Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs ( Los Altos , 24 as February as 1955 – Los Angeles , 5 as October as 2011 ), known worldwide as Steve Jobs was an American computer scientist and entrepreneur. Father of the first personal computer (the Apple I ) and founder of Apple Computer , probably the most innovative company in the sector, this computer wizard was one of the most influential figures in technology at the end of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century. .

Biographical synthesis

the beginning

As a child (less than a year old) he was adopted by an electrician, Paul, also a Californian, who together with his wife, Clara, educated him as best they could. From the biological parents it is known that the father was Egyptian and the mother American.

After graduating from Homestead High School in Mountain View , he entered Reed College in Portland , Oregon , but dropped out of college a semester later. During that time he used drugs and became interested in Philosophy and the counterculture, eventually traveling to India in search of spiritual enlightenment.

Professional beginnings

After an internship at the Hewlett-Packard company in Palo Alto, in 1974 Jobs was hired by Atari, Inc. at the age of 19 as a video game designer (although for a short period of time).

Back in California , he joined the elitist Homebrew Computer Club group to which Wozniak belonged . It was then that he and Wozniak went to work to build a personal computer at the request of Jobs, since the latter was not enthusiastic about creating gadgets. It was the year 1976 and both were studying at the University of Berkeley . After presenting their invention at the University and seeing its success, they begin to make computers by hand in Jobs’s garage, after selling some of their most prized possessions (Jobs sold his Volkswagen and Wozniak his HP scientific calculator) with the intention of dedicating itself to the sale of personal computers, in this way the Apple I was born .

Apple computer

In 1976 , with the money obtained from the sale of the Volkswagen van, they founded the Apple Computer company , based in the Jobs family’s garage. Steve Jobs chose the name Apple as a reminder of the days when he worked picking his favorite fruit, the apple.

The name Apple has no other meaning for Jobs except that the apple is his favorite fruit; although there are reports on the net that affirm that Jobs chose that name to honor a fantastic summer he spent in Oregon in which he worked in the garden. The original Apple logo was unimaginative, showing someone under an apple tree, but soon it occurred to them to introduce the rainbow apple, which has remained the best-known brand in the IT industry. Over time, the manzanita evolved and became a much more modern design with better aesthetics.

Apple I

After selling 25 units of Apple I in a “Do it yourself” store, where he got them paid in cash, he converted the garage of his parents’ house (2066 Crist Drive in Los Altos, California) in the area computer assembly, and the living room in the packing and receiving area. Throughout the latter half of 1976 , Wozniak was already preparing a surprise: the Apple II , whose main features were summed up in a more elegant design and a fully assembled machine that weighed just 5.5 kilograms. Thus, Jobs led a hardware revolution by considerably reducing the size of the computer to a small box. Lisa, was the first personal computer manufactured in series by the Apple company with a graphical user interface (GUI), which was released in May 1977 .

Apple ii

The Apple II became the first mass consumer computer. Orders rained down and Apple became the fastest growing company in America. Three years later, Apple went public at a price of $ 22 a share, making Jobs and Wozniak millionaires. By then, Jobs acquired the fame of great man, endowed with a creativity that allowed him to build a computer and at the same time commercialize it.

The public liked its design, its innovation and its reliability. The growth of the company was so fast that in 1983 Apple already had a turnover of 2000 million dollars, and as a curious fact Apple II was sold in the market until the year 93, becoming the longest-lived computer in history. In addition, the very useful trash can appears for the first time in the history of computers.

Macintosh

Steve Jobs and Wozniak around 1977

In December 1979 Jobs and his team visited the Xerox Research Center where they learned of a prototype that worked with a graphical environment and a mouse. This visit gave him a revolutionary idea; He took his team of engineers, they moved into a building they called Siberia, hung a pirate flag, and went to work 90 hours a week on the computer that was going to change personal computing forever: the Macintosh.. It was a simple, clean, fun computer. It had a graphic system known as “WYSIWYG” (What You See is What You Get, what you see is what you have) that allowed working through icons, something unthinkable at the time; it showed a clock when to wait and a bomb when the system crashed. The revolution. The Mac became a symbol of youth, rebellion and modernity. It became fashionable.

Macintosh would be the first affordable and easy-to-use computer without the need for computer skills, which is why Jobs is considered the true creator of the concept of PC (“Personal Computer”, personal computer). The launch of the Macintosh in 1984 was a turnaround in the computer industry. His great innovation was the introduction of the mouse to develop functions by clicking on the windows that open on the screen, which facilitates the interaction between the user and the computer. In this sense, Jobs made a great contribution to the introduction of personal computers in teaching.

Changes in Apple Computer

But the illusions put into the Macintosh did not materialize as they thought, mostly because they had not taken into account the competition and the importance of compatibility. And it is that in 1981 IBM also launched its first personal computer or PC. The IBM clones with the Microsoft operating system inside them ( MS-DOS ) began to be sold like donuts, since they worked as a computer was supposed to work and not in the transgressive way that Jobs presented. And Apple would never recover from this crisis. Compatible PCs would take 90% of the market, while Apple had to settle for the remaining 10%, also having to withdraw a disastrous Apple IIIit came out technically flawed. More than 14,000 machines were withdrawn and later they would launch the Apple III Plus ( 1983 ) which was only on the market for 4 months. His improvement therefore came too late and was rejected by the public.

In an effort to keep his company competitive, Jobs decided to recruit the then president of Pepsi Co. , John Sculley , to the presidency of Apple , not knowing that he would eventually kick him out of his own company.

Sculley, an old-guard executive, clashed with the rebellious and unorthodox manner of Jobs. The discussions between Sculley and Jobs took place day in and day out as well, so he requested the support of the Board of Directors who gave him all their trust, and allowed him to remove responsibility from Jobs, leaving Apple in May 1985 , keeping the apple. without his heart, as some commented. Jobs was 31 years old.

The result of both personal conflicts was that Wozniak left Apple in 1985 , the year 1,200 employees were laid off as a result of extensive restructuring at the company, and Jobs resigned to found the NeXT Corporation in 1989 .

The same year NextStep launched its first computer, packed with extraordinary features but not profitable due to its high price and its incompatibility with most systems on the market. Finally, the visionary Jobs closed the computer division in 1993 , with the merit of having created the device with which the British programmer Tim Berners-Lee devised the World Wibe Web , which would be the basis for the development and popularization of the Internet .

In 1991 Steve married Laurene Powell with whom he had 4 children.

After the creation of NeXT Corporation, Jobs bought George Lucas the animation division of his Lucas Film empire for 50 million dollars . This is how they were born at Pixar Animation Studios , which received an Academy Film Award for the computer-animated film Tin Toy in 1989 .

In 1995 Pixar launched Toy Story , a joint production with Walt Disney that is already part of the history of cinema for being the first feature film made entirely by computer. The film was a box office success and won an Oscar from the Hollywood Academy . Bugs was Pixar’s next big hit.

Apple and Microsoft

Meanwhile, Apple waned following the release of IBM compatible computers equipped with operating system Windows , from Microsoft , which several experts said was inspired by the Apple Macintosh. The enmity between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates , two opposing personalities, was the subject of a television movie titled Pirates of Silicon Valley , produced in 1998 by the TNT network.

Back to Apple

In 1993, with a sharp drop in Apple’s profitability, Sculley was forced to resign, being replaced by Michael “Diesel” Spindler who remained at Apple until 1996 , at which time Apple had losses of billions of dollars and its market share had dropped to 3–4%.

In December 1996 Apple decided to buy Next, which led to the return of Jobs to the company with a position of interim consultant, for which Jobs, voluntarily, did not receive any salary. The resignation of the president of Apple once again elevated Jobs to the head of the company. In August 1997 , a month before his appointment as Apple’s interim president, Jobs announced an agreement with his hitherto rival Microsoft, which decided to invest $ 150 million in Apple. The two companies came to understand that they needed each other and complemented each other, as Microsoft is the main maker of programs for the Macintosh, and Apple is one of the main witnesses in the antitrust trial against Bill Gates’ company in the US.

In 1998 , Jobs turned the computing market around again with the launch of the iMac , a compact and transparent PC, which in addition to its avant-garde design is ready to surf the Internet. Its sales success has placed Apple again among the five largest personal computer manufacturers in the US, with a 50% appreciation of its shares. The iMac was a revolutionary computer, not only for its technical qualities, but above all for its innovative design. Design that would later be transferred to laptops with the launch of the iBook (September 1999 ).

The professional market was Apple’s next target. In September 1999 the first G4 arrived , computers specially dedicated to the fields of graphic design and multimedia. Its complement in portable equipment was the Titanium . On the occasion of the MacWorld Expo in 2001 the Powerbook G4 was launched . In 2002 advances such as the iMac would be 17 inches or Power Mac G4 dual processor.

In 2003 , a campaign was launched online to convince Jobs to run for President of the United States . The campaign did not fail because of a lack of interest, since the web had more than 10,000 visits in 10 minutes, but because Jobs was not interested in the proposal. He said he was very flattered by the support, but said he did not have time for it. Apple, led by Jobs, is currently leading the digital music revolution with its iPod portable music player and iTunes online music store .

Since the year 2000, when the original public beta of the Mac OS operating system was published, and with the exception of said version and that of Mac OS X Server 1.0, different versions of Mac OS X have been published, all with names of big cats, these names are internal to Apple:

• 10.0 (Cheetah, Little Leopard).
• 10.1 (Puma, Puma).
• 10.2 (Jaguar, Jaguar).
• 10.3 (Panther, Pantera).
• 10.4 (Tiger, Tigre).
• 10.5 (Leopard, Leopard).
• 10.6 (Snow Leopard, Snow Leopard).
• 10.7 (Lion, Leon).

In 2004 Jobs was detected a cancerous tumor in the pancreas. Jobs was an operator at the end of July of that year in an operation without complications, and from which he returned to normal just a month later.

Awards and honours

• In recognition of his pioneering work in the world of technology, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan , and was awarded the Jefferson Award for public service in 1987 .
• In 1989 he was named “Entrepreneur of the Decade” in a magazine.
• Candidate for the Prince of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research in 2004 .
• In 2004 it won the Visionary of the Year Award at the Billboard Digital Entertainment Awards and Apple was recognized as Brand of the Year.

Final years and death

In 2009 , Jobs underwent a liver transplant and, although he returned to work, he finally had to walk away from it in early 2011 and deposit his company’s management with Tim Cook .

The 5 of October of 2011 it was made known to the world of Jobs ‘ death due to cancer. The Apple website was released a message on his honor:

Apple has lost a creative and visionary genius and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to meet and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built and his spirit will always be the foundation of Apple.

Death

He died at age 56, at his home in Palo Alto, California , around 3:00 p.m. local time. The certificate indicates issued by the Santa Clara County Public Health Department as: “respiratory arrest” as the immediate cause of death with “metastasis from pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor” as the underlying condition that caused the respiratory problems. He was buried on Friday , October 7, 2011, in a non-denominational cemetery in Palo Alto. He was surrounded by his wife and close family when he passed away.

Other aspects of Jobs’s life

When a famous man dies, a series of aspects that until then were unknown come to light, some of them are listed below.

Unknown roots

According to Business Insider, the biological father was a Syrian-born graduate student named Abdulfattah Jandali. Jobs was born out of Jandali’s relationship with a classmate, Joanne Carole Schieble. As they were too young, they gave him up for adoption, to the home of Paul and Clara Jobs. As an adult he learned that the novelist Mona Simpson (Mona Jandali at birth), was his little sister. After meeting, they became close, as Mona herself acknowledged in various interviews.

Before the first child was born, he denied paternity on the grounds that he was sterile, but later recognized the child and became a great father.

Other curiosities

Unlike the other great tech gurus, like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg , Jobs never finished college. He went through Reed College in Portland ( Oregon ), but dropped out after one semester. However, that didn’t stop him from being the creator of one of the most popular and addictive games of all time, Breackout ; designed this fun program for the first generation of Atari, in which moving a bar and with the help of a ball breaks a kind of bricks.

Despite being the CEO of the most valuable company in the world, Steve Jobs claimed a pyrrhic and comic salary of $ 1 per year, since 1997 , the year he reached the position. Before he died, he owned 5.5 million shares in Apple, each valued at $ 377.64 yesterday, which is just over $ 2 billion. He leaves behind a vast fortune. He was ranked 110th among the richest people in the world in 2011, with a net worth of $ 8.3 billion.

Pecetarian

As an adult, he decided to become a pescetarian —that is, he eats the same as a vegetarian, in addition to fish— and changed his faith to Zen Buddhism, to the point that he has confessed that he once thought of going to a monastery and becoming a monk. However, it appears that his renewed spirituality has not changed the decision to break away from Apple’s charity programs.