Synopsis
Steve Jobs was born in San
Francisco, California, on February 24, 1955, to two University of Wisconsin
graduate students who gave him up for adoption. Smart but directionless, Jobs
experimented with different pursuits before starting Apple Computer with Steve
Wozniak in 1976.
Apple's revolutionary products, which include the iPod, iPhone and iPad, are
now seen as dictating the evolution of modern technology, with Jobs having left
the company in 1985 and returning more than a decade later. He died in 2011,
following a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Early Life
Steven Paul Jobs was born on
February 24, 1955, in San Francisco, California, to Joanne Schieble (later
Joanne Simpson) and Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, two University of
Wisconsin graduate students who gave their unnamed son up for adoption. His
father, Jandali, was a Syrian political science professor, and his mother,
Schieble, worked as a speech therapist. Shortly after Steve was placed for
adoption, his biological parents married and had another child, Mona Simpson.
It was not until Jobs was 27 that he was able to uncover information on his
biological parents.
The infant was adopted by Clara
and Paul Jobs and named Steven Paul Jobs. Clara worked as an accountant and
Paul was a Coast Guard veteran and machinist. The family lived in Mountain
View, California, within the area that would later become known as Silicon
Valley. As a boy, Jobs and his father worked on electronics in the family
garage. Paul showed his son how to take apart and reconstruct electronics, a
hobby that instilled confidence, tenacity and mechanical prowess in young Jobs.
While Jobs was always an
intelligent and innovative thinker, his youth was riddled with frustrations
over formal schooling. Jobs was a prankster in elementary school due to
boredom, and his fourth-grade teacher needed to bribe him to study. Jobs tested
so well, however, that administrators wanted to skip him ahead to high school—a
proposal that his parents declined.
A few years later, while Jobs was
enrolled at Homestead High School, he was introduced to his future partner
Steve Wozniak, who was attending the University of California, Berkeley. In a
2007 interview with PC World, Wozniak spoke about why he and
Jobs clicked so well: "We both loved electronics and the way we used to
hook up digital chips," Wozniak said. "Very few people, especially
back then, had any idea what chips were, how they worked and what they could
do. I had designed many computers, so I was way ahead of him in electronics and
computer design, but we still had common interests. We both had pretty much sort
of an independent attitude about things in the world. ..."
Apple
Computer
After high school, Jobs enrolled
at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Lacking direction, he dropped out of
college after six months and spent the next 18 months dropping in on creative
classes at the school. Jobs later recounted how one course in calligraphy
developed his love of typography.
In 1974, Jobs took a position as a
video game designer with Atari. Several months later he left the company to
find spiritual enlightenment in India, traveling further and experimenting with
psychedelic drugs. In 1976, when Jobs was just 21, he and Wozniak started Apple
Computer. The duo started in the Jobs family garage, funding their
entrepreneurial venture by Jobs selling his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak selling
his beloved scientific calculator.
Jobs and Wozniak are credited with
revolutionizing the computer industry by democratizing the technology and
making machines smaller, cheaper, intuitive and accessible to everyday
consumers. Wozniak conceived of a series of user-friendly personal computers,
and—with Jobs in charge of marketing—Apple initially marketed the computers for
$666.66 each. The Apple I earned the corporation around $774,000. Three years
after the release of Apple's second model, the Apple II, the company's sales
increased by 700 percent to $139 million. In 1980, Apple Computer became a
publicly traded company, with a market value of $1.2 billion by the end of its
very first day of trading. Jobs looked to marketing expert John
Sculley of Pepsi-Cola
to take over the role of CEO for Apple.
Departure from Company
However, the next several products
from Apple suffered significant design flaws, resulting in recalls and consumer
disappointment. IBM suddenly surpassed Apple in sales, and Apple had to compete
with an IBM/PC-dominated business world. In 1984, Apple released the Macintosh,
marketing the computer as a piece of a counterculture lifestyle: romantic,
youthful, creative. But despite positive sales and performance superior to
IBM's PCs, the Macintosh was still not IBM-compatible. Sculley believed Jobs
was hurting Apple, and the company's executives began to phase him out.
Not actually having had an
official title with the company he co-founded, Jobs was pushed into a more
marginalized position and thus left Apple in 1985 to begin a new hardware and
software enterprise called NeXT, Inc. The following year Jobs purchased an animation
company from George
Lucas, which later became Pixar Animation Studios. Believing in
Pixar's potential, Jobs initially invested $50 million of his own money in the
company. The studio went on to produce wildly popular movies such as Toy
Story, Finding
Nemo and The
Incredibles; Pixar's films have collectively netted $4 billion. The
studio merged with Walt Disney in 2006, making Steve Jobs Disney's largest
shareholder.
Reinventing Apple
Despite Pixar's success, NeXT,
Inc. floundered in its attempts to sell its specialized operating system to
mainstream America. Apple eventually bought the company in 1996 for $429
million. The following year, Jobs returned to his post as Apple's CEO.
Just as Steve Jobs instigated
Apple's success in the 1970s, he is credited with revitalizing the company in
the 1990s. With a new management team, altered stock options and a self-imposed
annual salary of $1 a year, Jobs put Apple back on track. His ingenious
products (like the iMac), effective branding campaigns and stylish designs
caught the attention of consumers once again.
Pancreatic Cancer
In 2003, Jobs discovered that he
had a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare but operable form of pancreatic cancer.
Instead of immediately opting for surgery, Jobs chose to alter his
pesco-vegetarian diet while weighing Eastern treatment options. For nine
months, Jobs postponed surgery, making Apple's board of directors nervous.
Executives feared that shareholders would pull their stock if word got out that
their CEO was ill. But in the end, Jobs' confidentiality took precedence over
shareholder disclosure. In 2004, he had a successful surgery to remove the
pancreatic tumor. True to form, in subsequent years Jobs disclosed little about
his health.
Later
Innovations
Apple introduced such
revolutionary products as the Macbook Air, iPod and iPhone, all of which have
dictated the evolution of modern technology. Almost immediately after Apple
releases a new product, competitors scramble to produce comparable
technologies. Apple's quarterly reports improved significantly in 2007: Stocks
were worth $199.99 a share—a record-breaking number at that time—and the
company boasted a staggering $1.58 billion profit, an $18 billion surplus in the
bank and zero debt.In 2008, iTunes became the
second-biggest music retailer in America—second only to Walmart, fueled by
iTunes and iPod sales. Apple has also been ranked No. 1 on Fortune magazine's list of "America's
Most Admired Companies," as well as No. 1 among Fortune 500 companies for
returns to shareholders.
Personal Life
Early in 2009, reports circulated
about Jobs' weight loss, some predicting his health issues had returned, which
included a liver transplant. Jobs had responded to these concerns by stating he
was dealing with a hormone imbalance. After nearly a year out of the spotlight,
Steve Jobs delivered a keynote address at an invite-only Apple event September
9, 2009.In respect to his personal life,
Steve Jobs remained a private man who rarely disclosed information about his
family. What is known is Jobs fathered a daughter with girlfriend Chrisann
Brennan when he was 23. Jobs denied paternity of his daughter Lisa in court
documents, claiming he was sterile. With Chrisann struggling financially for
much of her life, Jobs did not initiate a relationship with his daughter until
she was 7, but when she was a teenager she came to live with her father.In the early 1990s, Jobs met
Laurene Powell at Stanford business school, where Powell was an MBA student.
They married on March 18, 1991, and lived together in Palo Alto, California,
with their three children
.Death
On October 5, 2011, Apple Inc.
announced that its co-founder had passed away. After battling pancreatic cancer
for nearly a decade,Steve Jobs died in Palo Alto. He was 56 years old..
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