Introduction
Steve Jobs, during his brief existence, revolutionized the world in manners that we are only now starting to grasp. He possessed the qualities of a visionary and trailblazer, foreseeing the capabilities of technology long before others did. Additionally, he was a skilled marketer, adept at promoting his merchandise to the general populace. Furthermore, he was a genuine creator, continuously pushing boundaries and devising novel concepts that altered the way we exist and function.
Who is Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an innovative American entrepreneur, inventor, and designer who, as co-founder, chief executive, and chairman of Apple Computer, played a pivotal role in the creation of products that have revolutionized modern technology, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod. Jobs’ birth parents, both University of Wisconsin graduates, put him up for adoption in 1955. Jobs was intelligent but lacked direction, dropping out of college and exploring different endeavors before establishing Apple with Steve Wozniak in 1976. After departing from Apple in 1985, he founded Pixar Animation Studios, later returning to Apple over a decade later. Jobs fought pancreatic cancer for an extended period before passing away in 2011. (Biography, 2021)
Early life
Steve Jobs was born in 1955 in San Francisco to parents of Syrian and Swiss-German descent. He was adopted by a machinist and Coast Guard veteran named Paul Jobs and his wife Clara Jobs, who worked as an accountant. At the age of six, Jobs and his family relocated to a town near Palo Alto, California, where the electronic industry was starting to take off and the air was filled with the presence of silicon. Throughout his childhood, Steve Jobs showed little interest in participating in group sports or activities, instead gravitating towards gadgets and electronics. He spent countless hours working in the workshop of his Hewlett-Packard technician neighbor. Jobs joined Hewlett-Packard’s Explorer Club when he was a teenager and frequently attended talks at the company’s neighboring plant. Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in 1972, but dropped out after just one semester to work on video game design for Atari. Shortly after, he took a vacation from his job and studies to visit India and explore its diverse religious traditions.
(History Computer Staff, 2021)
Apple
According to Newman (2022), in 1976, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne established Apple as a partnership, with the company initially operating out of the garage of Jobs’ parents’ home. Apple always had a distinctive style right from the start. While most companies then and now focus on mass production of low-cost products, Apple prioritized producing powerful products that were also easy to use. On the original Macintosh, there was a clear emphasis on ensuring that computers were available to everyone. The Macintosh could be operated using a mouse and a graphical interface, similar to modern computers, unlike prior machines that required elementary knowledge of coding. It wasn’t just a product for professionals in the computer business or enthusiasts; everyone could use it. Modern Macs wouldn’t exist without the original Macintosh, and the transformation of computers from niche products to everyday necessities for everyone may have occurred years, if not decades, later.
NeXT and Pixer
Per Levy (2018), after leaving Apple, Jobs established a new company called NeXT Inc. with financial support from Ross Perot and Canon Inc., which aimed to develop powerful workstations for the education sector. Despite NeXT’s engineering design being impressive, it struggled to compete with more affordable alternatives from companies such as Sun Microsystems. NeXT’s emphasis was switched by Jobs to software development, especially with the ground-breaking NEXTSTEP system. Along with NeXT, Jobs acquired a majority stake in Pixar, a computer graphics company that was formerly a branch of George Lucas’s Lucasfilm Ltd., in 1986. In the ensuing ten years, Jobs built Pixar into a significant animation firm, producing Toy Story in 1995, the first ever fully computer-animated feature film. After Pixar’s successful initial public offering in that same year, Jobs became a billionaire. He finally sold the company to Disney in 2006.
References
Biography (2021). Steve Jobs – Movie, Daughter & Death. [online] Biography. Available at: https://www.biography.com/business-leaders/steve-jobs [Accessed 9 April 2023]
History Computer Staff (2021). Steve Jobs — Complete Biography, History and Inventions. [online] History Computer. Available at: https://history-computer.com/steve-jobs-complete-biography/ [Accessed 11 April 2023]
Levy, S. (2018). Steve Jobs | Biography, Apple, & Facts. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Steve-Jobs [Accessed 11 April 2023]
Newman, L. (2022). How Apple and Steve Jobs Changed the World. [online] MUO. Available at: https://www.makeuseof.com/how-apple-changed-the-world/ [Accessed 9 April 2023]
