Steve Jobs: 50 Life and Business Lessons

The book summarises the Biography of Steve jobs, it neatly organises the lessons one can learn from  Steve jobs. This book is divided into 5 parts of Steve Jobs life, and the key take aways from each part is as follows:

1. A Genius is born:
   1. Your Start in life is not what is more important: it is where you end up that counts
   2. Don’t be afraid to speak the truth
   3. Practical skills and hard work underpin achievement
   4. Personal relationships are vital to success
   5. Nothing is beneath you when you are starting out
   6. Know yourself
   7. Be open to new ideas and experiences
   8. Keep abreast of new technologies
2. The Birth of Apple:
   1. The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
   2. Know you own strengths and those of people around you
   3. Be prepared to take a gamble
   4. choose your investors wisely as they can offer more than just funding
   5. Be innovative
   6. Compatibility with related products, current and future, is important.
   7. Be generous to all your stakeholders. You can achieve success and wealth together.
   8. Surround your self with brilliance
   9. Build and sell great products that you believe in
   10. Be persistent. Be Persuasive
   11. People who are serious about software should build their own Hardware.
   12. Stay Hungry, Stay foolish.
3. The Next Step:
   1. Look critically at yourself, know your mistakes, and work hard to fix them. No one else is going to do this for you.
   2. Don’t be afraid to be a beginner again. There is a Phrase in Buddhism ‘Beginners Mind’ It’s wonderful to have a Beginners mind.
   3. Do what you believe is right, even if it doesn’t make sense at times.
   4. If you are not satisfied with what you have made, do it again. And this time do it better.
   5. Functionality and design go hand in hand when you are developing a desirable product.
   6. Turn customers into evangelists, not just customers.
   7.  Focus on your strengths.
   8. Build the environment, to inspire creativity and Hard work.
   9. Don’t limit yourself. Spread your creativity to different areas.
   10. Make sure you diversify your portfolio. Spreading your risk across multiple businesses can generate unexpected returns.
4.  Return to Apple:
   1. with the wrong person at the helm, even a strong company can take a turn for the worse.
   2. Be patient, and be humble
   3. Don’t be afraid to make difficult decisions, the ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are usually the ones that do.
   4. Respect your Team.
   5. Control the full user experience from the product itself, even to the buying experience.
   6. Find an enemy! Great rivalries are the best advertisement.
   7. call an expert when you need to.
   8. Keep the design simple, and when you get there, simplify it even more.
   9. Don’t sell products, sell dreams.
   10. You don’t have to be the first, but you have to be the best.
   11. Don’t rely on market research, people don’t know what they want until you show them.
   12. Don’t tolerate bozos around you. Build a team of A player only.
5. Death and Legacy:
   1. Sometimes you have to follow the traditional methods, especially when it is a matter of life and death.
   2. Live your life to the full, personally and professionally, because no one ever knows how long they have on earth.
   3. When you are the face of an international Company, your private business becomes everybody’s business.
   4. Know When it is the right time to step down and let someone else take the reins.
   5. Even Superman has to die sometime.
   6. Be an inspiration for the next generation
   7. Put a dent in the universe.
   8. What is important is not that we die, but the legacy we have left behind.

My Final thoughts are work with the best people in business, always be a step a head of the competition. Believe passionately in the what you do. Getting something wrong doesn’t mean you failed. Last but not the least be the change you wish to see.

With above being the lessons learnt, I recommend this book to someone who has no time to read the complete Biography, the author has neats described the important points in the Biography. This book can be completed in max 2 hrs, best pick while travelling.