| |
St?v?n P?ul J?bs (b?rn February 24 1955) is the co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc.
In the late '70s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, made the easy and affordable (compared to other computers of the time)personal computer become reality, years before the advent of IBM PC. In the early '80s, still at Apple, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven GUI (Graphical User Interface). 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. NeXT's subs?quent 1997 buyout by Apple Inc. brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he has s?rved as its CEO from then on.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Steve Jobs' Start a new discussion about 'Steve Jobs' Answer questions from other users |
Timeline
Quotations
I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.
Newsweek, Oct. 29, 2001
Because I'm the CEO, and I think it can be done.
Time, 2005-10-24, On why Jobs chose to override engineers who thought the iMac wasn't feasible.
Click. Boom. Amazing!
MacWorld "Intel Inside" Keynote, January 2006
Everyone wants a MacBook Pro because they are so bitchin'.
Apple Annual Shareholder Meeting, April 2006
I tend to stay where I start until somebody kicks me out.
Charlie Rose
I think Pixar has the opportunity to be the next Disney -- not replace Disney -- but be the next Disney.
Encyclopedia
St?v?n P?ul J?bs (b?rn February 24 1955) is the co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc.
In the late '70s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, made the easy and affordable (compared to other computers of the time)personal computer become reality, years before the advent of IBM PC. In the early '80s, still at Apple, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven GUI (Graphical User Interface). 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. NeXT's subs?quent 1997 buyout by Apple Inc. brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he has s?rved as its CEO from then on. Steve Jobs was listed as Fortune Magazine's Most Powerful Businessman of 2007.
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 until its acquisition by the Walt Disney Company in 2006. Jobs is currently the Walt Disney Company's largest individual shareholder and a member of its Board of Directors. He is considered a leading figure in both the computer and entertainment industries.
Jobs's history in business has contributed greatly to the myths of the quirky, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design while understanding the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal. His work driving forward the development of products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted following.
BiographyEarly yearsJobs was born in San Francisco and was adopted by Justin and Clara Jobs of Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California who named him Steven Paul. His biological parents, Joanne Carole Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali — a graduate student from Syria who became a political science professor — later married and gave birth to Jobs's sister, the novelist Mona Simpson.
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. "If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts," he said.
In the autumn of 1974, Jobs returned to California and began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Steve 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 backpacked around India with a Reed College friend (and, later, the first Apple employee), Daniel Kottke, in search of philosophical enlightenment. He came back with his head shaved and wearing traditional Indian clothing. During this time, Jobs experimented with LSD, calling these experiences "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life." He has stated that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not understand certain aspects of his thinking.
He returned to his previous job at Atari and was given the task of creating a circuit board for the game Breakout. According to Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari had offered US$100 for each chip that was reduced in the machine. Jobs had little interest or knowledge in circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the bonus evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line. At the time, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari had only given them US$600 (instead of the actual US$5000) and that Wozniak's share was thus US$300.
Beginnings of Apple ComputerIn 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple. Before Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple with Jobs, he was an electronics hacker. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had been friends for some time, having met in 1971, when their mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, introduced 21-year-old Wozniak to 16-year-old Jobs. Steve Jobs managed to interest Wozniak in assembling a machine and selling it. As Apple continued to expand, the company began looking for an experienced executive to help manage its expansion. In 1983, Steve Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola, to serve as Apple's CEO, challenging him, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?" The following year, Apple set out to do just that, starting with a Super Bowl television commercial titled, "1984." Two years later, at Apple's annual shareholders meeting on January 24 1984, an emotional Jobs introduced the Macintosh to a wildly enthusiastic audience; Andy Hertzfeld described the scene as "pandemonium." The Macintosh became the first commercially successful small computer with a graphical user interface, although it was heavily influenced by Xerox. The development of the Mac was started by Jef Raskin, and eventually taken over by Jobs. The Macintosh Plus was the last classic Mac to have a phone cord-like port in front for the keyboard, as well as the DE-9 connector for the mouse; later models would use ADB ports.
While Jobs was a persuasive and charismatic director for Apple, some of his employees from that time had described him as an erratic and tempestuous manager. An industry-wide sales slump towards the end of 1984 caused a 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.
Around the same time, Jobs founded another computer company, NeXT Computer. Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced, but was never able to break into the mainstream mainly owing to its high cost. Among those who could afford it, however, the NeXT workstation garnered a strong following because of its technical strengths, chief among them its object-oriented software development system. Jobs marketed NeXT products to the scientific and academic fields because of the innovative, experimental new technologies it incorporated (such as the Mach kernel, the digital signal processor chip, and the built-in Ethernet port).
The NeXT Cube was described by Jobs as an "interpersonal" computer, which he believed was the next step after "personal" computing. That is, if computers could allow people to communicate and collaborate together in an easy way, it would solve a lot of the problems that "personal" computing had come up against. 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. 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, as evidenced by such things as the NeXTcube's magnesium case. This put considerable strain on NeXT's hardware division, and in 1993, after having sold only 50,000 machines, NeXT transitioned fully to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel.
NeXT technology played a large role in catalyzing three unrelated events:
- The World Wide Web. Tim Berners-Lee developed the original World Wide Web system at CERN on a NeXT workstation. Jean-Marie Hullot's 'SOS Interface' became the basic for Interface Builder which Hullot built for NeXT and which Berners-Lee also used in his project the program 'WorldWideWeb'.
- NeXT computers were used in the development of the computer game Doom and later the series "Quake".
- The return of Apple Computer. Apple's reliance on outdated software and internal mismanagement, particularly its inability to release a major operating system upgrade, had brought it near bankruptcy in the early-to-mid 1990s. Jobs's progressive stance on Unix and open source underpinnings was considered overly ambitious and somewhat backward in the 1980s but ultimately became an expandable solid foundation for an operating system. Apple would later acquire this software and under Jobs's leadership experience a renaissance.
Return to Apple- See also:
In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for US$429 million. The deal was finalized in late 1996, bringing Jobs back to the company he founded. He soon became Apple's interim CEO after the directors lost confidence in and ousted then-CEO Gil Amelio in a boardroom coup. In March of 1998, in order to concentrate Apple's efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs immediately 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's summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company."
With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company's technology found its way into Apple products, 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, iPod, and internet device. 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 World Wide 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 e-waste". 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. In 2007 at Macworld Expo at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Jobs introduced the long-awaited iPhone mobile device which brought Apple into the mobile phone industry for the first time.
Stock options issueIn 2001, Steve Jobs was granted stock options in the amount of 7,500,000 shares of Apple with an exercise price of US$18.30, which allegedly should have been US$21.10, thereby incurring taxable income of $20,000,000 that he did not report as income. Apple overstated its earnings by that same amount. If found liable, Jobs may face a number of criminal charges and civil penalties. Apple claimed that the options were originally granted at a special board meeting that may never have taken place. Furthermore, the investigation is focusing on false dating of the options resulting in a retroactive US$20 million increase in the exercise price. The case is the subject of active criminal and civil government investigations, though an independent internal Apple investigation completed on December 29 2006 found that Jobs was unaware of these issues and that the options granted to him were returned without being exercised in 2003. On July 1, 2008 a $7B class action suit was filed against several members of the Apple Board of Directors for revenue lost due to the alleged securities fraud.
Pixar and DisneyIn 1986, Jobs bought The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division for the price of US$10 million, US$5 million of which was given to the company as capital. The major cause of the low purchase price was George Lucas' need to finance his 1983 divorce without significantly reducing his stock and control of the Star Wars enterprises.
The new company, which was originally based in San Rafael, California, has since relocated to Emeryville, California, 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 ten 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), and Wall-E (2008) . Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Ratatouille 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. Personal animosity between the two executives was largely blamed for the companies' failure to renew their partnership.
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 US$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%, and Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who holds about 1% of the company's stock and whose criticisms of Eisner included the soured Pixar relationship and accelerated his ousting. Jobs joined the company's board of directors upon completion of the merger.
Jobs also helps oversee Disney and Pixar's combined animation businesses with a seat on a special six-man steering committee. One of the committee's first decisions was to discontinue the production of so-called "cheapquels" (cheap direct-to-video sequels). Many also see Jobs as a valuable and influential advisor to Iger and Disney on technology matters.
Management styleMuch has been made of Jobs's aggressive and demanding personality. Fortune noted that he "is considered one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs." Commentaries on his temperamental style can be found in Mike Moritz’s The Little Kingdom, one of the few authorized biographies of Jobs; Jeffrey S. Young’s unauthorized Steve Jobs: The Journey Is the Reward; The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, by Alan Deutschman; and , by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon.
In iCon: Steve Jobs the authors point out that Paul Jobs, his father by adoption, was also known for his aggressive side: "Paul was soon hired as a kind of strongarm man by a finance company that sought help collecting on auto loans — an early repo man. Both his bulk and his aggressive personality were well suited to this somewhat dangerous pursuit, and his mechanical bent enabled him to pick the locks of the cars he had to repossess and hot-wire them if necessary."
In the 1996 documentary Triumph of the Nerds, the reaction to Jobs's famous firing from Apple by CEO John Sculley and the Apple Board of Directors was discussed by various people:
Jobs has always aspired to position Apple and its products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting trends, at least in terms of innovation and style. He summed up that self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007 by quoting ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky:
Health concernsIn mid-2004, Jobs announced to his employees that he had been diagnosed with a malignant tumor in his pancreas. The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very grim. Jobs, however, stated that he had a rare, far less aggressive type known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor. Survival in islet cell carcinoma is highly dependent upon the degree of disease involvement. Surgical cure is possible if the tumor is resected completely. However, studies using the SEER national database (Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results), showed a median survival of approximately 10 years for localized disease, approximately 6 years for regional (confined to the region of the pancreas) and approximately 2 years for those with distant disease.
After initially resisting the idea of conventional medical intervention and embarking on a special diet to thwart the disease, Jobs underwent surgery that successfully removed the tumor in July, 2004. The variations of this surgical procedure are discussed in the following web site. This type of surgery is associated with several effects that could affect long-term health and provide an explanation for weight loss unrelated to recurrence of the malignancy. The pancreas produces enzymes that break down food so that it can be absorbed in the small bowel. All patients with a total pancreatectomy require pancreatic enzyme replacement, usually taken with meals. Despite this replacement some degree of malabsorption may occur, leading to weight loss. A second issue that could lead to weight loss is the development of diabetes mellitus associated with a total pancreatectomy and sometimes present in patients treated with a Whipple procedure. Removal of the entire pancreas necessitates replacement of insulin; the diabetes mellitus associated with a total pancreatectomy can be difficult to control, potentially also leading to weight loss. A third issue associated with either a total pancreatectomy or a surgical procedure used to treat tumors in the head of the pancreas is bacterial infection of a portion of the small bowel that connects to the bile duct. This type of infection can cause fever, diarrhea, and malabsorption, symptoms discussed in recent news reports. Finally, the substantial rearrangement of the gastrointestinal tract, can lead to some other functional issues. The first is a dumping syndrome in which incompletely digested food moves too quickly into the small intestine creating malabsorption and diarrhea. The second is an obstruction of the loop of intestine that connects to the pancreas. A discussion of these known complications can be found at Respectful Insolence. In an interview with the NY Times, Steven Jobs confirmed (in a most convoluted way) that he does not have a recurrence of his cancer. It is important to recognize that each of these three surgery-related conditions can be treated and are consistent with a long life. He did not apparently require nor receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy. The fact that there is no evidence of identifiable cancer 4 years after his surgical procedure is approaching significance. During his absence, Timothy D. Cook, head of worldwide sales and operations at Apple, ran the company.
In early August 2006, Jobs delivered the keynote for Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference. His “thin, almost gaunt” appearance and unusually “listless” delivery, together with his choice to delegate significant portions of his keynote to other presenters, inspired a flurry of media and internet speculation about his health.
According to an Ars Technica journal report, WWDC attendees who saw Jobs in person said he “looked fine.” Following the keynote, an Apple spokesperson said that "Steve's health is robust."
Similar concerns followed his appearance during the 2008 WWDC keynote address. One interviewer noted: "[H]is handshake was moderate, his hands felt bony and I was taken aback by his extremely narrow face, slight build, and noticeable shoulder bones through his shirt. Those aren't my impressions looking back in time through the prism of speculation since. That's what I thought then; that these weren't the features of a guy who'd been working out, or on a diet. They seemed far more severe. Sickly." Apple explained his appearance by saying he had a "common bug" and was taking antibiotics.
June 10, 2008: Wall Street Journal also expressed concern over Steve Jobs appearance as they write "Steve Jobs’s Appearance Grabs Notice, Not Just the IPhone".
June 13, 2008: Fortune Magazine publishes an article concerning the Whipple procedure, which they believe Steve Jobs underwent.
July 21, 2008: Apple earnings conference call participants note that Steve Job's health is a "private matter".
July 26, 2008: New York Times publishes an article based on an "off the record" phone conversation between Steve Jobs and Times columnist Joseph Nocera in which he writes that, although Steve Jobs recent health issues have "amounted to a good deal more than 'a common bug,' they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer".
In popular cultureJobs was prominently featured in three films about the history of the personal computing industry.
Honors He was awarded the National Medal of Technology from President Ronald Reagan in 1985 with Steve Wozniak (the first people to ever receive the honor), and the Jefferson Award for Public Service 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.
External links- delivering the Keynote address at Apple Expo Paris on 16 September 2003
- extensive & short biographies, pictures, movies & interviews of or related to Steve Jobs.
- , where he announced partnership with Microsoft.
- at Stanford University, June 12 2005 (YouTube video).
- of above address. (Note: This written transcript differs slightly in wording from Job’s actual oral address above.)
- AmericanRhetoric.com
- by Steve Jobs, 2007-02-06
Articles
Interviews- – 2003-12-03
- — 2004-10-12
- — 2005-02-21
- — Newsweek, 2006-10-15
- – 2007-05-30
|
