Steve Jobs
Steve JobsSteven Paul Jobs (born
February 24, 1955) is best known as the co-founder (with Steve Wozniak) and CEO
of Apple Computer, and somewhat less so
for his leadership of Pixar. He is also regarded as a pioneer in computing for
the incredibly sucessful Apple II computer, and also for seeing the commercial
potential of the GUI and mouse in a Xerox PARC demonstration and leading Apple
Computer to unleash the successful and very influential Apple Macintosh.
Brief
history
Born
to Joanne Simpson and an Egyptian Arab father (name unknown) in Green Bay, Wisconsin,
Steven Paul was adopted soon after birth by Paul and Clara Jobs of Mountain View,
Santa Clara County, California. His biological sister is the novelist Mona Simpson.
In
1972, Jobs graduated from Homestead High School in Cupertino, California and enrolled
in Reed College in Portland, Oregon, but he dropped out after one semester. In
1976 Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer, which became a
significant player in the personal computer industry with the highly successful
Apple II and Apple Macintosh. Jobs was perhaps the most famous person in the personal
computer industry to the general public. In 1985 Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT
Computer. In 1986 Jobs purchased Pixar from LucasFilm, which later became famous
for a series of highly successful computer animation feature movies. In 1997 Jobs
returned to Apple, which was in a failing condition, and turned the fortune of
the company around beginning with the introduction of the iMac.
Jobs'
first daughter, Lisa, was born in 1978. Jobs married Laurene Powell in 1991 with
whom he has three children. She is not the mother of Lisa.
On
July 31, 2004 Jobs underwent a surgical operation to remove a cancerous tumor
in his pancreas. He had a very rare form of pancreatic cancer called an islet
cell neuroendocrine tumor. He spent the following August recovering, though he
stated he would not require chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Tim Cook, head
of worldwide sales and operations at Apple, ran the company during his absence.
Notably, in his email to staff at Apple informing them of his operation, Jobs
managed to find time to note that he had sent his email via a 17-inch PowerBook
using AirPort Express.
Business
ventures
In
the autumn of 1974, Jobs returned to California and began attending meetings of
the "Homebrew Computer Club" with Stephen Wozniak. He took a job at
Atari Inc., designing computer games with his friend, Wozniak. During this time
period, it was discovered that a slightly modified toy whistle included in every
box of Cap'n Crunch cereal was able to reproduce the 2600 Hz supervision tone
used by the AT&T long distance telephone system. Jobs and Wozniak went into
business briefly in 1974 to build "blue boxes" based on the idea which
allowed for free long-distance calls.
In
1976, Jobs, then 21, and Wozniak, 26, founded Apple Computer Co. in the Jobs family
garage. The first personal computer Jobs and Wozniak introduced was called the
Apple I. They marketed it at a price of $666.66, in reference to the phone number
of Wozniak's Dial-A-Joke machine, which ended in -6666. In 1977, Jobs and Wozniak
introduced the Apple II, which became a huge success in the home market. The Apple
II made Apple Computer a top company in the personal computer industry. In 1980,
Apple Computer became a publicly traded corporation, and with the successful IPO,
Jobs' stature rose further. In the same year, Apple Computer released the unsuccessful
Apple III. In 1983, Jobs lured John Sculley from Pepsi-Cola to run Apple, challenging
him, "Do you want to just sell sugared water for the rest of your life, or
do you want to change the world?" In the same year, Apple Computer released
the highly technologically advanced but commercially unsuccessful Apple Lisa.
1984 saw the introduction of the Macintosh, the first commercially successful
computer with a graphical user interface, initiated by Jef Raskin that Jobs ultimately
led. The success of the Macintosh led Apple to abandon the Apple II product line
in favor of the Mac product line, which continues to this day.
In
1985, after an internal power struggle, Jobs was stripped of his duties by Sculley
and ousted from Apple. He departed to found NeXT Computer later that decade. Like
Lisa, NeXT was technologically advanced, but it never became popular. NeXT did,
however, help the advancement of technologies such as object-oriented programming,
PostScript, and magneto-optical devices. Tim Berners-Lee developed the original
World Wide Web system on a NeXT workstation.
In
1986 Jobs co-founded (with Edwin Catmull) Pixar, an Emeryville, California computer
animation studio. It was formed around what was originally Lucasfilm's computer
graphics division, which Jobs bought from its founder, George Lucas, for $10 million.
Pixar became very famous and successful nearly a decade later with the breakthrough
feature movie Toy Story.
In
1996, Apple bought NeXT for $402 million, bringing Jobs back to the company he
founded. In 1997 he became Apple's interim CEO after the departure of Gil Amelio.
With the purchase, much NeXT technology found its way into Apple products (notably
NeXTSTEP which morphed into Mac OS X). Under Jobs' guidance the company increased
sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac. It was the first computer
that was marketed primarily on its looks (though the iMac did utilize other state-of-the-art
features). Since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well
for Apple. In 2000, Apple dropped the "interim" from Jobs' title after
he had worked for several years at an annual salary of $1 and Apple returned to
profitability. Jobs still works at Apple for an annual salary of $1 (albeit with
valuable stock options and numerous perks). Steve Jobs is listed by Guinness World
Records as the "Lowest Paid Chief Executive Officer". In recent years,
the company has branched out, most notably into the areas of personal electronics
and music, with the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital
music software, and the iTunes Music Store.
Jobs
is also known for his "reality distortion field", best seen during his
keynote speeches at Apple expos, and his philosophy that "real artists ship,"
by which he means that innovation and killer designs aren't as important as meeting
deadlines.
BIOGRAFIA
EN ESPAÑOL
Fundador
y Presidente de Apple Computer Inc.
Nació
el 24 de febrero de 1955 en Los Altos, California. Era conocido por ser un inteligente
visionario, un egoista inaguantable, un renegado apasionado, y un arrogante. Pero
Steve Paul Jobs cambió la manera de pensar de la gente sobre la tecnología
y ayudó a encender la revolución de la computadora personal.
A
la edad de veintisiete años Jobs descubrió que tenía una
hermanastra llamada Mona Simpson, escritora del best-seller.
Adoptado
de pequeño por un maquinista Californiano, Jobs asistió a la escuela
secundaria Homestead High School en Cupertino, California, donde se hizo amigo
de Steve Wozniak. Después de un período
corto en la Universidad Reed College en Oregon, Jobs la abandonó y se fue
de viaje por India buscando un esclarecimiento espiritual.
Al
realizar la primera computadora personal que sedujo a empresas y al público,
Apple rápidamente llegó a los $335 millones, la compañía
que dominó el mercado. Pero por 1981, IBM se había juntado al rubro
con el IBM PC y Apple empezó a perder terreno.
Tanto
la Lisa como su sucesora, la Macintosh, venian con un mouse y una interfaz gráfica.
Xerox demandó a Apple por copiarse la interfaz gráfica. Ironicamente,