A World of Steve Jobses

The knee-jerk reaction whenever some technoceleb makes it big is to try to examine every facet of his/her life and see how young persons can potentially emulate those things. The implication is that "if I am like Steve Jobs, my career and revenue stream will also be like Steve Jobs."

This is a dangerous habit, and a difficult one to break. Firstly, its dangerous because Steve Jobs brilliance is more than a little in his uniqueness, and trying to copy a man whose career thrived due to his individuality is paradoxical and...foolhardy. Second, this tendency to want children to be genius-facsimiles is a difficult habit to break because people are greedy and they want their kids to be filthy stinking rich and famous. This has been true since time began. And copying the successful endeavors of a rich person seems a great way, time and time again, for achieving filthy stinking richness.

But, truly I tell you that the success of Steve Jobs and so many technocelebs before him was entirely independent on their emulation of their predecessors. Really, what Steve Jobs is would be more in line with lottery winners than anything else. Because honestly there were zillions of nerds geeking out with computers in the late 70's but only a few became Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or Larry Ellison. And honestly, dropping out of college after one semester isn't statistically a sure-fire way to end up rich (nor something sane parents encourage in their children). It just happened that Jobs had Wozniak, and that he had good timing. I am not meaning to downplay the obvious brilliance of Jobs. Merely, I am trying to highlight that there are tons of brilliant people at any given moment in human history and it's only in hindsight that we see the "winners."

So, parents: if you are hell-bent for leather on raising a technoceleb here's my advice. Teach your child to be an individual. Teach them to be diversely-capable. Teach them to draw doodles and to play in the sand. Take them to science museums, sure, but art museums too. Teach them to do sports, but only one or two night a week. Let them be average at math and science (it won't matter later). Most importantly, don't sweat details. Work on these five traits: questioning, experimenting, observing, associating and networking. Don't teach them to be like anyone. Teach them to be bold and risky and to make a new template for success.


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