27 Most Inspirational And Motivational Quotes By Influential Leaders In Tech
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“The F-word here is focus.” - Jan Koum, WhatsApp co-founder
Jan Koum, the founder of Whatsapp, is another rags to riches story in the tech world. Koum and his mother immigrated from Kiev in Ukraine to California when he was 16. Life was not easy in the new place they call home. They lived in a small apartment with subsidy from government and survived day by day through food stamps.
Koum struggled but made sure he went to college while moonlighting as a security tester. On the sides, he taught himself computer networking and even joined a hacker group. In 1997, he met Brian Acton, Yahoo’s employee #44, for an advertising system job. The same year, he was hired at Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer.
Wondering how WhatsApp came to life? Koum was looking for a solution so he does not miss phone calls on his new iPhone.
In 2009, Koum co-founded WhatsApp with Acton. While life was so complicated, they wanted to keep the messaging service simple.
“The F-word here is focus,” he said during an interview. He does not want bloat and wants WhatsApp to focus on its primary purpose.
Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014 for $22 billion in cash and stock.
“The F-word here is focus.” - Jan Koum, WhatsApp co-founder
Jan Koum, the founder of Whatsapp, is another rags to riches story in the tech world. Koum and his mother immigrated from Kiev in Ukraine to California when he was 16. Life was not easy in the new place they call home. They lived in a small apartment with subsidy from government and survived day by day through food stamps.
Koum struggled but made sure he went to college while moonlighting as a security tester. On the sides, he taught himself computer networking and even joined a hacker group. In 1997, he met Brian Acton, Yahoo’s employee #44, for an advertising system job. The same year, he was hired at Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer.
Wondering how WhatsApp came to life? Koum was looking for a solution so he does not miss phone calls on his new iPhone.
In 2009, Koum co-founded WhatsApp with Acton. While life was so complicated, they wanted to keep the messaging service simple.
“The F-word here is focus,” he said during an interview. He does not want bloat and wants WhatsApp to focus on its primary purpose.
Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014 for $22 billion in cash and stock.
“I really felt the pain of not being able to find information easily. I guess that helped me to develop an urge to write things like a search engine.” - Robin Li, CEO of Baidu
Google is blocked in China. But for internet users within the Great Firewall, there’s Baidu, the country’s largest search engine.
The man behind Baidu is Robin Li. He was born to a family of factory workers in China. He enjoyed the life of a lower middle class and was able to get some good education. He moved to the United States for his master’s degree and eventually worked for a unit of Dow Jones. Li also met his wife in the United States.
Baidu now enjoys 80 percent of the market share in China and is valued at $60 billion.
Li, however, never rests his laurels. Baidu looks forward to be in the forefront of artificial intelligence and devotes a significant chunk of its revenue to achieve this goal.
“I never think I am successful. If I am successful, then I should be retired.” - Terry Gou, Foxconn Founder
Tai-ming Gou, more popularly known as Terry Gou, is the founder and CEO of Foxconn, the contract manufacturing company that assembles electronic devices such as the iPhone, iPad, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.
Foxconn has factories in China and Taiwan and employs more than 700,000 workers.
Gou’s story is a typical rags to riches tale. He comes from a middle class family who immigrated to Taiwan from China. He worked in rubber-manufacturing and medical industry before putting up his small company Hon Hai.
In 1974, thanks to Atari, the revenue of Hon Hai skyrocketed.
What was Gou’s formula to success? Gou implements very strict quality control, and that’s the primary reason why the biggest brands trust Foxconn to manufacture their products.
“Ego creates blind spots.” - Eric Schmidt, Former Executive Chairman Of The Board at Alphabet
Eric Schmidt stepped down as the Executive Chairman of the Board at Alphabet in December 2017 and has transitioned to the role of a technical advisor to the company. In 2014, he co-wrote How Google Works with then Google executives Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle.
The book does not actually reveal how Google works but is rather a piece of management literature. It tried to answer the question how the company manages high-IQ employees.
In one of the sections of the book, the authors suggest that Google exiles the knaves while fighting for divas. Schmidt and his co-authors explain that there must be a collaborative culture at the workplace. They warn of the danger of self-confidence turning into a swollen ego. And if that happens, they recommend Google must nip it in the bud.
They differentiated the divas as individuals with high exceptionalism. Divas tend to do a good job and achieve goals, but keep in check that their diva ways don’t outweigh their achievements.
Self-confidence is not bad but a deadly ego can pull a company down. As people become more successful, the ego can tease the mind and weaken whatever trait that made one successful.
A swollen ego tends to breed greed, entitlement, and paranoia. One must stay focus on tasks and to keep the balance.
Eric Schmidt joined Google in 2001 and served as it’s CEO until April 2011. Today, he has a net worth of $13.7 billion, according to Forbes. Most of his wealth is in Alphabet stock.
"Good is the enemy of great." - Jony Ive, Chief Design Officer at Apple
Jony Ive makes Apple look good. As chief design officer of the company, he makes sure every product including the iPhone, iPad, iWatch, among others are excellent inside and out.
Ive shares that the goal of Apple, despite sitting on billions and billions of cash, is not to make money but give consumers good products.
Having over 5,000 patents under his belt and leading the Apple design team since 1996, Ive has the eye to spot an opportunity and create products that make most of it.
“Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.” - Linus Torvalds, Creator of Linux
Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, is known as the King of Geeks in the world of tech. He says what he wants, he works wearing clothes he wants, and is very good at what he does.
Torvalds shares that he still works alone in his bathrobe most of the time. He confesses he doesn’t love people but he loves computers. His colorful personality sometimes results to arguments but he knows how to get things done even when there are differences.
The creator of Linux knows he is one stubborn fellow, but he really gets things done.
I have had all of the disadvantages required for success.” - Larry Ellison, Founder of Oracle
Larry Ellison, founder and CEO of Oracle, knows the definition of struggle. He was born to a poor single mother in Bronx in 1944. He suffered from pneumonia when he was 9 months old. He was a sickly child and was adopted by his relatives. The aunt who helped raise her died.
In the 1970s, Ellison had to dropout of college to jump from one job to another. Along the way, he learned some computer programming and in 1977, founded Software Development Labs that built a database management system for the CIA. They called that project, Oracle.
The tide started turning in 1981 for Ellison when the company was tapped by IBM for its mainframe systems.
The company was renamed Oracle in 1995.
Amid the challenges, Ellison learned to question what’s conventional wisdom. For him, this is when innovation begins.
“Someone once told me growth and comfort do not coexist. And I think it's a really good thing to remember.”. - Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM
Ginni Rometty has been with IBM since 1981. She is now at the helm of the iconic company. She has seen its ups and downs and have championed how the brand should reinvent itself.
After a long slump in October 2017, IBM posted its best earnings in 9 years. As the need for legacy software products decline, Rometty has pushed for the transition of IBM into analytics and cloud products.
Rometty is a tech leader who knows how to take risks. She understands that taking risks goes a little more deeper. When one takes risks, one will learn more.
“Remember that you can do anything you want to do. Don't let anyone say, 'You're not smart enough... it's too hard... it's a dumb idea... ” Meg Whitman, Former CEO of HPE
Meg Whitman has been in places most executives would dream of. She started her career with P&G in 1979, had a stint with Hasbro (kids should thank her for bringing Teletubbies to the United States), and also became CEO of eBay.
Whitman was instrumental in catapulting eBay from a company earning $4 million in 1998 to having an $8 billion revenue in 2008. She joined HP in 2011 as board member and later on as CEO. She stepped down as chief of HPE in February 2018 and now works as CEO of NewTV, a mobile media startup.
She is considered one of the richest women in tech with a net worth of $3.3 billion.
If one thinks life has been too kind to Whitman, think again. Whitman was born with a hip dysplasia and was strapped into a metal brace with leather straps until she was 3. She first dreamed of becoming a doctor but decided to shift to economics.
"It doesn't matter if I failed. At least I passed the concept on to others. Even if I don't succeed, someone will succeed." - Jack Ma, Founder and Chairman of Alibaba Group
Jack Ma is the founder of the Alibaba Group, one of the e-commerce giants in the world. He is the 3rd Richest Man in China and the 7th Richest in Tech, according to Forbes. As of Feb. 14, his net worth is pegged at $39.4 billion. Alibaba set a record in New York when it went public in 2014 and raised $25 billion, considered as the biggest public stock offering.
Before reaching the zenith of success, Ma had to deal with failure -- a good dose of it.
Upon getting his college degree, Ma applied 30 times for a job and got a 100 percent rejection rate. He tried to be a cop but got declined. He also applied at KFC where there were 24 applicants. The whole batch were hired except for one -- Jack Ma.
Ma also got denied 10 times from getting into Harvard. Yes, he is that patient.
He is not very good at math. In fact, he only got one of 120 questions in the math portion of his college entrance exam.
According to Ma, he learned from these failures and used his experience to excel as an entrepreneur.
Founding Alibaba was also not a walk in the park. He even calls it 1,001 mistakes. Investors didn’t want to put their money in Alibaba. The company was not profitable in its first few years. At one point, it almost went bankrupt.
In 2003, Alibaba launched subsidiary auction site Taobao.com that helped the brand gain traction. Eventually, with some help from Yahoo, Ma led the company and overtook eBay in the Chinese market.
In 2013, Ma gave up his post as CEO of Alibaba but remained as its executive chairman.
Jack Ma is the epitome of patience and persistence. Giving up is not in his vocabulary.
"You're probably on the right track if you feel like a sidewalk worm during a rainstorm." - Larry Page, CEO of Alphabet, Co-founder of Google
Larry Page co-founded Google with fellow Stanford post grad student Sergey Brin in 1998. About 75 percent of internet users today use Google for their queries. On a daily basis, Google processes more than 3 billion searches.
How Google serves the world and how the world makes Google rich is unimaginable, but the company started small. Page and Brin even maxed out their credit cards to buy hardware for their project.
In May 2009, he delivered the commencement address in front of the graduating students of the University of Michigan. At the same university, Page learned how to make his dreams real.
Amid his mega-ambitious projects, he met fellow crazy people along the way who love to deal with challenges. It was not easy but he believes that something good will come out when you're working on something that’s uncomfortably exciting.
"I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical and ultimately making a big difference in the world."- Sergey Brin, Google Co-Founder
When people use your brand as a verb to find answers to questions, you’ve definitely arrived. In this age of internet, when people want to find out something, they Google it. But before this happened, Russian-born Sergey Brin was like any other Ph.D. candidate.
Brin attended Stanford University where he met Google co-founder Larry Page. The paths of the two tech leaders crossed in 1995 when Brin was a second year graduate student and Page was visiting from the University of Michigan as a potential first year.
The personalities of Brin and Page clashed. But ironically, the conflict drew the two closer. In 1996, the two collaborated for a search engine they called BackRub. This is where they first used the technology of PageRank, which basically sorted out results according to their relevance. The work they did for BackRub eventually built the foundation for Google.
The most popular search engine today actually started as a shoestring project of Brin and Page until they received a good amount of money to kickstart things. After incorporating, the co-founders raised another $900,000 of funding. In 1999, Google was officially out of beta and as people say, the rest is history.
Sergey Brin has a net worth of $48.5 billion today. He is among the richest in tech according to Forbes. He now serves as the president of Alphabet, the parent firm of Google. He used to head Google X, the secretive division of Google that made the Google Glasses.
Together with Page, Brin follows the mantra “don’t be evil.”
“You must always be able to predict what's next and then have the flexibility to evolve.” - Marc Benioff, salesforce.com CEO
Marc Benioff is Chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. He has a net worth of $5 billion as of February 2018 and owns about 5 percent of the company he founded in 1999. Prior to Salesforce, he worked with Larry Ellison at Oracle.
When asked whether Salesforce has fulfilled its original vision or if it had to resort to Plan B, C, or any other letter of the alphabet, Benioff said they put emphasis on flexibility to evolve. There’s really no business plan but rather a method to assess situations and the ability to achieve total alignment.
Salesforce is focused on its vision but is capable of adjusting along the way to succeed.
“In times of despair, you may believe the cynic who tells you that one person cannot make difference... there are times it may be hard to see your own impact.” - Evan Spiegel, Snap CEO
Evan Spiegel considers life as not fair, but he believes he got really, really lucky. Snapchat has roughly 170 million users, mostly teens, snapping selfies and sharing their stories on a daily basis.
Spiegel became the youngest public company chief when Snap started trading in the first quarter of 2017. At 27, he is worth $4.5 billion. In 2013, Facebook reportedly offered $3 billion to acquire Snapchat, but together with his co-founders, Spiegel declined. Today, the company has a market cap of almost $24 billion.
Clearly, Spiegel is in for the long game and not just for the short-term gain.
In 2015, Spiegel delivered a commencement speech in front of the graduates of USC Marshall.
He reminded the students that after life in school, life can be tougher and that they will be facing problems that don’t have answers. He advised the youngsters to carry on, find what they love, and voice their dissent.
“I like to say that the one thing that all people who succeed in changing the world have in common is that they at least tried.” - Kevin Systrom, Co-Founder of Instagram
No one will complain if one is in his or her 30s and has net worth of $1.51 billion. Systrom co-founded Instagram in 2010. The photo sharing app was bought by Facebook in 2012 for $1 billion.
The Stanford graduate's first big project was Burbn, a social check-in service. Users found it too complicated so he switched gears and only took 8 weeks to create Instagram.
With Instagram, Systrom thinks they were able to turn ordinary scenes into magical moments and turned photography into another form of communication for users.
When asked what was the biggest challenge with his startup dreams, he revealed that it was really starting a startup itself. And he was thankful that they at least tried to change the world.
“Rarely are opportunities presented to you in a perfect way. In a nice little box with a yellow bow on top.” - Susan Wojcicki, YouTube CEO
No one knows what the future holds. Good opportunities may come and one must be ready to grab one that will be life-changing. There might be failures along the way, but one must meet them head on. This sums up the message of Susan Wojcicki, YouTube CEO, when she delivered the commencement speech at Johns Hopkins University in 2014.
Wojcicki served as SVP of Ads and Commerce at Google and was instrumental in Google’s $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube in 2006. She eventually took the helm at YouTube in February 2014.
In 2015, she was named to the list of 100 Most Influential People In The World of TIME.
And about grabbing opportunities. She was a natural. Why? Google was created in her garage.
“You will be defined not just by what you achieve, but by how you survive.” -Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO
Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, is considered among the most influential women in the tech world. She is a prolific problem solver, but the death of her husband in May 2015 crushed her.
Sandberg delivered a powerful commencement speech before Berkeley’s Class of 2016. She shared what she learned in death.
“You will be defined not just by what you achieve, but by how you survive,” she said.
She told the young crowd that in times of adversity, one must lean in and try to find hope and some joy.
She reminded them to find gratitude and be there for loved ones when tragedy strikes.
Following her husband’s death, Sandberg has released books that aim to help women to be resilient. She also founded Lean In, a nonprofit organization focused on empowering women.
"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith." - Steve Jobs, Co-founder Apple
In 2005, Steve Jobs delivered the Stanford Commencement Address. Looking back at the pivotal points in his life, the Apple co-founder urged the youth to pursue their dreams despite of setbacks.
During the speech, he shared that he was devastated when he was fired by Apple. But he didn’t lose faith. And this led to a renaissance.
Jobs continued doing what he was doing because he loved it.
“You’ve got to find what you love,” he said.
When he returned to Apple, he delegated a good amount of his CEO duties to Tim Cook, his second-in-command who eventually became his successor.
Jobs focused on creating products and collaborating with his team to find the perfect design for hardware and software UI.
Another task Jobs loved was recruiting people. He wanted to find the best people for the job. He does not settle. He follows the philosophy that A players should hire A players. He made sure that the top 100 people at Apple are the best in the industry. He believed that if he achieved this, the effect will cascade down through the rest of the organization.
Among other things Jobs loved to do for Apple is to be the face of the brand. He had that natural charisma and amazing showmanship. He was also the top negotiator and business people knew him as someone who always wanted to be on the winning end of the deal.
Some see the negatives of Steve Jobs love for the small details but as the visionary who served as the compass of the brand, he surely helped paved the way for the success Apple is enjoying today.
“It's our own ability to have an idea and go after the idea and make it happen. That's what at the end of the day defines us.” - Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft
Four weeks before Satya Nadella took the helm at Microsoft, the company’s market cap was $302.2 billion. Four years after, Nadella’s leadership has pushed the market cap to $681.6 billion.
What he has achieved in a short span of time being the third CEO of Microsoft is almost a near-impossible task. Nadella, indeed, has the ability to make things happen.
In order to get to the top, he made some unconventional moves.
Instead of showing his hunger when asked if he’s interested to be CEO, Nadella displayed some humility.
“Only if you want me to be CEO,” he said to the board.
He also leads with empathy and makes use of life’s lessons to make the best decisions for Microsoft.
“Wear your failure as a badge of honor.” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google
Sundar Pichai is the CEO of Google and also sits as one of the board of directors of Alphabet. He was responsible why users have the Chrome browser and is also instrumental for the big push of the Android brand. He was also key in Google’s $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest in 2014.
Life wasn’t so easy for Pichai. He was born in an ordinary family in Chennai, India. Through his hard work in college, he received a scholarship to attend Stanford. Upon completing his master’s degree, he went to the Wharton School for his MBA.
His rise from simple life to being one the highest paid executives in the world can be attributed to his dedication. He does not know how to give up.
Sundar Pichai knows that only those who take risks can enjoy their win. And if one fails, what’s important is to start again.
“It’s about finding your values, and committing to them. It’s about finding your North Star. It’s about making choices. Some are easy. Some are hard.” - Tim Cook, Apple Inc. CEO
Tim Cook joined Apple in 1998. During the said period, the numbers of Apple were on a downward trend and the future seemed bleak. There were no iPhone, iPad, or iMac yet that helped rake in profit. Thirteen years after, Cook became CEO of the largest tech company in the world with a compensation package that makes him the highest paid executive anywhere.
When he was interviewed by Steve Jobs, logic was thrown out of the window. He made a very difficult decision and took the risk.
One can liken Cook joining Apple to what he said to the graduates of George Washington University in 2015 at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. During his speech, he emphasized the importance of justice and values at the workplace.
He shared how he found his North Star, his guiding light through people he looked up to. He referred to Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy.
He encouraged the graduates to believe in themselves, to believe that they can do great deeds. He told everyone that they must discern from what is right and what is wrong.
Cook also shared that Jobs made him question everything. He was one with Apple’s mission to build things so people can make use of technology that makes life easier. Jobs made him believe that they can change the world.
Tim Cook has been instrumental in saving Apple and reversing its fortune. Today, Apple has the largest market capitalization in the world, now at around $831.6 billion. Analysts believe the company may hit a market value of $1 Trillion in 2018.
"The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that's changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks." - Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO
While a good amount of teens think Facebook are for old people, the user statistics of the company is not be taken lightly. On a daily basis, Facebook has more than 1.4 billion active users.
"The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that's changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks," said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during an interview with CBS News.
During the early stages of Facebook, he was never sure if the platform will survive. Google was always there and with the search engine’s available resources, he feared that it can build a Facebook killer anytime.
Zuckerberg took the risk and his gamble paid off. Today, the Facebook founder who started dreaming of connecting people around the world from his Harvard dorm room is worth $72.4 billion.
He and his wife plans to give away 99 percent of their wealth through their lifetime for different philanthropic causes.
“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma." - Steve Jobs, Co-founder Apple
Steve Jobs delivered the speech to the graduating batch of Stanford in 2005. He received a standing ovation afterward. The crowd of 23,000 listened to the Apple co-founder -- in jeans, formal robe, and sandals-- and that same speech continues to inspire people.
The video of the said speech has garnered 29 Million hits on YouTube and every second is filled with valuable life lessons.
“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition,” Jobs said.
Jobs believes people with passion can change the world. He advised the young crowd at Stanford to find what they love so they will do what they love and be great. And what if one has not found his love yet? Jobs urged the crowd to never tire and keep looking.
Just like what he did, one must not settle. Jobs was passionate about computer hardware and making tools so people can make most of their creativity, and he only wanted the perfect product to get to the doorsteps of consumers.
Jobs gave it his all when it comes to developing products. He believed everything is possible if you pour your heart and mind into it. He did not settle and he got into trouble several times because of his conviction, but it also helped him turn his dream into reality.
During the speech at Stanford, he shared details about the most important aspects of his life, but to sum things up, the ultimate message is not to waste one’s life.
About a year before taking the podium at Stanford, Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He had a surgery then and said he was fine. Jobs said no one really wants to die but acknowledged death as the best invention of life. Death, as he sees it, is life’s way to get rid of the old and introduce the new.
"When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor." - Elon Musk, Founder/CEO SpaceX, Co-Founder/CEO of Tesla
Looking at today’s tech leaders, many may consider Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk as the coolest on the block. He is an innovator that has up his game. Talk about electric cars, the massive Gigafactory, the out of this world projects of SpaceX, Tesla solar roof, the Boring Company, among his other accomplishments and no one will argue.
Amid the grand achievements, Musk has a secret that is not so secret. He works hard. He works up to a hundred hours per week to reach his goals. That’s around 2.5 times a normal work week of an average person.
Some have called his vision insane, but so far, the South African-born, self-made billionaire has proven doubters wrong.
In an interview with CBS Evening News for 60 Minutes, Musk revealed that he did not know anything about rockets and has not built one ever, and he honestly thinks the odds were not in his favor.
When asked why did he even begin, he replied:
"When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor."
While he has disrupted industries, his passion is space. He dreams of one day having commercial space flights. Experts, such as Neil Armstrong, are not so keen of the idea but the SpaceX CEO wants people to see what hard work they’re doing to make their dreams a reality.
He believes one day, he can make space flights affordable to almost anyone. His reusable rockets have failed several times (and the company even made a blooper reel), but has also made strides.
In February 2018, Musk made another history and sent a cherry red Tesla into Space.
Musk is definitely someone who will not easily be beaten by the odds. By working hard, by believing in his vision, he somehow makes the seemingly impossible possible.
"A company shouldn't get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn't last." - Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in a Seattle garage in 1994. In October 2017, Bezos became the richest man in the world.
Despite the amazing achievement, Bezos reminds everyone to stay humble. He believes companies should build products and services with real value for their customers. Bezos treasures the experience of having to go through tough times, he thinks Amazon is where it is today because of its past.
Bezos' net worth as of February 2018 is pegged at $120.4 billion. Aside from Amazon, he also pursues his passion in space travel through his company Blue Origin, which one day wants to bring passengers to space.
“It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” - Bill Gates, Co-Founder Microsoft
With a networth of $90.6 billion, Bill Gates is an icon of success. But life has never always been easy for the co-founder of Microsoft.
Even before Microsoft, Gates co-founded Traf-O-Data with Paul Allen in 1972. The first ever computer built by the tech duo was meant to process traffic data to help traffic engineers decongest roads. The computer Gates and Allen built was called Traf-O-Data 8008, but the demo was far from being smooth. The machine did not work.
The collected data by the Traf-O-Data computer was next to impossible to interpret. It required long hours because the notations were recorded manually by the device on a long traffic tape. Of course, the tech duo managed to resolve the issue by hiring their high school classmates to process the data. Eventually, the market for their first product was gone and they were out of business sooner than expected.
Gates and Allen founded Microsoft in April 1975 in Albuquerque. The hippy-looking team created a microcomputer, then rolled out MS-DOS in 1980.
In 1986, Microsoft went public and made Bill Gates around $350 million. From then on, Windows took the market like a tidal wave especially when Windows 95 was released. Then, with Windows 98, the OS gave users more features to make most of the internet.
In January 2000, Gates passed the CEO torch to Steve Ballmer and took the role of Chief Software Architect.
Despite the setbacks along the way, Gates kept on going. There were blunders along the way, but the more important part is you get one’s focus back and hurdle the challenges.
Today, Bill Gates chairs a charitable foundation with wife Melinda but remains as board member of Microsoft.
"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations." - Steve Jobs, Co-founder Apple
Steve Jobs passed away in October 2011 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Jobs is gone but his legacy lives on. During his leadership, Apple introduced revolutionary products such as the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and the iPad.
Jobs was known for his perfectionism and extremely high standards. Projects that were nearly done were scrapped because it did not meet his standards. It took Apple years to roll out the original Macintosh computer. His leadership style created some internal struggles and eventually led to his ousting from the company he co-founded.
Jobs was devastated but he learned a lot and tweaked his management style with focus on empowering the people around him.
While not in Apple, he founded NeXT and Pixar Animation Studios. He returned to Apple in 1997 with a new management style and spearheaded the creation of the iOS, the iPod, and the iPhone that redefined how people use technology.
"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations," Jobs was quoted in the book The Journey Is The Reward by Jeffrey Young.
The products created by Jobs were not great off the gates. While that was his ultimate goal for each launch, there were failures such as Macintosh TV, Apple II, and the Apple Lisa. On top of these, he committed mistakes as a leader. However, what’s important is that one does not dwell on mistakes. One must take ownership of his work and have the passion to improve it.
