Steve Jobs

Mary Clare Gabel

Pre-DP Chemistry 1 B3 Tuesday November 22, 2011

Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955 in San Francisco, California. Steves biological parents were Abdulfattah Jandali and Joanne Schieble. Joanne grew up in the outskirts of Green Bay, Wisconsin and Jandali grew up in Syria. The two met at the University of Wisconsin. Joanne was studying to get her graduate degree and Jandali was a Muslim teaching assistant. They instantly fell in love and in the summer of 1954 Joanne went with Jandali to Syria; when she returned she was pregnant. Joannes father was an extremely strict Catholic who threatened to disown her if she ever married someone that was not Catholic, so Joanne moved to San Francisco where she met a doctor that sheltered unwed mothers, delivered their babies, and arranged closed adoptions. Steven Paul Jobs was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs; they named him, a few weeks after he was born. Steve grew up in Palo Alto, California. He attended Monta Loma Elementary and Crittenden Middle. Throughout Steves childhood he dealt with many abandonment issues. He grew up knowing that he was adopted, but he was not able to grasp the concept of why his parents abandoned him. These feelings had some influence in the way he acted. While at Monta Loma, Jobs became a trouble maker. Before Jobs started school his mother taught him to read, so for the first few years of school he was very bored, which led to his mischievous ways. In fourth grade Steve was put into the advanced classes. In this advanced class he was tested. He scored at the level of a high school sophomore. His parents then decided that he should skip a grade. The next year Steve entered Crittenden Middle where he was bullied a lot. Crittenden was located in a neighborhood full of ethnic gangs. Near the middle of seventh grade Steve told his parents that he would not be returning to Crittenden and if they made him go he would drop out of school all together. His parents knew that if they did not move that their son would not finish his education. The Jobs packed up everything they had and moved into the next district where Steve finished middle school and then went to Homestead High School. While at Homestead, Steve met Stephen Wozniak through a mutual friend. Woz and Jobs became very close. Woz had already graduated from high school when the two met. Jobs developed a love for electronics at a young age. This love came from watching and helping his dad fix up old cars. His love for electronics kept growing as he grew. During high school Steve worked in an electronic store. In the fall of Jobs Senior year at Homestead, Steve and Woz had an idea that would link them together forever. Steve graduated from high school in 1972. A year later he attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon where he studied for one semester before dropping out. In the September 1971 issue of Esquire there was a story by Ron Rosenbaums Secrets of the Little Blue Box. A blue box is a device that would replicate tones that routed signals on the AT&T network. The significance of the Box was that it replicated the tones that are used by the networks call-routing switch, which allowed people to make long distance phone calls for free. The article also stated that other tones that dealt with routing could be found in an issue of Bell System Technical Journal. Jobs thought that they could make digital Blue Boxes and then sell them for profit. They made around 100 Blue boxes and sold them for $150, although the

parts only cost forty dollars. Developing the digital Blue box linked the boys together and led to the starting of Apple. All of this began in his parents garage in their Palo Lato, California home. Steve and Woz had the idea to make computers. Steve was able to purchase parts very cheap then Woz would build the model. Steve had the idea to sell computers. Soon the two began filling orders and Apple took off. They initially marketed the computers for $666.66 each. Their first model, the Apple I, earned them $774,000. Three years after the release of their second model, the Apple II, sales increased 700 percent to $139 million dollars. In 1980, Apple Computer became a publically traded company with a market value of $1.2 billion on the very first day of trading. Jobs looked to marketing expert John Scully of Pepsi-Cola to help fill the role of Apple's CEO. Steve Jobs' career at Apple was unique. His leadership helped create Apple's two most important products of the 70s and 80s: the Apple II and the Macintosh. Unfortunately for Jobs, the CEO he had recruited, John Sculley, was not happy with the risks Jobs was willing to take. After a short power struggle that left Sculley in control of Apple, Jobs left the company in 1985. A few months later Jobs started a new company that soon began to develop new software. Steve set about building a team of software developers to create a new programming environment that would run on top of another operating system. The environment would be object oriented which to an end user means that programs could share information and features. The first NeXT computer was released in 1989. In 1997 despite a spate of relatively successful products, NeXT was not doing well. Many journalists believed that NeXT would quickly run out of cash and close quietly. At the same time, Apple was going through its largest losses ever. Apple decided to take NeXT and base the next generation Mac OS on OpenStep the NeXTs software. Apple acquired NeXT, and Steve Jobs returned to Apple after a dozen years of being away. All of Apples devices have changed the culture of the world. The competition between Apple and other companies such as Hewett and Packard (HP) led to the explosion of home computers, thus developing a new era. Apples computers were smaller, cheaper and accessible. Today there are computers in almost every household in America. Steve Jobs and his computers have changed the way many people live and how they communicate with each other. With the invention of the iPad, Jobs envisioned this to be a replacement for the printing of books, magazines and newspaper, which saves trees. Steve Jobs was not always the mastermind builder that people thought he was. Jobs would develop the ideas and then people would carry them out for him. He was a master of putting together ideas, art, and technology. Steve was able to design the Mac Computer after appreciating its inner graphical designs. He had the idea of an iPod after thinking how wonderful it would be to have thousands of songs in his pocket. He did this for so many more of Apples great inventions as well. Steve Jobs oversaw the production of Apple II, Apple Macintosh, Pixar, NeXT, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, and the iPad. Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011 surrounded by his friends and family. He left behind four children and a loving wife.