‘Woz and I didn’t consciously set out to start a company. We tried very hard to convince two other established computer companies to fund us while we developed the personal computer. We spent a lot of time and got nowhere. Ultimately, we had no choice but to do it ourselves.’
Those are Steve Jobs words from an interview telling the story of how he and Steve Wozniak were ‘forced’ to start Apple in 1976.
Fast forward to 12th December 1980 when they took the business onto the stock market …
By close of play that day, Apple was valued at $1.778 billion …
Jobs and Wozniak went to bed worth hundreds of millions …
And hundreds of employees became millionaires through their stock options.
As a founder CEO this might not be apparent to you, but not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur.
(Like Ronald Wayne, one of the three original founders of Apple, who got cold feet two weeks after Apple incorporated and sold his 10% stake back to Jobs and Wozniak for just $800!)
Some people just don’t want to run a business. They would rather be an intrapreneur and develop their ideas inside of someone else’s business.
If they had a chance to.
Hey, maybe there’s a billion-dollar idea rattling around inside one of your employees head.
The problem just might be that …
You don’t know they have an idea. And they don’t know you’d be interested in hearing about it.
Looks like an old fashion communication problem.
With a super simple solution …
Take some time out to get to know your people and create a space to have those kinds of conversations.