Why was he so successful? How much of this success was just good luck?

Steve Jobs died on 5 October 2011, aged 56, of pancreatic cancer. He was the epitome of an entrepreneurial leader. He revolutionized three industries – computing, music sales and cinema animations. With Steve Wozniak, he co-founded Apple in 1976. Apple revolutionized the computer industry through its easy-to-use, innovative designs: the Mac with its computer mouse, the iPod with its click wheel and the iPhone with its ‘user interface’. It revolutionized how digital content, in particular music, could be sold. Through Jobs’ animation studio, Pixar, fi lms such as Toy Story (1995) changed our ideas about the use of computer-generated animations. And yet Steve Jobs was not an inventor. He was the bridge between innovations and the marketplace – an entrepreneur – recognizing their commercial potential. Most of the technologies used by Apple originally came from the US government.
Mazzucato (2018) listed 12; from microprocessors and CPUs to hard-drives, from LCDs to touch-screens, from lithium-based batteries to the internet itself. Apple’s success lay in its ability to marry these complex technologies into user-friendly and attractive devices supplemented with powerful software mediums. It marketed its products brilliantly and developed dominant market positions. Not only did Jobs start up Apple; he was also the architect of its later growth. By the time of his death in 2011, Jobs had created the second most valuable company in the world, measured by market capitalization, with a cash mountain of $80 billion.