Steve Jobs: The Extraordinary Biography (in pictures)

An article by Amit Roushan    No Comments

Steve Jobs can really be credited for his extraordinary story where he built an empire, Apple, which gave the world the first Personal Computer. After taking the company to new heights, he was sadly forced out of his own company. At that point when many individual might have broken down, Jobs stood firm and built two more companies: Next and Pixar. Moreover when Jobs was reinstated, he bought Apple out of near bankruptcy, and just in a decade, increased the stock of the company over 100 times.

Such was the growth of Apple under the later era of Jobs, Apple was richer than US by $3 billion for 3 days. Jobs would be one of those very few men who has done the miracle of making a struggling company into a tech giant. The legend will always be remembered for his entrepreneur skills, his creativity and the simplicity in design.

October 5, 2011 will always be remembered as the world lost one of the greatest visionary of this time. The number of tweets and the tributes being paid in honor of the Apple CEO is only a glimpse of what his followers and the world feel about his loss.

The Rise and Fall of Steve Jobs

February 24, 1955:
An unnamed boy born to Joanne Simpson and Abdulfattah Jandali was left for adoption. Adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs, the boy got the name Steven Paul Jobs, and was born to rule the world, with his own principles and different way of looking at things.

1974:
After high school, Jobs met Steve Wozniak while working at Hewlett Packard. The Steve duo were soon good friends and were involved in making and selling blue box, illegally. As it started, Woz made the little boxes and Jobs marketed.

1976:
At 21, Jobs along with Woz started Apple Computers in his father’s garage. The company later gave the world the first ever PC, Apple I.

The first ever Personal Computer, Apple I for $666.66

With the emergence of Apple Computers, Multi-Millionaire Mike Markulla funded $250,000 during the incorporation of Apple. At this point, when Mike called Woz Employee no. 1, Jobs revolted saying he was the brain behind Apple and calling himself Employee no. 0, not to hurt Woz.

1980:
Apple went public, raising $110 million in one of the biggest initial public offerings. Shortly, after unveiling Apple Lisa, Jobs gets Pepsico CEO John Cully to be the CEO of Apple.

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”

1984:
After the failure of Lisa, Jobs comes up with Macintosh, one of the most popular product from Apple.

1984:
Apple and Microsoft join hands to rule the computer world

The era of setting this up as a competition between Apple and Microsoft is over, as far as I’m concerned. This is about getting Apple healthy, and this is about Apple being able to make incredibly great contributions to the industry to get healthy and prosper again.

1984: National Technology Medal from President Ronald Reagan

1985:
With Jobs and Sculley clash, jobs was forced to resign from Apple shortly after Woznaik quitted

1986:
Jobs founded Next Inc., a new computer company along with Dan’l Lewin, Rich Page, Bud Tribble, Susan Barnes and George Crow

1986:
Also bought Pixar from “Star Wars” creator George Lucas for $10 million.

1988:
Posing with Next cube, the product that came from Next

1989: With daughter Lisa, which he initially didn’t accept. Lisa was his daughter with girlfriend Chrisann Brennan when he was 23. Jobs did not initiate a relationship with his daughter until she was 7 but, when she was a teenager, she came to live with her father.

1996:
Apple bought Next for $430 million, for the operating system Jobs’ team developed. Gil Amelio replaced Spindler as CEO. Later, Jobs became the interim CEO of Apple which was in a dwindling state

1998:
Apple returned to profit, Jobs unveiled the blue white iMac

“It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

2000:
Jobs retained the (i)CEO position in Apple

2001: The first ever iPod went on sale with Apple computers with OS X

It will go down in history as a turning point for the music industry. This is landmark stuff. I can’t overestimate it!

2004:
Jobs underwent surgery for a rare but curable form of pancreatic cancer. Apple disclosed his illness after the fact

2005:
Apple expanded the iPod line with the tiny Nano and an iPod that could play video

2005:
The famous Stanford commencement speech where, Jobs shared various aspects of his life and how they changed him

“Stay hungry, stay foolish.”

2007:
Apple released its first smartphone, the iPhone. It was an instant hit, making Apple huge profits.

Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. It’s very fortunate if you can work on just one of these in your career. … Apple’s been very fortunate in that it’s introduced a few of these.

2008:
Speculation mounts that Jobs is ill, given his weight loss. In September he kicked off an Apple event and says, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”

2010:
Jobs unveiled the new Apple product, Apple sold 15 million iPads, its newest gadget, in nine months, giving rise to a new category of modern touch-screen tablet computers

Jan 17, 2011:
In a memo to Apple employees, Jobs announces a second medical leave with no set duration. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook would fill in to run day-to-day operations. Jobs said he will continue as CEO and will be involved in major decisions.

Aug 24, 2011:
Apple announces that Jobs is resigning as CEO. The company says he will be replaced by Cook and that Jobs will stay on as chairman.

October 5, 2011:
Jobs died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new”

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