15-01-2014, 12:18 PM
Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs.docx (Size: 99.71 KB / Downloads: 16)
Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American business magnate and inventor. He is well known for being the co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple. Jobs also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of The Walt Disney Companyin 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney.
In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula,[11] and others, designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven graphical user interface which led to the creation of the Macintosh.[12][13] After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985,[14][15] Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets. Apple's subsequent 1996 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he has served as its CEO since 1997.
In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios.[16] He remained CEO and majority shareholder until its acquisition by the Walt Disney company in 2006.[3] Jobs is currently a member of Disney's Board of Directors.[17][18]
Jobs' history in business has contributed much to the symbolic image of the idiosyncratic, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design and 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.[19]
Jobs is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor in over 230 both awarded patents and patent applications related to a range from actual computer and portable devices to user interfaces (including touch-based), speakers, keyboards, power adapters, staircases, clasps, sleeves, lanyards and packages.
Early years
Jobs was born in San Francisco[1] and was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs (née Hagopian[22]) of Mountain View, California, who named him Steven Paul. Paul and Clara later adopted a daughter, who they named Patti. Jobs' biological parents – Abdulfattah Jandali, a Syrian Muslim[23] graduate student who later became a political science professor,[24] and Joanne Simpson, an American graduate student[23] who went on to become a speech therapist[25] – later married, giving birth to and raising Jobs' biological sister, the novelist Mona Simpson.[26][27][28][29][30]
Jobs attended Cupertino Junior High School and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California,[19] 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.[31] In 1972, Jobs graduated from high school and enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester,[32] he continued auditing classes at Reed, such as one in calligraphy. Jobs later stated, "If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts."[15]
In the autumn of 1974, Jobs returned to California and began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Wozniak. He took a job as a technician atAtari, a manufacturer of popular video games, with the primary intent of saving money for a spiritual retreat to India.
NeXT Computer
Around the same time, Jobs founded another computer company, NeXT Computer. Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced; however, it was largely dismissed by industry as cost-prohibitive. Among those who could afford it, however, the NeXT workstation garnered a strong following because of its technical strengths, chief among them its object-orientedsoftware 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 NeXTcube 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 many 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.
Wealth
As of October 2009, Jobs owned 5.426 million shares of Apple, most of which was granted in 2003 when Jobs was given 10 million shares. He also owned 138 million shares of Disney, which he received in exchange for Disney's acquisition of Pixar.[54] Forbes estimated his net wealth at $5.1 billion in 2009, making him the 43rd wealthiest American.[55] Jobs has been criticized for his lack of public philanthropy despite his wealth, particularly in recent years as other billionaires have pledged significant portions of their fortunes to charity.[56] As of 2006, Jobs had not appeared on national tallies of charitable donations totaling $1 million or more, as compiled by Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy.[57] Although he may well have donated significant sums anonymously, some have doubted this assumption, given Jobs' equally poor track record on corporate philanthropy;[58] after resuming control of Apple in 1997, Jobs eliminated all corporate philanthropy programs as a temporary cost-cutting measure until profitability improved.[59] Despite the company's record-breaking profits and $40 billion cash on hand,[60] Jobs has not reinstated a philanthropic division at Apple.