Steve Jobs

It might sound strange, especially when someone has died that the one thing that struck me as odd in all flurry of articles on Steve Jobs was his net worth.  According to Forbes, Steve jobs’ net worth is $8.9 bn, I found that strange for the man who created and re-created the world’s third largest company Apple (by market cap). Bill Gates’s net worth is almost seven-times, while his company Microsoft is only the 10^th largest company by market share. Even more astounding is the fact that most of Steve jobs wealth came from Disney where he is the largest shareholder ($4.47bn of stocks) not Apple!

 

Source: Forbes The World’s Billionaires, as of March 2011

I saw a similar pattern in all the other rich fellows excluding Steve Jobs; they all had better individual ranks then their main or key companies. But the difference in the individual ranking and company ranking is most startling in Steve Jobs case- 110 individual rank and third company rank. I guess he was too busy doing what he loved than be bothered about making money. Too busy making products that make you smile before you even put them on.

Rank by individual net worth	Name	Net worth (Bn$)	Age	Source of income	Key company	Market value of company (Bn$)	Rank by mkt value
1	Carlos Slim Helu & family	74	71	Telecom	América Móvil	110	47*
2	Bill Gates	56	55	Microsoft	Microsoft	213.34	10
3	Warren Buffett	50	81	Berkshire Hathaway	Berkshire Hathaway	206.67	12
4	Bernard Arnault	41	62	LVMH	LVMH	77.61	84
5	Larry Ellison	39.5	67	Oracle	Oracle	169.19	22
6	Lakshmi Mittal	31.1	61	Steel	ArcelorMittal	56.54	124
7	Amancio Ortega	31	75	Zara	Inditex	50.08	153
8	Eike Batista	30	54	Mining, oil	Ogx Petroleo	39.06	210
9	Mukesh Ambani	27	54	Petrochemicals, oil & gas	Reliance Industries	76.91	86
10	Christy Walton & family	26.5	56	Walmart	Walmart	181.72	19
24	Larry Page	19.8	38	Google	Google	147.20	28
24	Sergey Brin	19.8	38	Google	Google	147.20	28
52	Mark Zuckerberg	13.5	27	Facebook	Facebook	50	155*
110	Steve Jobs	8.3	56	Apple, Pixar	Apple	321.07	3

Individual ranking and net worth according to Forbes

Company ranking and market value according to FT Global 100

* Ranking of companies proxy rank of companies with similar market share in FT Global 500

Market value of face book from Bloomberg and of América Móvil from Forbes

The numbers don’t tell you everything, just like a person’s grades don’t tell you everything (I hope).  Its how you do what you do, that needs to be measured. Mr. Jobs got that, he focused less on the numbers more on the reactions, making people emotional about a computer sounds insane, irrational, but it works. In the end of the day its not really the RAM, or the hard-drive or the processor, that was important, it was important that the person who is going to spend a considerable amount of his or her time using that product, felt it was worth the while.  

I love the way Apple markets its products, its always has simple ads, with main focus on the product, no pretty girl standing in the frame, wondering what she is doing here. Despite the size of Apple, they made a large company feel like a small open source company, making new stuff. It didn’t seem to have the big corporate feel they kept it simple. Even the keyboard of an IMAC embodies that, no odd buttons like num-lock, scroll lock, which you end up pressing by mistake only. No clutter, no stupid extra button. They even took away the backspace key, which I must admit I want it put back. Despite the simplicity, you ended-up looking forward to the new product, they made it an experience. Tell me, has anybody gone and told people around they got a Microsoft, if it’s a vista you may not want to tell other people. Obviously there are drawbacks; products that invest a lot in simplicity end-up being inflexible they give you a few readymade range of options, just like Steve Jobs. Either his way or the iway, but then its his dream that we bought into.

Here’s to the crazy ones.

“You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.”

--- Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011)