Steve Jobs: Success without a Formal Education

Success Without a Formal Education: Steve Jobs

With 18.2 million people attending college in 2007, Steve Job’s success without a formal education is remarkable in a society where higher-level education is essential. Innumerable amounts of people are pursuing a higher level of education since it has become a requirement for those who want a substantial and efficacious career. This higher education also expands one’s astuteness and overall ability to function in today’s society. Moreover, college graduates make almost double the yearly income of those without a college degree. In 2004 the typical high school graduate made roughly $27,000 a year whereas the standard college graduate made about $51,000. With the distance between those numbers growing every year, a college education has become crucial.

Steve Jobs is one of the greatest successes as well as richest men in the world. However, he came from a lower middle class family and after graduating high school, began college at Reed College in Oregon. He then dropped out after only one semester. Lacking a college degree, Jobs decided to pursue what he loved. “ I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next,” said Jobs. This was the mindset that lead him to become one of the most successful men of today, as well as a technological icon for years to come. By following his gut, Jobs ended up working alongside Steve Wozniak after meeting at the Homebrew Computer Club. Wozniak, who also lacked a college level education, invented the first at-home computer and together he and Jobs started the Apple Company on April 1st, 1976. They spent months working from home in a garage, a multimillion-dollar industry and its creators defying all stereotypes. While selling the cutting-edge Apple computer, the company continued to develop. Soon the second Apple computer was introduced. With the new improvements to the innovative device it, as well as Apple’s popularity, soared. Thanks to the Apple II Computer, Jobs was able to convince former Intel Executive, Mike Markkula, to invest in Apple. The Apple founders, and college dropouts, received over $250,000 to further their company from this investor. Markkula, with the higher level of education, was convinced by Jobs to take a chance on a non-college educated founders.

Jobs, Wozniak and the Apple II computer crushed all its competition, including ones with college degrees who invested their entire lives in the new computer development. These men, lacking any kind of formal education, became millionaires in a few short years. Veritably, after the official public offering of the Apple II computer in December of 1980, Steve Jobs’ net worth increased to over 200 million by the time he was 25. “I’ve always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do,” Job’s stated early in his career, and he did just that.