Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, business magnate, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a member of The Walt Disney Company's board of directors following its acquisition of Pixar; and the founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT. He is widely recognized as a pioneer of the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, along with his early business partner and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Jobs was born in San Francisco to a Syrian father and German-American mother. He was adopted shortly after his birth. Jobs attended Reed College in 1972 before withdrawing that same year. In 1974, he traveled through India seeking enlightenment before later studying Zen Buddhism. He and Wozniak co-founded Apple in 1976 to sell Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. Together the duo gained fame and wealth a year later with production and sale of the Apple II, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputers. Jobs saw the commercial potential of the Xerox Alto in 1979, which was mouse-driven and had a graphical user interface (GUI). This led to the development of the unsuccessful Apple Lisa in 1983, followed by the breakthrough Macintosh in 1984, the first mass-produced computer with a GUI. The Macintosh introduced the desktop publishing industry in 1985 with the addition of the Apple LaserWriter, the first laser printer to feature vector graphics. In 1985, Jobs was forced out of Apple after a long power struggle with the company's board and its then-CEO, John Sculley. That same year, Jobs took a few Apple employees with him to found NeXT, a computer platform development company that specialized in computers for higher-education and business markets. In addition, he helped to develop the visual effects industry when he funded the computer graphics division of George Lucas's Lucasfilm in 1986. The new company was Pixar, which produced the first 3D computer-animated feature film Toy Story (1995) and went on to become a major animation studio, producing over 25 films since. In 1997, Jobs returned to Apple as CEO after the company's acquisition of NeXT. He was largely responsible for reviving Apple, which was on the verge of bankruptcy. He worked closely with English designer Jony Ive to develop a line of products that had larger cultural ramifications, beginning with the "Think different" advertising campaign and leading to the Apple Store, App Store (iOS), iMac, iPad, iPod, iPhone, iTunes, and iTunes Store. In 2001, the original Mac OS was replaced with the completely new Mac OS X (now known as macOS), based on NeXT's NeXTSTEP platform, giving the operating system a modern Unix-based foundation for the first time. In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. He died of respiratory arrest related to the tumor on October 5, 2011, at the age of 56. In 2022, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.Read less
Steve Jobs, born in San Francisco, was an American business magnate, industrial designer, investor, and media proprietor. He is widely recognized as a pioneer of the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, along with his early business partner and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Jobs co-founded Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) in 1976 and served as its CEO until 1985. He returned to Apple in 1997, when the company was near bankruptcy, and led it to become one of the world's most valuable companies. Under his leadership, Apple introduced groundbreaking products like the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, transforming the personal computer, music, and mobile industries.
After leaving Apple in 1985, Jobs founded NeXT Inc., a computer platform development company specializing in higher-education and business markets. NeXT's advanced operating system formed the basis for macOS, the operating system powering Apple's computers today. In 1986, he acquired The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from George Lucas. Pixar went on to produce groundbreaking computer-animated films such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and Monsters, Inc. Jobs oversaw Pixar's initial public offering in 1995 and its subsequent acquisition by Disney in 2006, making him Disney's largest individual shareholder at the time.
Steve Jobs's impact on technology and design is profound. He is remembered for his focus on simplicity, user-friendly interfaces, and innovative marketing. His presentations, known for their showmanship and charisma, became iconic events. He emphasized the importance of design thinking and creating products that were both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
While Steve Jobs maintained a strong public presence during his lifetime, especially through product launches and keynotes, he was known to be private about certain aspects of his personal life. No official social media accounts were maintained by him personally. Information about him is widely available through biographies, documentaries, articles, and online resources. The Steve Jobs Archive, established after his passing, aims to preserve and share his work and ideas.