Sunday, September 16, 2012
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Reflective Research Blog Post
Mark Zuckerberg is a young American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is one of five co-founders of the social networking site Facebook. Since 2010 Zuckerberg has been named among the 100 wealthiest and most influential people in the world by Time magazine's Person of the Year (Wikipedia, 2012b). Steve Jobs was the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Incan American. He was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields (Wikipedia, 2012c).
Researchers have identified a number of differences between Mark Elliot Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs (Pullen, 2012; Clauida, 2011). I particularly like Pullen’s judgment on such differences. According to Pullen, three most meaningful differences between the two ICT giants are their experience in failure and success, their approach to people and product, and their attitude toward their private life. Jobs had experienced severe failure before he finally succeeded. After vaulting to an early lead in the personal computing wars of the early 1980s, Apple lost market share and direction and Jobs was outed as CEO. Zuckerberg, meanwhile, has yet to fail in any major way and show how he would react.
Jobs’ “failure story” is particularly enlightening to me. It was his failure and time away from the company that enabled Jobs to develope the winning softwares for the company. Jobs proved the famous quote “Failure is the mother of success”. I have learned a good lesson from Jobs that I should never give up in difficult times. It's impossible for an innovator to hit every mark every time, I am therefore interested to see what will happen to Zuckerberg and how he will cope with it in the next decade.
Jobs and Zuckerberg’s approaches to products and people are different. Jobs had a product-first sensibility and solved problems consumers didn't even know they had. Apple's devices and software are often so refined that customers don't have to read the product manuals. Zuckerberg takes a people-first approach. He continually adds functions and services that keep users interconnected in a variety of ways. The difference is extremely interesting to me in that I might need to consider my focus in the future: Should I go for the product-first approach, or should I choose the people-first approach? I think this not only depends on the nature and product of my future enterprise, but also relates to my personal weakness and strengths probably. I am thinking if it is possible to combine these two approaches, that is, to adopt a dual-focus approach, putting both products and people first.
The third difference between Jobs and Zuckerberg seems irrelevant in many people’s eyes: privacy versus openness. Much of Jobs' personal life was a mystery, “almost as secretive as the company's unreleased products” (Pullen, 2012). Zuckerberg has been more open about his personal life and he periodically make public posts and is forthcoming with details of his personal life. I think this is also something I need to reflect on. As an entrepreneur, while you have the right to your privacy, you do not live in isolation, and sometime you may need to sacrifice your personal life for the benefit of the business. I will be more thoughtful and reflective when deciding on how much of my privacy will be made open to the public.
As the famous quote goes: “Great minds think alike.” Jobs and Zuckerberg do share some similarities. Firstly, they are both ambitious, desiring for more than just money. Jobs made a salary of $1 per year, and Zuckerberg has promised to donate a majority of his fortune to charity. Jobs put making the highest quality products in the world above anything else. Zuckerberg once wrote, “Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission - to make the world more open and connected.” I admire and definitely will follow their model in this respect.
Both Jobs and Zuckerberg are both frank and honest. Jobs once said, "If something sucks, I tell people to their face.” Zuckerberg used to be described as robotic, and in an interview with The New Yorker, he even called himself awkward. I perceive that this is a typical personality of a true IT professional - we do not have time to be indirect. I personally like this style.
Jobs and Zuckerberg are both of hard-driving style. They both have “little tolerance for others' feelings while meeting his goals for the company”. I believe this is a must for anyone to excel in any area.
To sum up, as great entrepreneurs in today’s information age, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg possess some common traits of professionalism and entrepreneurship while maintaining their own personal qualities. I have learned a lot from both of them, and I will continue to learn. They have huge impact on my study, my future career, my way of thinking and even my way of life.
Reference：
Clauida (2011). Steve Jobs. Retrieved from http://htekidsnews.com/remembering-a-visionary/
Pullen, J. (2012). Jobs or Zuckerberg: Who'd Make the Better Boss? Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223570
Wikipedia (2012a). Entrepreneur. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrepreneur
Wikipedia (2012b). Mark Zuckerberg. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg
Wikipedia (2012c).Steve Jobs. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Health_issues
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)