Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Inc, which gave the world the iPhone and iPad, and the slightly lesser-known NeXT. At the time when he headed the Pixar animation studio, it became one of the leading players on the market.
Talented and reckless
Steve Jobs was born on February 24, 1955 in San Francisco. His father was a Syrian mathematics professor and American student. Shortly after birth, little Steve was given up for adoption. His new parents are Paul and Clara Jobs from Mountain View, California. Steve made no effort to establish contact with his biological parents, although as an adult he met and befriended his younger biological sister, Mona Simpson, who became a writer.
He was a very gifted but also undisciplined student. Already then, a feature “revealed” in him, which later made life very difficult for his colleagues – Steve Jobs did not show respect to people who were not an authority for him.
It quickly turned out that the boy has a knack for electronics. As a 13-year-old, he started working for Hewlett Packard, where he made minor repairs of equipment. Five years later, he met the person who in the following years became his closest collaborator. We are talking about Steve Wozniak, an extremely talented inventor whose innovative ideas laid the foundation for Apple’s later successes.
For a while, Jobs tried to be an “ordinary” student (he studied law at Reed College in Portland for one semester), but in 1974 he returned to California, dropped out of formal schooling, and attended courses of his choice as a freelancer. He was fascinated by calligraphy. He used those skills a decade later to design the first Macintosh computer. At that time, together with Wozniak, he was employed at Atari, where he worked as a technician.
Jobs also aroused more and more controversy. For example: fascinated by the philosophy of the East, he used a vegan diet, which made him believe that … you do not need to wash, because the diet itself is supposed to eliminate the unpleasant smell of unwashed skin. Not surprisingly, co-workers quickly began to complain about the smelly and extremely arrogant young man. The management of the company then made a Solomon verdict – Jobs could continue working, but on night shifts so as not to make life difficult for his colleagues.
While working at Atari, Jobs proved many times that moral principles are not very important to him. Although in the 1970s, on the wave of growing interest in Buddhism, he went to India in search of “spiritual enlightenment” (he spent a total of seven months there), after returning to the USA it turned out that the principles of Zen Buddhism did not prevent him from deliberately using his friends. He deceived Wozniak many times, including on the game project “Breakout”, when Jobs appropriated for himself the entire bonus, which was staggering at the time ($5,000). Wozniak learned about it only after many years and not from Jobs but … from a book.
Apple is moving
The year 1976 was a breakthrough for Steve Jobs. Together with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, Jobs founded a company which they named (supposedly in honor of Jobs’ love of apples) “Apple”. Their first computer was the Apple I, sold for $666.66. In 1977, they created the Apple II, which was a stunning success in the home computer market. With the Apple II, Apple has become one of the most important home computer companies.
At that time, Jobs became involved with Chrisann Brennan. The fruit of this turbulent life was a daughter, Lisa, who was born in 1978. After the birth of her daughter, Jobs broke off contact with his family. Two years later, Jobs, who was already earning a fortune at the time, was sued for alimony. Despite DNA testing to prove paternity, he still officially denied that Lisa was his daughter, and despite his considerable fortune, at the court hearing, he “graciously” agreed to pay just $500 a month for the child’s upkeep. He only developed a better relationship with Lisa when she was a teenager.
Meanwhile, Apple grew stronger. In 1980, the company entered the New York Stock Exchange, and another computer model appeared on the market – the Apple III. In 1984, the Macintosh entered the market – a personal computer, which, according to Jobs’ idea, was to be the most intuitive product, intended for users who do not have IT knowledge. However, the new project, despite the hopes placed in it, did not bring the company the expected profits. Moreover, Jobs enjoyed an increasingly worse reputation. His associates said he was grumpy, arrogant, short-tempered. He was also supposed to brazenly appropriate other people’s ideas, which he first criticized and then presented as his own.
The turning point was 1985. At that time, Jobs’ right-hand man, Steve Wozniak, left the company. In addition, the Macintosh eventually lost the competition to IBM, and Apple’s competitor, Microstoft, grew in strength. Ultimately, Steve Jobs was fired from his own company. The person who did this was John Sculley, who, ironically, had been recruited by Jobs to become Apple’s CEO two years earlier from another market giant, PepsiCo.
Finding your own way
After leaving Apple, Jobs founded another company, NeXT. In principle, computers of this brand were to be dedicated to the education and business sectors. They were characterized by a very good workmanship, high parameters and an equally high price. However, NeXT turned out to be a dud. Jobs began to look for other avenues of action. His attention was caught by the digital animation industry. In 1986, he bought a computer animation studio, which is the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm. Jobs bought the studio from George Lucas for $10 million. On February 3, 1986, the company was taken over by Pixar, and Jobs became its CEO. In its history, Pixar has produced 24 feature-length films, starting with 1995’s Toy Story, to considerable financial success and critical acclaim. In 2006, Pixar was acquired by The Walt Disney Company for $7.4 billion.
The adventure with the world of digital animation turned out to be just a “interlude” in working at Apple. Jobs’ parent company in 1997, in the face of increasing financial problems, brought him back. Jobs took over as president, working for a symbolic rate of $1. Just like in the past with Wozniak, after his return, he quickly bonded with the young engineer Jonathan Ive, with whom he conducted design work on key Apple projects that gave the company a second life. The iMac computer was introduced first, followed by the iPod MP3 player and finally the iPhone in 2007. Another revolution in the market turned out to be iPad tablets. A modern product and marketing skilfully created by Jobs, who presented the company’s new achievements as products from the “new, better, world”, brought the company to the top again.
Jobs’ streak of success was interrupted by illness. In 2003, he began to suffer from pancreatic cancer. Instead of being treated right away, he tried to heal himself with a proper diet and alternative medicine. After 9 months, he finally agreed to the operation; a transplant was also necessary. Two years after surgery, the cancer attacked again. On August 24, 2011, Steve Jobs resigned as president of Apple, taking the position of chairman of the company’s board of directors. Tim Cook replaced him. Jobs said that he could no longer perform his functions so as to run the company efficiently. In the end, cancer won – Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011, he was buried in an unmarked grave in Alta Mesa Memorial Park in California.
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2023-07-29 16:55:00
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