Steven Jobs, generally known as “Steve Jobs,” is the co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Apple, Inc. He created the Apple personal computer. In recent years he has led his company to introduce dramatic improvements to the smart phone (iPhone) and invented the iPod.
Jobs was born in San Francisco, and was adopted by Justin and Clara Jobs, of Mountain View, California. He attended after-school lectures at Hewlett-Packard while in high school. He was later hired as a summer employee there. Steve Wozniak was a co-worker at Hewlett-Packard who became a friend. Jobs attended Reed College for one semester, then dropped out. He continued auditing classes at Reed, including a calligraphy class which he credited with his developing multiple fonts and correct spacing on the Mac later.
Jobs co-founded Apple Computer with Steve Wozniak in 1976, when Jobs was 21 years old. In 1978 the company introduced the Apple II, the product that many people consider began the personal computer era. The Apple II used a mouse to interact with the computer’s graphical display, and Jobs saw the commercial potential of this Graphical User Interface (GUI). He introduced the Macintosh in 1984, which became the first commercially successful small computer with a graphical user interface. The successful use by Apple of a GUI interface led Microsoft to develop the Windows PC.
Following a battle with his Board of Directors in 1985, Jobs left Apple and formed his own company, called NeXT. He introduced a powerful desktop workstation computer named The Cube, which failed to be a commercially successful product, due to its high cost. The NeXT had an email system which was the first to incorporate graphic inserts.
Jobs purchased Pixar Animation Studios from George Lucas’ Lucasfilm in 1986, and has been the CEO of Pixar as a number of highly successful computer animated films have been introduced by Pixar in partnership with Walt Disney: Toy Story (1995), A Bug’s Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), and The Incredibles (2004). He is also on the Board of Directors of Walt Disney since Pixar was acquired by Walt Disney in 2006, producing Cars (2006), Ratatouille (2007) and Wall-E (2008).
Losing market share to Microsoft, Apple purchased Jobs’ NeXT in 1997 with the intent of improving the Mac’s operating system. Jobs returned to Apple, and he became Apple’s CEO, a title he still holds. NeXT technology may be found in the Macintosh's latest operating system, OS X (pronounced Oh Ess Ten), introduced in 2001. Jobs then introduced the PowerMacG3 in 1998, which was faster than a Pentium PC, as well as the PowerMac G4 Cube in 2000. The iMac was first marketed in 1998 with a stylish design, and it proved very successful. Jobs is credited with rescuing Apple from bankruptcy.
Jobs has also been overseeing research and development into smart phone (the iPhone, introduced in 2007) and digital music markets. He introduced the first iPod portable mp3 music player in 2001.
Jobs is a leader in both computer and entertainment industries. His products are known for their functionality and their elegant design, and they have a devoted following.
As a personality, Jobs is known to be a visionary and motivator, but also as strong-willed, aggressive, quirky and a perfectionist. He epitomizes the myth of the Silicon Valley entrepreneur.
There is some recent concern about the Apple company’s future, due to Jobs’ recent poor health. He is a cancer survivor, having been diagnosed in 2003.
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