How 30 seconds can change the world
Recently, I had the pleasure of watching an ad. This may seem like a very ordinary thing, as we watch ads all the time. We often pray for them to finish so we can get back to biting our nails for that horror movie we all watch but never admit to. But I somehow didn’t want this ad to end. Weirdly enough, I wanted it to keep going.
We all know who Steve Jobs is. Let’s face it, the man was an icon. That’s why it should come as no surprise that he co-founded one of the most successful companies of ALL time. However, this did not come without effort. And that’s where our story begins.
In 1976, the concept of Apple was born. Steve Jobs co-founded this company with Steve Wozniak. Just 2 years later, Jobs was a millionaire. He then hired John Scully to be the new CEO, persuading him with the now-famous quote: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?” Wouldn’t you be convinced? Anyways, Steve Jobs had created the concept of the Macintosh computer. Despite being released to praises, it did not sell well for the company. This is where things began to go downhill for Jobs.
He was always known to, as stated by William Simon, “demand so much from the people who worked for him. That was part of his greatness, but he drove people too hard. … being gentle and polite was not part of his demeanor.” That’s when Apple decided to fire Jobs.
Not surprisingly, the company took a turn for the worse. Without Steve Jobs, Apple was lost, releasing futile products such as the Newton MessagePad Personal Assistant,among others. With a name like that, it’s no wonder! However, Scully was enjoying the CEO life without Steve Jobs. Under him, Apple brought color to the Macintosh and released a laptop. But it was still miserably failing. Their product costs were too high to bring in any profit. This is when the board of directors of the Apple Corporation decided that they needed Steve Jobs back. And fast.
Jobs gladly accepted, without realizing the mess of a company he was going back to. But Jobs was an Innovator, he was a Visionary, and he was the founder of Apple. So how would one rebound from such a terrible situation?
Jobs had to reclaim Apple’s dominance in the Tech industry with something SO unique and SO innovative, he would able to seize IBM’s monopoly over the computer industry. But still, how? How?
Eventually, after hours upon hours of thinking, Jobs realized that he needed an ad. This could not be any ordinary ad. This could not be a generic ad that everyone wants to fast-forward, it had to be an ad that people wanted to watch. But just advertising the new products would not help, a new type of ad needed to be created. An ad that would show the power of the people. An ad that humankind could relate to.
Here is where Jobs’ true colors showed. We all know who Gandhi was. MLK Jr. was a civil rights icon. And then there was Albert Einstein. But, what correlation lies between Albert Einstein, Gandhi, MLK, and Computers? To normal people, absolutely nothing. But to Steve Jobs, they had absolutely everything to do. As stated perfectly: “The ones who think they can change the world are the ones that do.”
30 seconds. That’s all you need to change the world.
