Unit 8
The decade of Steve
Exercis
1. Answer the questions on the text.
1) What makes the story of Steve Jobs so incredible and remarkable?
So perverant in his goals;
程晋林
Experiencing and overcoming so many difficulties and frustrations;
Dominating in as many as four distinct industries;
Running Apple so well------creatively, competitively, and profitably;
Miraculously returning from his fatal dias.
2) What are the four markets that Steve Jobs reorganized and dominated?
Music, movies, mobile telephones as well as computing.
3) Why is he regarded as the rare businessman?
Predilections unique to him.
寻找英雄
Distinctive design taste and elegant retail stores.
Outside-the box approach to advertising
A showman, born salesman, and a magician.
Legitimate worldwide celebrity
Always making products customers want to buy.
Visionary but grounded in reality.
Motivated not by money, but by a visceral ardor for Apple.
4) What astounding achievements has Steve Jobs made up to date?
Increasing corporate worth from $5 billion in 2000 to $170 billion now.
Moving from cash drain and near bankruptcy to $34 billion in cash and market curities.
275 retail stores in 9 countries with 73% share of US MP3 player market, and undisputed leadership in mobile phone innovation.
His personal net worth about $5 billion.
5) What was the first important success of Steve’s team?
It created the first Macintosh (iMac), a breakthrough all-in-one computer and monitor. With drastic cost cutting and lucrative sales, it greatly improved the Apple’s balance sheet and financially got Apple well prepared for big investments and business leap.
6) Why did Steve object to Ellison buy out Apple in 1997?
Becau he didn’t like people to cond-guess the intention of his return (as making money) and wanted to take high moral ground so that he could easy and graceful decisio
ns.
石家大院7) Why did Steve build Apple-owned retail stores and some have doubts?
自我保护意识
Becau through the building of retail stores, Steve could establish direct contact with customers, get to know what they really want, and fill the stores with all tho products.
But some people at the time, even members of the board had great doubts about establishing retail stores. They are extremely nervous that the stores might become a risky cash drain.
8) What are the outstanding qualities reflected from Jobs’ integration of micromanagement with big-picture vision?
# Micro-management:
Consciousness/ dedication/ concentration
He tries to know everything about Apple. He is involved in so many details that people ca
n hardly believe. He is so detailed that he might tell an ad writer that the third word in the fourth paragraph wasn’t right.
# Big-picture vision:
小砂锅Acumen for market change
He recognized gorgeous design as differentiator for Apple.
Creative, innovative and visionary in product development
Clients responded “Give me the next Steve Jobs”
Knack for taking opportunities at the right moment
He made iTunes compatible with Windows and expanded Apple market to all PCs.
He developed Apple’s own digital-music sales stores.
9) How did Steve Jobs master the message?
一流水准打一字
Carefully consider what he and Apple say and don’t say to the public.
Rehear time and again before speaking publicly.
Authorize only a small number of executives to speak publicly.
He is careful to avoid overexposure.
Nobody is suppod to speak without the permission of Apple’s media relations team reporting directly Steve Jobs.
10) How did Steve Jobs handle Apple’s stock options backdating scandal?
He remained silent initially but later in the report to SEC he admitted and apologized for the change of option grant dates for employee benefits. He said it was totally inappropriate for Apple to do.
11) Whom did Steve Jobs thank and why when he returned?
He thanked Tim Cook (Apple’s chief operating officer) for excellent running of the company during his abnce.
He also thanked a twentysomething who died in a car crash for donating his liver.
12) How do people feel about the future of Apple?
Though some are worried about its future due to Steve’s health problem, most are confident about its future becau:
He is a fabulous brand and irreplaceable person.chat过去式
He has educated and influenced Apple employees well enough to think and behave like him.
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His influence has gone beyond Apple and become a hero for the IT industry.
