Chapter 48 Chapter 1 I am the future

According to the new book "In the Plex" (In the Plex) by Steven Levy, a reporter from the American "Wired" magazine, when Google took shape in 2001, investors hoped that the two young founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin hired an experienced CEO to run the company.Unexpectedly, at that time, there were not many CEOs who could fall into the eyes of the two founders. After counting and counting, there was only one in the world.Page and Brin felt that only Apple's Steve Jobs was worthy of Google's CEO. God knows what the world would have been like if Jobs had taken over Google.It's no wonder that Page and Brin worshiped Jobs when they were young boys and regarded him as a god-like existence.Brin even regarded Jobs as an entrepreneurial mentor, and often went to Jobs to ask questions, and even walked around Jobs' home and chatted together.Page and Brin even had the idea of ​​starting a company with Jobs, but never put it into practice.

Heroes cherish heroes. In the IT arena, Page and Brin debuted almost 20 years later than Jobs.No matter how thrilling the battle between Google and Apple in the mobile phone field was, the two juniors always respected Jobs.If the two young heroes of Google have learned anything from Joe, it must be Joe's sharp vision of the future. In terms of high-level strategic thinking and grasp of the future direction, I have to say that no one else in this world has reached the height of Joe's gang leader. Really, even Page and Brin, who created the myth of the Internet, can't do it. This point is really unacceptable. Leader Qiao has a natural sense of the direction of future technology. Without this vision, how can we talk about changing the world?

People usually call this ability to see into the future Visionary.The foresight of Qiao Gangzhu is that he can always see the general trend of technological development a few years ahead of others, and he can often accurately seize the best opportunity to win with one move. Judging from the results, Jobs' vision is usually reflected in three aspects: Jobs knew the ins and outs of every technology area he focused on. Jobs always believes that the future has infinite possibilities, and he clearly knows the general direction of evolution. Jobs always boldly followed the trend and brought forth the new, no matter whether this update hurt the immediate interests or not.

Some say the best thing about Apple is the speed with which they eliminate their own products.Think about it, when Apple sold the Apple II very well, it set up its own company and launched the Macintosh, which essentially competed with the Apple II.The list goes on. Donna Dubinsky, who later became CEO of Palm and founder of Handspring, was in charge of the printer sales channel at Apple.She recalled: "When Apple was about to upgrade the printer's resolution from 300dpi to 1200dpi, I suggested to Jobs: 'We should reduce the price of the old printers first, clear the inventory, and then start selling new printers.' Jobs replied Said: 'No, we will stop selling 300dpi printers immediately, because users need new technology.'”

Apple continues to use new products and new technologies to eliminate and deny old things, because Jobs believes in his bones that Apple should live for the future rather than the present. After Jobs returned to Apple, when the Macintosh was still Apple’s main business, he used the opportunity of Apple’s anniversary to send an email to all employees saying: “The existing Mac computers are nothing, and the products that Apple launches in the future can represent the future.” Sure enough, when Apple disrupted the pattern of the old world with a series of blockbusters such as iPod, iPhone and iPad, Apple's own product structure has also undergone fundamental changes.By 2011, the products that accounted for more than 60% of Apple's sales turned out to be products that did not exist 5 years ago!Jobs' pursuit of the future, perhaps, can only be described as "persistence".

In history, every time Apple launches a product, it starts to think about what the next product should be.When Woz completed the research and development of Apple I, he immediately devoted himself to the work of Apple II; when Apple II just changed people's understanding of computers, Jobs immediately judged that the graphical user interface is the trend of the future; As soon as it went public, Jobs began to think about the prototype of the iPhone and iPad almost immediately... This ability to spot the next big thing in the tech industry two or three years in advance is amazing.If there is no such ability, even if today's Apple does not go to collapse, it must be the same as Microsoft, IBM and other huge IT giants, although it operates as usual, it has no passion and vitality at all.

Of course, this persistent "future control" will also pay a price in practice. The first is timing.The timing of Apple's launch of the Macintosh was not fully grasped. Later, the Newton PDA promoted by Sculley once again made a wedding dress for others.These lessons are not insignificant. The second is the smoothness of the replacement.Sometimes, in order to enable new technologies as soon as possible, Apple often desperately gives up support for existing technologies and existing users. When the Macintosh was launched that year, Apple boldly gave up the 5-inch floppy drive that was still the mainstream of the era, and chose the 3-inch floppy drive that represented the future.When the iMac was launched, Apple once again boldly decided not to even use the floppy drive, and only equipped the iMac with a CD-ROM drive and a network interface. You must know that many computers were not connected to the network at that time, and the floppy disk was still the most commonly used "communication device" for many users. "medium. In 2005, Jobs resolutely decided that the new iPod completely abandoned Apple's own data transmission interface "FireWire" and instead supported the USB2.0 data interface that represents the future.The most ruthless thing is that in 2008, just after the wireless network became popular, the MacBook Air laptop computer launched by Apple directly gave up the wired network interface and only built-in wireless network-this is simply driving users to "go to" the future!

This impassioned technical update will inevitably bring about many incompatibility issues with existing products.In the early years, Apple's Macintosh was not compatible with Apple II, and Lisa and Macintosh, which also pursued a graphical user interface, were not fully compatible with each other.Later, compatibility problems between various versions of Mac OS often appeared. Before Jobs returned, there was even a problem that Apple's own operating system could not run its own applications.There are still many problems with my own system, not to mention compatibility with IBM PC.That year, Apple lost the PC war, and compatibility was one of the important reasons.

But for the strategist Jobs, the price of bold pursuit of the future may not be a big deal.Back then, Apple did stumble on issues such as timing, technology transition, and compatibility, but today's world is completely different.The evolution of technology is getting faster and faster. As soon as a technology matures, it can't wait to be replaced by emerging technologies immediately.The development of the Internet has also made compatibility issues between operating systems and between operating systems and applications less sensitive than they were back then.In the Internet age, it is far more important to see far, see accurately, and choose the right time to make a move than to be safe, comprehensive, and meticulous.

Some people ask, what is the use of this strategic vision of 3 to 5 years ahead?Just take a look at the comparison chart of the stock prices of Apple, Microsoft, Google and IBM in the past few years, and you will know that such a strategic vision means profit and value-added!What kind of products have Microsoft and IBM released in the past few years?Which of these products represent future technologies?IT giants such as Microsoft and IBM may be able to operate smoothly, but as long as there is no strategic vision of Jobs, the stock price can only be static.Even Google, which continues to launch a new generation of search technology, Android mobile operating system and Chrome browser, has seen a much lower share price increase than Apple over the same period.

Always leading its peers by 3 to 5 years means that Apple can always stand at the top of the industrial ecological environment and enjoy huge profits.The never-ending self-transcendence means that Apple can define and "force" people into the future.At least not yet, no other company can do that. Of course, while Jobs has an accurate insight into the future, he will also use his careful thinking to judge whether a future technology is suitable for turning into a product.According to former Apple sales director David Sobotta (David Sobotta), in 2002, when Microsoft's tablet computer concept was being hyped, someone persuaded Jobs to develop a tablet computer for professionals.Jobs turned down the offer, citing the following reasons: "First of all, this is not a big market. Although PC giants including Hewlett-Packard and Acer are trying to open up this market, even Gates boldly predicted that tablet PCs will become the best-selling computers in the United States within five years. In the personal computer market with an annual sales volume of 200 million units, the annual sales volume of tablet PCs in the tens of thousands is negligible. Secondly, if the tablet PC is mainly aimed at professionals, such as users in fields such as art and medical treatment, it may encounter several technical bottlenecks : One, no wireless network is fast enough to transmit professional images on a tablet, and two, the display on the tablet is not up to professional standards." Jobs concluded: "Apple would rather be defining a new market than be involved in a war of companies trying to make room for an uncertain product." According to the analysis of Zhang Liang, the investment manager of Innovation Works, Jobs’s words clearly showed his thinking when considering whether future products are feasible: he would first think about whether the new product is in a mass market or a segmented market?How big is this market likely to be?Then he would ask, are there some technologies that prevent a segment from becoming a mass market?Furthermore, will future technological developments facilitate or hinder this market?The last question, if such a product is made, can it create new value? Combined with the subsequent development of the situation, it is not that Jobs did not see the future of tablet computers, but has been waiting for the answers to the above questions.Until there is a clear answer, Apple will really let go, as Jobs said, to "define a new market."In the field of tablet computers, Jobs's "future speculative technique" has been successful, and the iPad has become the ultimate winner. In the early years, Jobs often made the mistake of seeing the future but missing the opportunity. The loss of the Macintosh to the IBM PC was the eternal pain in the heart of Joe.After working in Apple, NeXT, and Pixar for more than ten years, the gradually mature Qiao Gangzhu "evolved" into a person who can not only see the future, but also use clear thinking and perfect methodology to grasp the future. As Sculley said in an interview: "Jobs was a man with extraordinary vision. But he was also a man who believed that every step of the way must be precise."