Born: February 24, 1955; full
name is
Steven Paul Jobs; grew up in
Mountain View and
Los Altos,
California, an
area later became known as Silicon
Valley Parents: Adopted from infancy by Paul and Clara Jobs; father a machinist for a company that manufactured lasers; mother an accountant; both deceased
Sibling: Biological, younger sister Mona Simpson, whom he tracked down; they now have a close relationship
High school: Graduated from Homestead High School, Los Altos, Calif. in 1972
College: Attended Reed College in Portland, Ore.; dropped out of baccalaureate program after one semester
Wife: Laurene Powell; they met at Stanford University he was speaking at a class; they married in 1991; both are vegetarians.
Children: Daughter Lisa Born when Jobs was 23 (Jobs didn't marry her mother); Lisa lived with Jobs as a teen; he has three children with wife Laurene
Residence: English style red-brick home in Palo Alto, Calif.; built in 1930s; valued between $3 million to $5 million; sparsely decorated
Appearance: Slender; wears jeans, usually with a black turtleneck and running shoes
What's he like: people say he is a high-strung workaholic, motivates others with his enthusiasm, has a "reality distortion field," passionate about technology, a micromanager, arrogant and intolerant; can exude a Zen-like calm
Heroes: Dave Packard, Bob Noyce, late co-founder of Intel, and Andy Grove and singer Bob Dylan
Friends: Jerry Brown, former governor of California; Lawrence J. Ellison, billionaire software entrepreneur and chairman of Oracle; sister, novelist Mona Simpson
Worth: More than $900 million
Honors: National Technology Medal from President Reagan in 1985, before founding NeXT; Jefferson Award for Public Service in 1987; Entrepreneur of the Decade by Inc. magazine in 1989
Brushes with fame: Dated Joan Baez in his 20s; Ella Fitzgerald sang at his 30th birthday party; entertained President Clinton at his home in Palo Alto, Calif.
Apple stock: Now owns only a symbolic one share; he's paid $1 a year from Apple so that he can be on the health plan
E-mails: Receives about 300 per day
First Apple sales: After receiving an order for 25 Apple I computers, Jobs and Wozniak raised needed capital by selling Jobs' Volkswagen van and Wozniak's Hewlett-Packard scientific calculator
Phenomenal growth: sales of Apple II computer in the late 1970s totaled $139 million after three years, growing by 700 percent.
Timeline:
1974: Video game designer for Atari; worked there several months; used savings to travel to India; returned to California and spent a brief time on a communal farm
1975: Attended meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, Calif., attended by friend and engineering genius, Stephen Wozniak; they joined forces and built a marketable table-top computer in Jobs' parents' garage; co-founded Apple Computer Inc.
1976: Introduced Apple I computer for $666; first single-board computer with onboard Read Only Memory (ROM) that told the machine how to load programs from an external source and had a Video interface
1977: Introduced Apple II; first mass-marketed personal computer; had a plastic case and included color graphics; Jobs encouraged programmers to create applications for the apple II; this resulted in 16,000 programs from games to farm budgets; former Intel marketing manager Mike Markkula became Apple chairman and secured venture capital of $600,000
1979: Development of a computer named Lisa, which would redefine personal computing; Jobs removed as project manager; he began working on the Macintosh personal computer
1980: Initial public offering of Apple; market value of company rose to $1.2 billion; apple III introduced with eight applications, including text and graphics; initial problems forced a recall; once fixed, it became popular with professional customers; situation created a management shakeup; Markkula became president, Jobs became chairman
1981: Stephen Wozniak took leave of absence after being injured in a private plane crash; IBM sold its first personal computer, four years after Apple II; apple's sales continued to rise
1983: Public debut of Lisa, a powerful, more intuitive computer controlled by hand-held mouse; designed for computer illiterate; smaller, less expensive version called Macintosh also introduced; Jobs recruited former PepsiCo President John Sculley as new Apple president and CEO
1985: Jobs essentially ousted from Apple in a boardroom coup after a power struggle with Sculley; resigned with $150 million but personally hurt; formed NeXT Software to develop computer hardware and software; Microsoft sold its first Windows 1.0 operating system
1986: Bought Pixar computer animation studios from George Lucas for less than $10 million
1989: NeXT produced a powerful but expensive computer, which was rejected by the marketplace; Pixar won an Academy Award for computer-animated film "Tin Toy"
1993: Still unprofitable NeXT ended hardware division to focus on software for programmers and building Internet sites; Sculley resigned as CEO of Apple
1995: Walt Disney Pictures released Pixar's first feature film, "Toy Story," first animated feature created entirely on computer; was highest domestic grossing film that year
1996: Jobs contacted Apple; apple acquired NeXT; Jobs returned as non-salaried adviser to chairman Gilbert F. Amelio
1997: Apple's revenues dropped significantly; Jobs negotiated deal with longtime competitor Bill Gates of Microsoft; apple made deal to include Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser on Macintosh operating system; Microsoft agreed to invest $150 million of non-voting Apple stock and to develop Mac versions of popular Microsoft Office software; Amelio ousted by Apple board; Jobs offered CEO and chairman position, and he agreed to serve on an interim basis
1998: Apple Computer rebounded with three profitable quarters in a row. He announces the iMac, probably the product that help the Apple resurrection.
2001: Steve Jobs presents the iPod, the music player that transformed the world.
2007: Steve announces the iPhone, the invention of the year (time magazine), and he's selected as the more powerful business man in the world (Fortune magazine).
Quotes:
"I was lucky to get into computers when it was a very young and idealistic industry. There weren't many degrees offered in computer science, so people in Computers were brilliant People from mathematics, physics, music, zoology, whatever. They loved it, and no one was really in it for the money." (Fortune)
"The personal computer was created by the hardware revolution of the 1970s. The next change will come from a software revolution." (Current Biography)
"The Macintosh turned out so well because the people working on it were musicians, artists, poets and historians who also happened to be excellent computer scientists." (The New York Times)
"We started out to get a computer in the hands of everyday people, and we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams." (time)
"I'm not a hostile-takeover kind of guy." (The New York Times)
"I am at a stage where I don't have to do things just to get by. But then I've always been that way, because I've never really cared about money that much." (Fortune)
(Based on Fank Tedesco homepage in Geocities).
why we like him?
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We
love Apple. We love the fact that
apple was an underdog that took on the behemoth that was
IBM. We love the fact that
Steve Jobs thought it was important that when you turn on a computer, a
smiley face should greet you. We love
success stories, but we love it even more when great companies come back from the
dead to become
leaders in their
industry.
He revolutionized
personal computing with the
launch of the
Apple Macintosh computer. With a graphical user interface that
made it easy to use he brought
computers to the masses. He's recently started act 2 at
apple by launching the iMac
line of
Computers. His other company, Pixar, produced very successful
movies such as
Toy Story 1 & 2 as well as a Bug's Life. Did we mention his boundless
energy and
charisma?
overall rating
| 79
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Steve Jobs prompts
us to
ask what defines a
man. Is it what he accomplished or the person that he is? In Steve's
case, both what he accomplished and his
character helped define a generation and
change the world. Steve
Jobs is co-founder of the fairytale company we now know as
Apple computers, the little
guy who took on the Goliath
IBM, and actually won for a while.
(From Askmen.com)Steve Jobs has revolutionized the computer, hardware, software, animation and
music industries. Steve
Jobs’ insistence of innovating always has cost him millions of dollars but has created a
cult like following for his
products.
Steve Jobs regularly makes most rosters of the rich and powerful. It is surprising for a
guy who takes
home an annual salary of U.S. $1. The reasons why he is on all
power lists are;
Apple,
NeXT,
iPod and Pixar.
Jobs is also known as
the one man who could have upstaged
Bill Gates. But Jobs was as excited about innovation as Bill
Gates was interested in making
money.
Steve Jobs was
Born in
Green Bay,
Wisconsin to Joanne
Simpson and an Egyptian
Arab father.
Paul and
Clara Jobs of
Mountain View,
Santa Clara County,
California then adopted him. The writer
Mona Simpson is Jobs’ biological sister. In 1972, Jobs graduated from
Homestead High School in
Cupertino, California and enrolled in
Reed College in
Portland,
Oregon.
one semester later he had dropped out. But instead of going back
home he hung around
College and took up the study of
philosophy and foreign
cultures.
Steve Jobs had a deep-seated interest in technology so he took up a
job at
Atari Inc. which was a leading manufacturer of
Video games. He struck a
friendship with fellow designer
Steve Wozniak and attended meetings of the "Homebrew Computer
Club" with him. Wozniak and
Jobs developed a system with a
Toy whistle available in the Cap'n
Crunch cereal box to make it possible to make
free long distance telephone calls. They called off the amateur venture after someone told them of the possible legal consequences.
After saving up some
money Steve Jobs took of for
India in the
search of
enlightenment with his
friend Dan Kottke. Once he returned he convinced Wozniak to quit his
job at
Hewlett Packard and
join him in his venture that concerned
personal computers. They sold items like a scientific calculator to raise the seed
capital. There is controversy as to where did the
name Apple originate. According to
one belief
apple originates from a pleasant
summer Jobs had spent as an
orchard worker in
Oregon. There is another school of thought that
says that the symbol of
rainbow colored apple that has been bitten into is a tribute to
Alan Turing who was a homosexual and had died after biting a cyanide
laced apple.
In 1976,
Jobs, then
21, and Wozniak, 26, founded
Apple Computer Co. in the Jobs family
garage. The first
personal computer was sold for $666.66. By 1980,
Apple had already released three improved versions of the personal computer. It had a wildly successful IPO, which
made both founders millionaires many times over.
Steve Jobs had managed to rope in
John Scully of Pepsi to head the
marketing function in
apple.
A tiff with the
Apple board and
John Scully led to the resignation of
Steve Jobs. As soon as he resigned he immersed himself in his
brand new venture. Steve
Jobs decided that he wanted to
change the hardware
industry. The company was called NeXTStep and the new machine was called
NeXT Computer. He ploughed in more than U.S. $250 million into the company.
The machine was a
commercial washout but it did
help in object-oriented programming,
PostScript, and magneto-optical devices.
Tim Berners-Lee developed the original
World Wide Web system at
CERN on a
NeXT machine. Bitterly disappointed with NeXTStep,
Jobs accepted the offer that
Apple made him.
Steve Jobs also started Pixar
Inc., which has gone on to produce animated
movies such as
Toy Story (1995); A Bug's Life (1998);
toy Story 2 (1999); Monsters, Inc. (2001); Finding
Nemo (2003); and The Incredibles (2004). This venture has
made him
one of the most sought after men in
Hollywood.
Post Pixar,
Steve Jobs wanted
another round of revolutionizing to do. This
time it was the
music industry. He introduced the
iPod in 2003. Later he came up with iTunes, which was a digital jukebox. A million and a half iPods later, the
Music industry still does not know whether this invention will
save it or destroy it.
Apple has a great advertising track
record and its ‘Rip,
Mix, Burn’ campaign was another feather in its cap. Now the industry uses a
Mac to make the music and an iPod to
Store it.
Steve Jobs lives with his wife, Laurene
Powell and their three children in Silicon
Valley. He also has a daughter,
Lisa Jobs from a previous relationship. In 2004, there was a cancerous tumor in his pancreas, which was successfully operated upon.
(Written by Anish Chandy at Buzzle.com).
; "steve jobs")
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