Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

Born on February 24, 1955, Steve Jobs showed an early interest in electronics and gadgetry when way back in high school, he boldly called Hewlett-Packard co-founder and president William Hewlett to ask for parts for a school project. Impressed by Jobs boldness, Hewlett not only gave him the parts, but also offered him a summer internship at Hewlett-Packard. Jobs then met Steve Wozniak, a young engineer five years his senior there.

After graduating from high school, Jobs was in Reed College but only for one semester before dropping out. He had become fascinated by Eastern spiritualism, and thus took a part-time job designing video games for Atari to finance a trip to India for the sole purpose of studying Eastern culture and religion.

Jobs did made his trip to India and when he returned, he met up with Wozniak, who was in the process of build a small computer. Visionary Jobs grasped the marketing potential of it and convinced Wozniak to join too. In 1975, the 20-year-old Jobs and Wozniak set up shop in Jobs' parents' garage, thus the venture Apple began as well as works on Apple I.

Apple I sold mainly to a small group of people, but it was enough to generate enough cash to enable Jobs and Wozniak to improve and refine their design. In 1977, they introduced the Apple II -- the first personal computer with color graphics and a keyboard. Designed for beginners to computers, the user-friendly Apple II was a tremendous success, ushering in the era of the personal computer. First-year sales topped $3 million. Two years later, sales ballooned to $200 million.

But by 1980, Apple's shine was starting to wear off. Increased competition combined with less than stellar sales of the Apple III and its follow-up, the LISA, caused the company to lose nearly half its market to IBM. Faced with declining sales, Jobs introduced the Apple Macintosh in 1984. It was the first personal computer to feature a graphical-user interface controlled by a mouse and the Macintosh was a true breakthrough in terms of ease-of-use. But the marketing behind it was flawed. Jobs had envisioned the Mac as a home computer, but at $2,495, it was too expensive for the consumer market. When consumer sales failed to reach projections, Jobs tried pitching the Mac as a business computer. But with little memory, no hard drive and no networking capabilities, the Mac had almost none of the features the corporate world wanted.

He clashed with Apple's board of directors and, in 1983, was ousted from the board by CEO John Sculley, whom Jobs had handpicked to help him run Apple. Stripped of all power and control, Jobs eventually sold his shares of Apple stock and resigned in 1985.

Later that year, using a portion of the money from the stock sale, Jobs launched NeXT Computer Co., with the goal of building a breakthrough computer that would revolutionize research and higher education. Introduced in 1988, the NeXT computer boasted a host of innovations, including notably fast processing speeds, exceptional graphics and an optical disk drive. But priced at $9,950, the NeXT was too expensive to attract enough sales to keep the company afloat. Undeterred, Jobs switched the company's focus from hardware to software. He also began paying more attention to his other business, Pixar Animation Studios, which he had purchased from George Lucas in 1986.

Jobs set out to create the first ever computer-animated feature film and four years in the making; "Toy Story" was a hit when it was released in November 1995. Fueled by this success, Jobs took Pixar public in 1996, and by the end of the first day of trading, his 80 percent share of the company was worth $1 billion. After nearly 10 years of struggling, Jobs had finally hit it big. But the best was yet to come.

Within days of Pixar's arrival on the stock market, Apple bought NeXT for $400 million and re-appointed Jobs to Apple's board of directors as an advisor to Apple chairman and CEO Gilbert F. Amelio. It was an act of desperation on Apple's part. Because they had failed to develop a next-generation Macintosh operating system, the firm's share of the PC market had dropped to just 5.3 percent, and they hoped that Jobs could help turn the company around.

At the end of March 1997, Apple announced a quarterly loss of $708 million. Three months later, Amelio resigned and Jobs took over as interim CEO. Once again in charge of Apple, Jobs struck a deal with Microsoft to help ensure Apple's survival. Under the arrangement, Microsoft invested $150 million for a nonvoting minority stake in Apple, and the companies agreed to "cooperate on several sales and technology fronts." Next, Jobs installed the G3 PowerPC microprocessor in all Apple computers, making them faster than competing Pentium PCs. He also spearheaded the development of the iMac, a new line of affordable home desktops, which debuted in August 1998 to rave reviews. Under Jobs' guidance, Apple quickly returned to profitability, and by the end of 1998, boasted sales of $5.9 billion.

Against all odds, Steve Jobs pulled the company he founded and loved back from the brink. Apple once again was healthy and churning out the kind of breakthrough products that made the Apple name synonymous with innovation.

But Apple's innovations were just getting started. Over the next decade, the company rolled out a series of revolutionary products, including the iPod portable digital audio player in 2001, an online marketplace called the Apple iTunes Store in 2003, the iPhone handset in 2007 and the iPad tablet computer in 2010. The design and functionality of these devices resonated with users worldwide. Apple says it has sold more than 300 million iPods, over 100 million iPhones and more than 15 million iPad devices. The company has sold billions of songs from its iTunes Store.

Despite his professional successes, Jobs struggled with health issues. In January 2011, following a liver transplant, Jobs said he was taking a medical leave of absence from Apple but said he'd continue as CEO and "be involved in major strategic decisions for the company."

Eight months later, on August 24, Apple’s board of directors announced that Jobs had resigned as CEO and that COO Tim Cook would replace him. Jobs said he would remain with the company as chairman.

Steve Jobs passed away on October 5^th 2011, at 56 years old, dying as the man who envisioned the future.