“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.” – Steve Jobs
With the rapid innovations of technology in this millennium, it opened its doors to several new business ideas. Over the past few decades, we have heard and read stories about various startups founded by young people who are already wizards in their own right. We consider them today’s heroes who helped shape the world to what we now see it to be today. One of these guys is Steve Jobs. His name is already synonymous with charisma and inspiration.
He was president, CEO, and co-founder of Apple Inc., which is a leading manufacturer of electronic devices such as the Macintosh Computer (MAC), iPod, iPhone, and music and video software called iTunes. Jobs is considered by many to be an intense creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and fierce drive revolutionized six industries. These include personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablets, and digital publications. Known as a sales and business magician, he is credited with many of the electronic inventions now patented by Apple. He was also the CEO of Pixar Animation Studios until it was acquired by Disney in 2006.
He was born Steven Paul Jobs in San Francisco, the son of Joanne Carole Schieble and the Syrian Abdulfattah John Jandali, but was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. He attended Cupertino High School and then High School at Homestead HS in the same city of Cupertino. He spent his childhood in the South Bay area, which would later become known as Silicon Valley. During high school, he had a summer job at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto. While attending conferences and working at HP, he met Steven Wozniak, whom he later co-founded Apple.
Like any other dot-com billionaire, Steve Jobs dropped out of college. He attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, for about six months. When he returned to California in 1974, he began attending meetings at the Homebrew Computer Club with his friend Wozniak. At that point, he took a job at Atari and discovered that a popular whistle can emulate the tones needed to make long-distance phone calls with AT&T. That idea prompted him to convince Wozniak to do business with him to create “blue boxes,” a device for making free long-distance phone calls.
Later, he continued to work with Wozniak on other projects and one of them is a computer that Wozniak had built for himself. On April 1, 1976, they founded Apple Inc., which started with printed circuit boards. His first personal computer was called the Apple I and he sold it for $ 666.66. It was followed by the Apple II, which is a huge success for their business, and they started selling stocks in December 1980.
In 1984, they introduced the Macintosh, which later became a huge success. It is the first personal computer with a graphical user interface (GUI) in which people can interact with elements on the screen. As Apple grew even larger, Jobs experienced tension with the board that led him to leave Apple in May 1985.
In 1986, Steve Jobs founded the NeXT Company, a company designed around aesthetic interpersonal computing. Later he focused more on software development. This company has an important role in the development of electronic mail and the World Wide Web. In 1996, Apple acquired NeXT, reinstating Jobs as CEO.
Many remember Jobs for his work ethic. Such a feature has helped Apple become a highly successful company as it is today. The jobs also help the company avoid bankruptcy in the 1990s. It is also instrumental in the establishment of the new electronic divisions, as well as in the creation of the iPod, iPhone and other personal devices. On October 5, 2011, Steve Jobs died after complications from pancreatic cancer.
