Steve Jobs

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American entrepreneur and inventor. He is co-founder, chairman, and former chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Jobs also 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. He was credited in Toy Story (1995) as an executive producer. In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula, and others, designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. 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 Macintosh. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985,Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets. Apple's subsequent 1996 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he served as its CEO from 1997 until 2011. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios. He remained CEO and majority shareholder at 50.1% until its acquisition by The Walt Disney Company in 2006.Consequently Jobs became Disney's largest individual shareholder at 7% and a member of Disney's Board of Directors. His aim to develop products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted following. On August 24, 2011, Jobs announced his resignation from his role as Apple's CEO. In his letter of resignation, Jobs strongly recommended that the Apple executive succession plan be followed and Tim Cook be named as his successor. Per his request, Jobs was appointed chairman of Apple's board of directors.

Early life
Jobs was born in San Francisco and was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs .Jobs' biological parents Abdulfattah John Jandali, a Syrian Muslim graduate. Jobs attended Cupertino Junior High School and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California, and frequented after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California. He was soon hired there and worked with Steve Wozniak as a summer employee. In 1972, Jobs graduated from high school and enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester, he continued auditing classes at Reed, such as one in calligraphy, while sleeping on the floor in friends' rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple. Jobs later said, "If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts." In autumn 1974, Jobs returned to California and began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Wozniak. He took a job as a technician at Atari, a

manufacturer of popular video games, with the primary intent of saving money for a spiritual retreat to India. Jobs then traveled to India to visit the Neem Karoli Baba at his Kainchi Ashram with a Reed College friend (and, later, the first Apple employee), Daniel Kottke, in search of spiritual enlightenment.

APPLE
In 1976, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, with later funding from a thensemi-retired Intel product-marketing manager and engineer A.C. "Mike" Markkula Jr., founded Apple. Prior to co-founding Apple, Wozniak was an electronics hacker. In 1978, Apple recruited Mike Scott from National Semiconductor to serve as CEO for what turned out to be several turbulent years. In 1983, Steve 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?" 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; 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 had described him as an erratic and temperamental manager. An industrywide sales slump towards the end of 1984 caused deterioration in Jobs's working relationship with Sculley, and at the end of May 1985 following an internal power struggle and an announcement of significant layoffs Sculley relieved Jobs of his duties as head of the Macintosh division. He later claimed that being fired from Apple what the best thing that could happen 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. Around the same time, Jobs founded another computer company, NeXT Computer. During a time when e-mail for most people was plain text, Jobs loved to demo the NeXT's e-mail system, NeXTMail, as an example of his "interpersonal" philosophy[citation needed]. NeXTMail was one of the first to support universally visible, clickable embedded graphics and audio within e-mail. Jobs ran NeXT with an obsession for aesthetic perfection, In 1986, Jobs bought The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division for the price of $10 million. After years of unprofitability selling the Pixar Image Computer, it contracted with Disney to produce a number of computer-animated feature films, which Disney would co-finance and distribute. The first film produced by the partnership, Toy Story, brought fame and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released in 1995. Over the next 15 years, under Pixar's creative chief John Lasseter, the company would produce the box-office hits A Bug's Life (1998),

Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Cars (2006), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009) and Toy Story 3 (2010). Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up and Toy Story 3 each received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, an award introduced in 2001. In the years 2003 and 2004, as Pixar's contract with Disney was running out, Jobs and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner tried but failed to negotiate a new partnership,and in early 2004 Jobs announced that Pixar would seek a new partner to distribute its films once its contract with Disney expired. In October 2005, Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney, and Iger quickly worked to patch up relations with Jobs and Pixar. On January 24, 2006, Jobs and Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. Once the deal closed, Jobs became The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with approximately 7% of the company's stock.Jobs's holdings in Disney far exceed those of Eisner, who holds 1.7%.

Return to Apple
In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $429 million. The deal was finalized in late 1996, bringing Jobs back to the company he had co-founded. Jobs became de facto chief after then-CEO Gil Amelio was ousted in July. He was formally named interim chief executive in September 1997.In March 1998, to concentrate Apple's efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs terminated a number of projects, such as Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, "afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened. The reality was that Jobs' summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company." Jobs also changed the licensing program for Macintosh clones, making it too costly for the manufacturers to continue making machines. With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company's technology found its way into Apple products, most notably NeXTSTEP, which evolved into Mac OS X. Under Jobs's guidance the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac and other new products; since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs officially dropped the "interim" modifier from his title at Apple and became permanent CEO.Jobs quipped at the time that he would be using the title 'iCEO.' In recent years, the company has branched out, introducing and improving upon other digital appliances. With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company made forays into consumer electronics and music distribution. In 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell phone, which also included the features of an iPod and, with its own mobile browser, revolutionized the mobile browsing scene. While stimulating innovation, Jobs also reminds his employees that "real artists ship",by which he means that delivering working products on time is as important as innovation and attractive design. Jobs is both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the "reality distortion field" and is particularly

evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as "Stevenotes") at Macworld Expos and at Apple's own Worldwide Developers Conferences. In 2005, Jobs responded to criticism of Apple's poor recycling programs for e-waste in the U.S. by lashing out at environmental and other advocates at Apple's Annual Meeting in Cupertino in April. However, a few weeks later, Apple announced it would take back iPods for free at its retail stores. The Computer TakeBack Campaign responded by flying a banner from a plane over the Stanford University graduation at which Jobs was the commencement speaker. The banner read "Steve Don't be a mini-player recycle all ewaste". In 2006, he further expanded Apple's recycling programs to any U.S. customer who buys a new Mac. This program includes shipping and "environmentally friendly disposal" of their old systems. Resignation Wikinews has related news: Apple executive Steve Jobs resigns In August 2011, Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple, but remained at the company as chairman of the company's board. Hours after the announcement, Apple Inc. (AAPL) shares dropped 5% in after-hour trading.The relatively small drop, when considering the importance of Jobs to Apple, was associated with the fact that Jobs' health had been in the news for several years, and he was on medical leave since January 2011. It was believed, according to Forbes, that the impact would be felt in a negative way beyond Apple, including at The Walt Disney Company where Jobs serves as director.In after-hour trading on the day of the announcement, Walt Disney Co. (DIS) shares dropped 1.5%.

Wealth
Even though Jobs earned only $1 a year as CEO of Apple, he holds 5.426 million Apple shares, as well as 138 million shares in Disney (which he had received in exchange for Disney's acquisition of Pixar).Forbes has estimated his net wealth at $8.3 billion in 2010, making him the 42nd wealthiest American

Inventions
Jobs is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor in 338 US patents or patent applications related to a range of technologies from actual computer and portable devices to user interfaces (including touch-based), speakers, keyboards, power adapters, staircases, clasps, sleeves, lanyards and packages.

MANAGEMENT STYLE
His model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other's negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are not done by one person, they are done by a team of people. On January 17, 2011, one and a half years after Jobs returned from his liver transplant, Apple announced that he had been granted a medical leave of absence. Jobs announced his leave in a letter to employees, stating his decision was made "so he could focus on his

health." As during his 2009 medical leave, Apple announced that Tim Cook would run day-to-day operations and that Jobs would continue to be involved in major strategic decisions at the company. Despite the leave, he made appearances at the iPad 2 launch event (March 2), the WWDC keynote introducing iCloud (June 6), and before the Cupertino city council Jobs announced his resignation from his role as Apple's CEO on August 24, 2011. In the letter, Jobs wrote that he could "no longer meet [his] duties and expectations as Apples CEO.

Honors
He was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 with Steve Wozniak (among the first people to ever receive the honor), and a Jefferson Award for Public Service in the category "Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under" (a.k.a. the Samuel S. Beard Award) in 1987. On November 27, 2007, Jobs was named the most powerful person in business by Fortune Magazine. On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Jobs into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts. In August 2009, Jobs was selected as the most admired entrepreneur among teenagers in a survey by Junior Achievement. On November 5, 2009, Jobs was named the CEO of the decade by Fortune Magazine. In September 2011, Jobs was ranked No.17 on Forbes: The World's Most Powerful People. In December 2010, the Financial Times named Jobs its person of the year for 2010, ending its essay by stating, "In his autobiography, John Sculley, the former PepsiCo executive who once ran Apple, said this of the ambitions of the man he had pushed out: 'Apple was supposed to become a wonderful consumer products company. This was a lunatic plan. High-tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product.' How wrong can you be".

Death
When he was 17, he read a quote: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on him, and since then, for the past 33 years, he had looked in the mirror every morning and asked himself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that he'll be dead soon is the most important tool he've ever encountered to help him make the big choices in life. Because almost everything all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. There is no reason not to follow your heart. About a year ago he was diagnosed with cancer. he had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly, showed a tumor on his pancreas. he didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that he should expect to live no longer than three to six months. His doctor

advised him to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die.. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. he was sedated, but his wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. At a commencement at stanfort university he once said It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.