The economic legacy of Steve Jobs

By XN IRAKI

Some people pass through this planet unnoticed.

Others leave everlasting imprints. The latter are usually those who go against the grains, the unconventional.

They are characterised by innovations, noticing patterns and trends we cannot, taking risks and changing the way we do things or perceive them.

Imprint leavers are paradigm shifters. Their bold actions and decisions reverberate across generations long after their feeble bodies have turned into dust.

Steve Jobs was such a man. His 56 years on this planet changed our lives more than we could imagine.

The Macintosh computer used a mouse and "clicks" long before Windows became the dominant operating system. Even as an undergraduate, that appeared magical compared with archaic DOS.

He changed the way we communicate with computers, with each other and listen to music. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) was a hallmark of genius.

The iphones, the iPods and iPads brought new meaning to the word "coolness".

Steve jobs succeeded where we fail surprisingly not because of new technology. I doubt if touch screen is any new technology.

He simply anticipated what the market wanted. His most famous quote goes against what MBA programmes teach globally, that the customer is the king.

He argued that it is not the business of the customer to know what he wants. That unconventional statement underlies Jobs success and Apples’ success.

Even the name of the firm was unconventional, the name of a fruit.

If the customer does not know what he wants, you can define it for him and charge a premium.

Conventional wisdom shows Steve Jobs was right. How many goods and services have you bought not because you wanted them but you found them in the market, with colleagues, or through adverts?

Jobs was following the footsteps of the Economist JK Galbraith who had long observed that big corporations through adverts often define the needs of the customer.

Carefully analyse most adverts and you will see evidence of Galbraith’s hypothesis. Is it surprising that big firms are the biggest advertisers?

Touch screen

Jobs success was also based on parsimony or simplicity. He wanted gadgets that are easy to use. Compare a gramophone and an iPod.

Both give you music, one needs to hire a porter to carry the gramophone. An iPod fits on your palm. Touch screen is easier to use than "pecking" the keyboard.

The other facet of simplicity is built on personal control and freedom. Through iPods, ipads and iphones, you have control of technology without worrying about "tethers".

Steve Jobs rode on mobility to revolutionize music and the way we communicate to each other. You can do other things as you talk, or listen to music.

His lasting genius was not building elegant gadgets, but marketing. He again made use of parsimony. He launched Apple products dressed in blue jeans and not business suits.

That resonated with a generation that values freedom and identity. He refused to be conventional, yet we love herd mentality.

But we went a step further. He did not have time for "feasibility studies" and "market tests", he believed in his intuitions, a hallmark of a risk taker and entrepreneur.

These studies and tests hold us hostage, eat precious time and often give our competitors time to gnaw into our markets.

By believing in what you do, you can take the market by stealth. Noted how every firm is now making smart phones, long after Apple?

What made Steve Jobs so successful? Can we follow suit? What is his legacy?

It is the environment. California, where Jobs grew up, has from the time of the gold rush thrived on free enterprise spirit.

Today it centers on Silicon Valley, where venture capitalists, universities and the market have created synergy that makes innovation a lifestyle. Can we create such synergy in Kenya instead of political coalitions?

Best mistake

It was his family background. He was given up for adoption, and one of his parents was Syrian. Schooling also mattered, he went to a liberal School, Reed College and grew up in the vibrant 1960s, when the younger generation demanded freedom, sparked by Woodstock music festival.

The space race may have opened the young man to the infiniteness of entrepreneurial possibilities.

He dropped from college, probably his best mistake (Yes, I can say that, despite my profession).

By not tying himself to plethora of theories, ideologies, schools of thoughts and dogmas, Jobs was free to try new things.

Schools often tamper our creativity by packaging "conventionality" and "inert ideas",

Recall inert gases? Bill Gates another entrepreneur also dropped out. Jobs was neither a computer program nor a marketer. But he did better than both! How? By being inspirer-in-chief and free from conventionality.

We are not advocating the closing of schools but their reforms. I shall never forget the former University of Nairobi VC, Prof Gichaga who told a graduating class: "50 per cent of the knowledge you have acquired in school is useless.

"The other half is useful. It is your job to find out after graduation which half is useful" Suppose we never acquire the useless half?

The whole world will miss Steve Jobs, his simplicity, creativity and ingenuity.

His economic legacy will remain through Apple, and other firms that have created jobs and made our life easier.

His greatest legacy might be changing the way we think of technology and the market.

Luckily the laws of nature makes it possible to spawn new Steve Jobs, we hope the next one will be a Kenyan.

Finally some food for thought; when Michael Jackson died, he was on our headlines. Steve Jobs was not…