Steve Jobs was an American entrepreneur, business magnate, industrial designer, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc., which he helped to turn into one of the world’s largest and most valuable companies. Jobs also had a hand in the creation of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. He is widely recognized as a pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Born in San Francisco on February 24, 1955, Jobs was adopted at birth by Clara and Paul Jobs. He grew up in the Silicon Valley area of California and attended Homestead High School. He then enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, but dropped out after one semester. Jobs eventually returned to California and took a job with Atari before starting his own computer company, Apple, with Wozniak in 1976.
The Apple I computer was introduced in 1977, followed by the Apple II in 1978. The success of these products established Apple as a major player in the burgeoning personal computer market. In 1980, Apple went public and Jobs became a millionaire at age 25.
The early 1980s saw the introduction of the Macintosh computer. Although initially criticized for its high price and lack of features, the Macintosh eventually became a huge success. Under Jobs’ guidance, Apple introduced a number of groundbreaking products in the 1990s and 2000s, including the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
In August 2011, Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple due to health reasons. He passed away on October 5, 2011, at the age of 56.
At the time of his death, Jobs had a net worth of $10.2 billion. His salary as CEO of Apple was $1 per year, but he also held 5.426 million shares of Apple stock, which were worth approximately $2.1 billion at the time of his death. In addition, Jobs held 138 million shares of Disney stock, which were worth approximately $4.4 billion at the time of his death.
General Info
Full Name
Steve Jobs
Date Of Birth
February 24, 1955
Died
October 5, 2011, Palo Alto, California, United States, October 5, 2011, Palo Alto, California, United States
Height
1.88 m, 1.88 m
Profession
Entrepreneur, Film producer, Business magnate, Inventor, Businessperson, Designer, Entrepreneur, Inventor, Businessperson, Designer, Business magnate, Film producer
Education
Reed College, Homestead High School, Cupertino Junior High School, Monta Loma Elementary School, Reed College, Homestead High School, Cupertino Junior High School, Monta Loma Elementary School
Nationality
American, American
Family
Spouse
Laurene Powell, Laurene Powell
Children
Lisa Brennan-Jobs, Eve Jobs, Erin Siena Jobs, Reed Jobs, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, Eve Jobs, Erin Siena Jobs, Reed Jobs
Parents
Abdulfattah John Jandali, Abdulfattah John Jandali
Siblings
Mona Simpson, Patricia Ann Jobs, Mona Simpson, Patricia Ann Jobs
Accomplishments
Awards
Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay - Motion Picture, Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture, BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Satellite Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, National Medal of Technology and Innovation, Grammy Trustees Award, PGA Vanguard...
Nominations
Academy Award for Best Actor, Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture – Drama, Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, Critics' Choice Movi...
Black turtleneck sweatshirt and blue jeans - he owned over a hundred
Quotes
#
Quote
1
[on the difference between billionaires and regular people] Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.
2
[about how he and partner Steve Wozniak tried to get major computer companies interested in their personal computer, which turned out to be the Apple] So we went to Atari and said, "Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you". And they said, "No". So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, "Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet".
3
It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.
4
All the work I have done in my life will be obsolete by the time I'm 50.
5
I'm going to destroy Android because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this.
6
You know, everybody has a cell phone, but I don't know one person who likes their cell phone. I want to make a phone that people love.
7
The unions are the worst thing that happened to education because it's not a meritocracy. It turns into a bureaucracy, which is exactly what happened. The teachers can't teach, and administrators run the place, and nobody can be fired. It's terrible.
8
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again.
9
In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.
10
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
11
My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other's kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts.
12
Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
13
[May 1998, interview in "Business Week" magazine] That's been one of my mantras--focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
14
[1993] I'm sorry, it's true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time.
15
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.
16
[1998] A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.
17
[2003] There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I've ever seen is called television--but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent.
18
[1985] I'll always stay connected with Apple. I hope that throughout my life I'll sort of have the thread of my life and then the thread of Apple weave in and out, like a tapestry. There may be a few years when I'm not there, but I'll always come back.
19
[February 1985, interview in "Playboy" magazine] I don't think I've ever worked so hard on something, but working on Macintosh was the neatest experience of my life. Almost everyone who worked on it will say that. None of us wanted to release it at the end. It was as though we knew that once it was out of our hands, it wouldn't be ours anymore. When we finally presented it at the shareholders' meeting, everyone in the auditorium gave it a five-minute ovation. What was incredible to me was that I could see the Mac team in the first few rows. It was as though none of us could believe we'd actually finished it. Everyone started crying.
Facts
#
Fact
1
He followed a strict Vegan diet and often ate only one or two kinds of fruits such as Apples or pears for weeks at a time.
2
He didn't use deodorant or shower regularly.
3
Often insisted on using marketing language that was intentionally grammatically incorrect. For example, he usually referred to Apple products without the definite article "the" to emphasis uniqueness. Another example was Apple's slogan in the late 1990s "Think different", in which he stated that "different" was meant to be a noun and sound colloquial.
4
CEO of Pixar Animation Studios [1986]
5
CEO of Apple Computer Inc. [1997]
6
As a youth he lived at 2066 Crist Drive in Los Altos (CA), where he started his Apple company in the attached family garage with pal Steve Wozniak.
7
Always counted Edwin H. Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera, as one of his all-time entrepreneurial heroes. He based many of his own Apple product presentational styles on Land's.
8
The black-and-white headshot of Jobs that appeared on the jacket of his biographer Walter Isaacson's book "Steve Jobs" (2011) was taken by Scottish celebrity photographer Albert Watson.
9
Was friends with President Bill Clinton, and allowed him to stay at his California mansion whenever Clinton visited his daughter Chelsea Clinton, then a student at Stanford University. Clinton in turn hosted Jobs as a guest of the Lincoln Bedroom.
10
Posthumously awarded the Grammy Trustees Award at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012. The Trustees Award is awarded to "individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording".
11
Had intended to volunteer his service in designing the ad campaign for Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign.
12
Made the cover of TIME magazine 8 times: February 1982, August 1997, October 1999, January 2002, October 2005, April 2007 (group shot), April 2010, October 2011 (special issue).
13
Biological son of immigrants to the U.S., Syrian Abdul Fattah Jandali and German-Swiss Joanne Carol Schieble. He was placed for adoption at a very early age, where he was adopted by an Armenian-American couple, Paul and Clara Jobs, who raised him. As a result of his upbringing, Jobs was fluent in the Armenian language.
14
Gave the commencement address to the graduating class of at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
15
Has a child from a relationship he had when he was 23 with a woman whom he didn't marry. The daughter was named Lisa N. Brennan Jobs, born on 17 May 1978.
16
Merited the #2 position in "The Vanity Fair 100" magazine's 16th annual ranking of the most influential people of the Information Age. [2010]
17
(May 10, 2010) Merited a position in Time magazine's "The 100 Most Influential People in the World" ("Thinkers" category) with an homage contributed by Jeff Koons.
18
Received a liver transplant in April 2009.
19
Invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Executives Branch) in 2005.
20
Ranked #1 on Premiere's 2006 "Power 50" list with Pixar co-head John Lasseter. They had ranked #3 in 2005 and #1 in 2004.
21
In Forbes Magazine's listing of the 400 Richest Americans in 2005, Steve Jobs came in at number 67 with a total worth of $3.3 Billion.
22
Ranked #3 on Premiere's 2005 Power 50 List with Pixar co-head John Lasseter. They had ranked #1 in 2004.
23
Ranked #1 on Premiere's 2004 annual Power 100 List with Pixar co-head John Lasseter. Had ranked #23 in 2003.
When Apple Computer appointed its first Board of Directors, the Board insisted that all employees wear name badges with a number indicating the order in which they were hired. They assigned Steve Wozniak, who did all the engineering of the highly successful Apple II computer, the title Employee No. 1. Steve Jobs was officially Employee No. 2. Jobs protested but the Board refused to change the badge assignments. Jobs offered a compromise: He would be Employee No. 0, since 0 comes before 1 on the mathematical model known as a number line. (Source: "Accidental Empires" by Robert X. Cringely).
Officially dropped the word "interim" from his title at Apple Computer sometime in the autumn of 1999.
37
Co-founded Apple Computer Inc. in 1977 with Steve Wozniak. Was later ousted and then brought back as interim CEO in 1997. His new reign has been controversial: bringing Apple back to profitability (and visibility), yet disappointing many for discontinuing the Newton MessagePad hand-held device.
