Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs (/ˈdʒɒbz/; February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman and visionary widely recognized (along with his Apple business partner Steve Wozniak) as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Jobs was co-founder and previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of the Walt Disney Company in 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney.

In the late 1970s, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak engineered one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. Jobs directed its aesthetic design and marketing along with A.C. "Mike" Markkula, Jr. and others.

In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa (engineered by Ken Rothmuller and John Couch) and, one year later, of Apple employee Jef Raskin's Macintosh. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets.

In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd, which was spun off

as Pixar Animation Studios.[5] He was credited in Toy Story (1995) as an executive

producer. He remained CEO and majority shareholder at 50.1 percent until its acquisition

by The Walt Disney Company in 2006,[6] making Jobs Disney's largest individual shareholder at seven percent and a member of Disney's Board of Directors.[7][8] Apple's 1996 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he served as its interim CEO from 1997, then becoming permanent CEO from 2000, onwards, spearheading the advent of the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.[9] In buying NeXT, Apple also "acquire[d] the operating system that became Mac OS X."[10] From 2003, Jobs fought an eight-year battle with cancer,[11] and eventually resigned as CEO in August 2011, while on his third medical leave. He was then elected chairman of Apple's board of directors.

On October 5, 2011, around 3:00 p.m., Jobs died at his home in Palo Alto, California, aged 56, six weeks after resigning as CEO of Apple. A copy of his death certificate indicated respiratory arrest as the immediate cause of death, with "metastatic pancreas

neuroendocrine tumor" as the underlying cause. His occupation was listed as "entrepreneur" in the "high tech" business.[12]

Career

Apple Computer

Jobs and Steve Wozniak met in 1971, when their mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, introduced 21-year-old Wozniak to 16-year-old Jobs. In 1976, Woz invented the Apple I computer. Jobs, Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple computer in the garage of Jobs's parents in order to sell it.[31] They received funding from a then-semi-retired Intel product-marketing manager and engineer A.C. "Mike" Markkula, Jr.[32] As Apple continued to expand with Wozniak's next version, the Apple II, the company began looking for an experienced executive to help manage its expansion.

In 1978, Apple recruited Mike Scott from National Semiconductor to serve as CEO for what turned out to be several turbulent years. In 1983, Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple's CEO, asking, "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?"[33] Apple president Mike Markkula also wanted to retire and believed that Jobs lacked the discipline and temperament needed to run Apple on a daily basis and that Sculley's conventional business background and recent successes would give a more favorable image.[citation needed]

In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa. One year later, Apple employee Jef Raskin invented the Macintosh.[34][35]

The following year, Apple aired a Super Bowl television commercial titled "1984". At Apple's annual shareholders meeting on January 24, 1984, an emotional Jobs introduced the Macintosh to a wildly enthusiastic audience; Andy Hertzfeld described the scene as "pandemonium".[36] The Macintosh became the first commercially successful small computer with a graphical user interface.

While Jobs was a persuasive and charismatic director for Apple, some of his employees from that time described him as an erratic and temperamental manager. An industry-wide sales slump towards the end of 1984, caused a deterioration in Jobs's working relationship with Sculley as well as layoffs and disappointing sales performance. An internal power struggle developed between Jobs and Sculley.[37] Jobs kept meetings running past midnight, sent out lengthy faxes, then called new meetings at 7:00 am.[38]

The Apple board of directors instructed Sculley to "contain" Jobs and limit his ability to launch expensive forays into untested products.[citation needed] Sculley learned that Jobs—believing Sculley to be "bad for Apple" and the wrong person to lead the company—had been attempting to organize a boardroom coup,[37] and on May 24, 1985[37] he called a board meeting to resolve the matter. Apple's board of directors sided with Sculley and removed Jobs from his managerial duties as head of the Macintosh division.[39][40] Jobs resigned from Apple five months later[37] and founded NeXT Inc. the same year.[38][41]

In a speech Jobs gave at Stanford University in 2005, he said being fired from Apple was the best thing that could have happened to him; "The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life." And added "I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it."[19][42][43]

Death

Jobs died at his California home around 3 p.m. on October 5, 2011, due to complications from relapse of his previously treated islet-cell neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer,[2][163][164] resulting in respiratory arrest. He had lost consciousness the day before, and died with his wife, children and sister at his side.His death was announced by Apple in a statement which read:We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today. Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.[165]

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_jobs