, but for Steve Jobs? That’s, a joke.

www.evanmichael.com/Famous-Entrepreneurs

WhO is Steve JoBs?

            Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American business magnate and inventor. He is well-known for being the co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple. Jobs also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney.

In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula, and others, designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see thecommercial potential of the mouse-driven graphical user interface which led to the creation of theMacintosh.After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets. Apple's subsequent 1996 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he has served as its CEO since 1997.

In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios. He remained CEO and majority shareholder until its acquisition by the Walt Disney company in 2006.Jobs is currently a member of Disney's Board of Directors.[17][18]

Jobs' history in business has contributed much to the symbolic image of the idiosyncratic, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design and understanding the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal. His work driving forward the development of products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted following.

Jobs is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor in over 230 both awarded patents and patent applications related to a range from actual computer and portable devices to user interfaces (including touch-based), speakers, keyboards, power adapters, staircases, clasps, sleeves, lanyards and packages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs