why do we need useref in react code example

Example 1: useRef() in react

function TextInputWithFocusButton() {
  const inputEl = useRef(null);
  const onButtonClick = () => {
    // `current` points to the mounted text input element
    inputEl.current.focus();
  };
  return (
    <>
      <input ref={inputEl} type="text" />
      <button onClick={onButtonClick}>Focus the input</button>
    </>
  );
}

Example 2: what does useref do react

const refContainer = useRef(initialValue);
//useRef returns a mutable ref object whose .current property is initialized to the passed argument (initialValue). 
//The returned object will persist for the full lifetime of the component.