$10,200,000,000
Steve Jobs
Net Worth
Born in (City)
San Francisco
Born in (Country)
United States of America
Date of Birth
24th December, 1955
Date of Death
05th December, 2011
Mother
Joanne Schieble
Father
Abdulfattah Jandali
Children
- Lisa Brennan Jobs
- Reed Jobs
- Eve Jobs
- Erin Sienna Jobs
About
Steve Jobs has led an inspiring and impressionable life that has left large prints on the fabric of time. His story is one brilliance and awe, but not one without ups and downs. Steven Paul Jobs, known as Steve Jobs, was an American business magnate, industrial designer, investor, and media proprietor. He was the chairman, the chief executive officer (CEO), and a co-founder of Apple Inc., the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar, a member of The Walt Disney Company's board of directors following its acquisition of Pixar, and the founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT. Jobs is widely recognized as a pioneer of the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Early Life
Steve Job was born on the 24th of February 1955, to Abdul Jandali and Joanne Schieble, who were immigrants and unwed at the time, unable to care for him, they put him up for adoption in San Francisco. It was here that he met Paul and Carla Jobs who would go on to adopt him. Steve was a born genius and a child prodigy. He would often help his father who was a machinist take apart cars and put them back together, this kick started his love for machines. It was his father who taught him to pay attention to detail and showed him the cogs in the wheel so to speak. This inculcated his fascination with computers and their intricacy. When he was 13 he reached out to Bill Hewlett, founder of HP for electronic parts, for a school project. Bill was impressed and offered Steve a summer internship. Steve went on to have a distaste for formal education, but he still tried a hand at college. He joined the Reeds College but left after the first semester. Although he did continue to take the college’s course in calligraphy, “If I had never have dropped out, I would never have dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful calligraphy they do today” . Steve landed his first job at video game manufacturing company, ’Atari’. He saved enough money to travel to India with his friend for ’’spiritual enlightening’. He returned a Buddhist, he even shaved his head and wore traditional Indian clothing. He experimented a lot during this time. He even tried psychedelic drugs for further exploration of his mind. He lived a simple life , it was after this that he would begin the most important phase of his life.
Road to Success
Steve Jobs teamed up with Steve Wozniak, who he met at his summer internship at HP, they launched their first business, selling ’blue boxes’, which enabled people to make long distance calls for free, in 1972. It was a success and consequently led to the creation of the first ever Apple machine, which was funded by the sales of Wozniak’s calculator and Job’s Volkswagen van. They made enough profit to release the Apple 2, which was a huge success. The first year ,sales was at $3 million and after two years it was at a whopping $200 million. Apple 2 catalyzed the Apple company which was finally incorporated in 1977. Apple became publicly traded in 1980, with a $1.2 billion dollar market value. Unfortunately, this success didn’t last very long. In 1980, the market got more competitive and Apple 3 was not able to meet the standards set by the previous models, its flaws gave IBM an advantage. The Apple Macintosh released in 1984, meant to be a personal computer with a mouse controlled graphical user interface. Steve Jobs was fired from the Macintosh group, after an internal decision made by the board members of the company. He did not let this betrayal hold him back. He sold off his shares at Apple Stock and resigned in 1985. He went on to invest in a startup called Graphics Group now known as Pixar. He invested $50 million, which led to the production of movies like , ’The Incredibles’ and ’Toy Story’. Apple purchased Next for $400 million , this merge gave us the IOS we have today. He was reappointed to Apple’s board of directors as an advisor to CEP Gilbert F Amelio. In the next decade Jobs revolutionized technology and introduced people with Inventions like the iPhone, iPad and iPod.
Challenges
Steve was set to struggle to succeed from his birth. He was born to a young, unwed graduate student who had decided that the best outcome for her child was to put him up for adoption. However, Steve would hit the first roadblock of his adult-life at this point. He had decided to drop out of college as he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life as well as having no idea how college was going to help him figure this path out. He slept on the floor of friend’s rooms and he would return Coke bottles for the 5cent deposits in order to survive and buy food. It was during this time that Steve would attend drop-in classes in calligraphy, which he thought would have no bearing in his life, but he attended nonetheless out of interest. Little did he know at the time that this would be the preset for the customizable fonts and spacing for the iconic Macintosh computer. In 2004, the beginning of a series of health problems began as he was diagnosed with a supposedly incurable cancer that would leave him with an expected three-six months left to live. He was told by the doctor to “go home and get your things in order”, which Steve states is ‘doctor code’ for “prepare to die”. This event was followed by a liver transplant that he needed in 2009.
Failures
It was the first Apple computer that was not designed by its cofounder, Steve Wozniak. It was Apple's first attempt to break into the business market. There were many issues with the Apple III. It had serious stability issues and the motherboard get hot fast, because Steve thought the fan was too noisy and got rid of it. It resulted in design overhaul and recall of existing machines. Steve Jobs admired how technologically advanced the computer division of Lucasfilm (studio best known for Star Wars) was. When George Lucas was getting divorced, he sold the division to Steve. It's first product was the Pixar Image Computer. Aimed at high-end visualization markets, it never really took off. Even though it was orders of magnitude better than comparable competitive products, it was very expensive (even for the government) and it sold fewer than 300 computers.
Achievements
During his life, he received several awards including National Medal of Technology and Jefferson Award for Public Service.|He was inducted into California Hall of Fame in 2007. Same year, he was named the most powerful person in business by Fortune magazine.|In 2009, Fortune magazine named him as the CEO of the decade. Following year, he ranked at No 17 in Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People.|In 2012, Posthumously honored with an Edison Achievement Award for his commitment to innovation throughout his career.|In 2013, Posthumously inducted as a Disney Legend.
Quotes
- Failures do not define you, it is what you learn and how you move from there on that does.
- The path to success is a meandering and rocky road. There is no straight path.
- Let passion drive you, “You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to make right. If you're not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out."