Steve Jobs was born on 24th February 1955 in\h San Francisco California. His birth parents\h\h
had to give up Steve due to being too young at\h the time and not wanting to get married. Having\h\h
a child out of wedlock had a strong stigma in the\h 50’s, so Steve was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs.\h
In 1961 the family moved to Mountain View,\h California. This area, just south of Palo\h\h
Alto, California, was becoming the hub for\h electronics such as radios, televisions,\h\h
stereos, and computers. At that time people\h started to refer to the area as "Silicon Valley."\h
Paul Jobs was a machinist\h and fixed cars as a hobby.\h\h
Jobs remembers his father as being\h very skilled at working with his hands.\h\h
Paul built a workbench in his garage for his\h son to "pass along his love of mechanics”.\h
Steve often found it difficult in making\h friends his own age and struggled to function\h\h
in a traditional classroom. He resisted authority\h figures, frequently misbehaved and was suspended a\h\h
few times. Jobs later said himself he was “pretty\h bored in school and had turned into a little\h\h
terror..” He regularly played pranks on others\h at Monta Loma Elementary school in Mountain View.\h
Although Jobs credited his fourth\h grade teacher with turning him around:\h\h
"It took her about a month to get hip to my\h situation. She bribed me into learning. She would\h\h
say, 'I really want you to finish this workbook.\h I'll give you five bucks if you finish it.'\h\h
That kindled a passion in me for learning! I\h learned more that year than I think I learned in\h\h
any other year in school. They wanted me to skip\h the next two years in grade school and go straight\h\h
to junior high to learn a foreign language, but\h my parents very wisely wouldn't let it happen.”\h
Jobs did skip the fifth grade and transferred\h to the 6th grade at Crittenden Middle\h\h
School in Mountain View. However, this\h transition led to Jobs being bullied,\h\h
he then gave his parents an ultimatum, take him\h out of Crittenden or he would drop out of school.\h\h
His parents used all their savings in 1967 to\h buy a new house which would allow Jobs to change\h\h
schools. Their new house on Crist Drive in\h Los Altos, California would later become a\h\h
key figure in Apple’s history. Whilst Jobs\h started studying at Cupertino Junior High.\h
A fellow electronics hobbyist, Bill Fernandez,\h from Cupertino Junior High, became his first\h\h
friend. Fernandez later commented that "for some\h reason the kids in the eighth grade didn't like\h\h
Steve because they thought he was odd. I was\h one of his few friends." Fernandez eventually\h\h
introduced Jobs to electronics whiz Steve Wozniak,\h who lived across the street from Fernandez.\h
As a child, Jobs preferred doing things by\h himself. He swam competitively but was not\h\h
interested in team sports or other group\h activities. He spent a lot of time working\h\h
in the garage workshop of a neighbour who worked\h at Hewlett-Packard, an electronics manufacturer.\h
Jobs also enrolled in the Hewlett-Packard Explorer\h Club where he saw engineers demonstrate new\h\h
products, and he saw his first computer at the age\h of twelve. He was impressed and knew immediately\h\h
that he wanted to work with computers. While in high school Jobs attended lectures\h\h
at the Hewlett-Packard plant. On one occasion\h he boldly asked William Hewlett, the president,\h\h
for some parts he needed to complete for\h a class project. Hewlett was impressed,\h\h
he gave Jobs the parts and offered him a\h summer internship at Hewlett-Packard. Jobs said\h\h
“He didn't know me at all, but he ended\h up giving me some parts and he got me a\h\h
job that summer working at Hewlett-Packard on\h the line, assembling frequency counters...well,\h\h
assembling may be too strong. I was putting\h in screws. It didn't matter; I was in heaven.”\h
The location of the Los Altos home meant that\h Jobs would be able to attend nearby\hHomestead High\h\h
School, which had strong ties to\hSilicon Valley.\h He began his first year there in late 1968.\h\h
During mid-1970, Steve went through a period of\h change, he said "I got stoned for the first time;\h\h
I discovered Shakespeare,\hDylan Thomas, and all\h that classic stuff. I read\hMoby Dick\hand went back\h\h
as a junior taking creative writing classes."\h From that point, Jobs developed two different\h\h
circles of friends, those involved in electronics\h and engineering and those interested in art and\h\h
literature. These dual interests were particularly\h reflected during Jobs's senior year as his best\h\h
friends were Wozniak and his first girlfriend,\h the artistic Homestead junior\hChrisann Brennan.\h
He was described by a Homestead classmate as\h "kind of a brain and kind of a hippie ... but\h\h
he never fit into either group. He was smart\h enough to be a nerd, but wasn't nerdy. And he\h\h
was too intellectual for the hippies, who just\h wanted to get wasted all the time. He was kind\h\h
of an outsider. In high school everything\h revolved around what group you were in.\h\h
and if you weren't in a carefully defined group,\h you weren't anybody. He was an individual,\h\h
in a world where individuality was suspect."\h Paul and Clara Jobs had made a pledge when they\h\h
adopted Steve that they would send him\h to college. So they had worked hard and\h\h
saved dutifully for his college fund, which was\h modest but adequate by the time he graduated.\h\h
However Jobs, becoming ever more wilful minded,\h did not make it easy. At first he toyed with not\h\h
going to college at all.\h“I think I might have\h headed to New York if I didn’t go to college,”\h\h
When his parents pushed him to go to college, he\h responded in a passive-aggressive way. He did not\h\h
consider state schools, such as Berkeley, where\h Steve Wozniak was, despite that they were more\h\h
affordable. Nor did he look at Stanford, just up\h the road and likely to offer a scholarship.\h“The\h\h
kids who went to Stanford, they already\h knew what they wanted to do,” he said.\h\h
“They weren’t really artistic. I wanted something\h that was more artistic and interesting.”\h
Instead he insisted on applying only to\h Reed College, a private liberal arts school\h\h
in Portland, Oregon, that was one of the most\h expensive in the nation.\hHe was visiting Steve\h\h
Wozniak at Berkeley when his father called to\h say an acceptance letter had arrived from Reed,\h\h
he tried to talk Steve out of going there.\h So did his mother. It was more than they\h\h
could afford but similarly their son responded\h with an ultimatum: If he couldn’t go to Reed,\h\h
he wouldn’t go anywhere. They relented, as usual. Reed was known for its free-spirited hippie\h\h
lifestyle, which combined somewhat uneasily\h with its rigorous academic standards.\hSteve\h\h
enrolled at Reed to study Physics and Philosophy.\h Chirssan\hBrennan remained involved with Jobs while\h\h
he was at Reed. However Steve soon decided to\h drop out of Reed College. He liked being at\h\h
Reed however he didn’t enjoy having to attend the\h required classes. Jobs continued to attend classes\h\h
he enjoyed like\hcalligraphy. During that time the\h relationship between Jobs and Brennan broke down.\h
In a 2005 commencement speech at\hStanford\h University, Jobs stated that during this period,\h\h
he slept on the floor in friends' dorm\h rooms, returned Coke bottles for food money,\h\h
and got weekly free meals at the local\hHare\h Krishna\htemple. In that same speech,\h\h
Jobs said: "If I had never dropped in on\h that single\hcalligraphy\hcourse in college,\h\h
the Mac would have never had multiple\htypefaces\hor\h proportionally spaced fonts.”\h
In 1972 Wozniak had designed a low-cost\h digital "blue box" to generate the\h\h
necessary tones to manipulate the telephone\h network, allowing free long-distance calls.\h\h
Jobs decided that they could make money\h selling it. The two stopped making the\h\h
boxes after they were nearly caught by the\h police.\h Despite giving up on the venture,\h\h
they reportedly made about $6000 selling the blue\h boxes. Jobs said that if not for the blue boxes,\h\h
there would have been no Apple. And that they\h could take on large companies and beat them.\h
In mid-1973, when Jobs was 18 he moved back\h to the\hSan Francisco area and began renting\h\h
his own apartment. Brennan and Jobs relationship\h was complicated by this stage. Jobs hitchhiked\h\h
and worked around the West Coast and Brennan\h would occasionally join him. Brennan wrote\h\h
this in her dairy, "little by little, Steve and I\h separated. But we were never able to fully let go.\h\h
We never talked about breaking up or going our\h separate ways and we didn't have that conversation\h\h
where one person says it's over." They continued\h to grow apart, but Jobs would still seek her out,\h\h
and visit her while she was working in a\h health food store or as a live-in babysitter.\h\h
In 1973,\hSteve Wozniak\hdesigned his own version of\h the classic video game\hPong. After finishing it,\h\h
Wozniak gave the board to Jobs, who then took the\h game down to\hAtari\hin\hLos Gatos. Atari thought\h\h
that Jobs had built it and gave him a job as\h a\htechnician. Later Atari’s co-founder said\h\h
"The truth is that very few companies would hire\h Steve, even today. Why? Because he was an outlier.\h\h
To most potential employers, he'd just seem like\h a jerk in bad clothing. Steve was difficult but\h\h
valuable. He was very often the smartest guy in\h the room, and he would let people know that."\h
By early 1974, Jobs was living what Brennan\h describes as a "simple life" in a\hLos Gatos\hcabin,\h\h
working at\hAtari and saving money for his\h impending trip to India.\h One of his friends\h\h
had been to India and he was urging jobs\h to take his spiritual journey there too.\h\h
He ended up reaching the foothills of Himaya\h after days of traveling by train and bus.\h\h
That’s where he was supposed to see Neem Karoli\h Baba but by the time Jobs got there he had\h\h
passed away. Despite the setback, Jobs still spent\h seven months in India exploring his spirituality.\h
He said, “The people in the Indian countryside\h don’t use their intellect like we do,\h\h
they use their intuition and their intuition\h is more developed than the rest of the world.\h\h
Intuition is a very powerful thing,\h more powerful than intellect,\h\h
in my opinion. That’s had a big impact on my work”\h
After staying seven months, Jobs left\h India\hand returned to the US.\hJobs\h\h
had changed his appearance; his head was shaved\h and he wore traditional Indian clothing. Over this\h\h
time, Jobs experimented with\hpsychedelics, later\h calling his\hexperimentation with LSD\h“a profound\h\h
experience, one of the most important things in\h my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side\h\h
to the coin, and you can’t remember it when\h it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced\h\h
my sense of what was important—creating\h great things instead of making money,\h\h
putting things back into the stream of history\h and of human consciousness as much as I could.”\h
Jobs and Brennan both became practitioners of Zen\h Buddhism. Jobs was living with his parents again,\h\h
in their backyard tool-shed which he had\h converted into a bedroom with a sleeping bag,\h\h
mat, books, a candle, and a meditation pillow. He\h considered taking up monastic residence in Japan,\h\h
and maintained a lifelong appreciation for\h Zen.\hJobs would later say that people around\h\h
him who did not share his\hcountercultural\hroots\h could not fully relate to his thinking.\h
Jobs then returned to Atari and was assigned\h to create a\hcircuit board\hfor the\harcade\hvideo\h\h
game\hBreakout. According to Bushnell, Atari\h offered\h$100\hfor each\hTTL chip that was eliminated\h\h
in the machine. Jobs himself had little knowledge\h of circuit board design and made a deal with\h\h
Wozniak to split the fee evenly between them if\h he could minimize the number of chips. Much to the\h\h
amazement of Atari engineers, Wozniak reduced the\h TTL chip count from 96 to 46, a design so tight\h\h
that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly\h line.\hAccording to Wozniak, Jobs told him that\h\h
Atari gave them only $700 (instead of the $5,000\h paid out), and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.\h\h
It was only later that Wozniak found out about\h this to which he said "I cried, I cried quite\h\h
a bit when I read that in a book." It was around this time that Jobs\h\h
and Wozniak attended meetings of\h the\hHomebrew Computer Club\hin 1975,\h\h
which was a stepping stone to the development\h and marketing of the first Apple computer.\h
In 1976, Wozniak designed and developed\h the\hApple I\hcomputer and showed it to Jobs,\h\h
who suggested that they sell it. Jobs,\h Wozniak, and\hRonald Wayne\hfounded\hApple\h\h
Computer\hin the garage of Jobs's\h Los Altos home on Crist Drive.
The two Steves attended the Homebrew Computer\h Club together; a computer hobbyist group that\h\h
gathered in California's Menlo Park from 1975.\h Woz had seen his first MITS Altair there - which\h\h
today looks like little more than a box of lights\h and circuit boards.\hWozniak was inspired by MITS'\h\h
build-it-yourself approach (the Altair came as a\h kit) to make something simpler for the rest of us.
Wozniak went on to produce the first computer\h with a typewriter-like keyboard and the ability to\h\h
connect to a regular TV as a screen. It was later\h christened the Apple I and was the archetype of\h\h
every modern computer, but Wozniak wasn't\h trying to change the world with what he'd made\h\h
-\hhe just wanted to show off how much he'd\h managed to do with so little resources.
The two decided on the name "Apple" after Jobs\h returned from the All One Farm commune in Oregon\h\h
and told Wozniak about his time spent\h in the farm's\happle orchard.\hNeighbours\h\h
on Crist Drive had described Jobs as\h an odd individual who would greet his\h\h
clients "with his underwear hanging\h out, barefoot and hippie-like."
Jobs approached a local computer store,\hThe\h Byte Shop with the Apple I, who said they\h\h
would be interested in the machine, but only if\h it came fully assembled. The owner,\hPaul Terrell,\h\h
went further, saying he would order 50 of the\h machines and pay US $500 each on delivery.\hJobs\h\h
then took the purchase order that he had been\h given from the Byte Shop to Cramer Electronics, a\h\h
national electronic parts distributor, and ordered\h the components he needed to assemble the\hApple I\h\h
Computer. The local credit manager asked Jobs\h how he was going to pay for the parts. Jobs\h\h
explained about his purchase order from the Byte\h Shop which was cash on delivery. Jobs persuaded\h\h
Cramer Electronics to give him the parts on credit\h and would pay him once he delivered the computers.
Family and friends\hwere roped in to sit at a\h kitchen table and help solder the parts, and\h\h
once they'd been tested Jobs drove them over to\h Byte Shop. When he unpacked them, Terrell, who had\h\h
ordered finished computers, was surprised by what\h he found. Terrell had essentially received only\h\h
the motherboard of the computer. Customers would\h have to provide the keyboard, power supply and TV\h\h
to actually use the Apple I. Although Terrell\h was upset by this, he still accepted and paid\h\h
for the units. Not to mention giving Jobs an idea\h of what the next Apple computer should be like. \h
After the Apple I’s success, the business was in\h need of investment. They had used a variety of\h\h
methods, including selling various prized items\h like Wozniak's\hHP\hscientific calculator\hand\h\h
Jobs'\hVW\hbus. Jobs started looking for cash,\h but banks were reluctant to lend him money;\h\h
the idea of a computer for ordinary\h people seemed absurd at the time. \h
Co-Founder Ronald Wayne became hesitant about\h the business due to a failed venture four years\h\h
earlier and soon dropped out of the company,\h leaving the two Steves as the active primary\h\h
co-founders. In 1977 Jobs eventually met\hMike\h Markkula, an American businessman and investor who\h\h
co-signed a bank loan for $250,000 (equivalent\h to $1,080,000 in 2017). Markkula brought his\h\h
business expertise along with\hhis money and became\h a one-third owner of Apple and employee number 3.\h\h
Steve Wozniak, later credits Markkula for\h the success of Apple more than himself. \h
Meanwhile Chrisann Brennan returned from her\h own journey in India and she visited Jobs at\h\h
his parents' home where he was still living. It\h was during this period that Jobs and Brennan fell\h\h
in love again, as she noted changes in him that\h she attributes to\hKobun, a Zen priest that had\h\h
mentored Jobs. It was also at this time that Jobs\h displayed a prototype\hApple computer\hfor Brennan\h\h
and his parents in their living room. By the early\h 1977, she and Jobs would spend time together at\h\h
her home at\hDuveneck Ranch in Los Altos, which\h served as a hostel and environmental education\h\h
center. Brennan also worked there as a teacher\h for children who came to learn about the farm.\h
Wozniak and Jobs had soon moved on from the\h Apple I. Many of the design features of the\h\h
computer were due to the limited amount of\h money they had to construct the prototype,\h\h
but with the income from the sales\h of the Apple I and recent investment.\h\h
They were able to start construction of\h a greatly improved machine, the\hApple II;\h\h
the two Steves presented it to the public at the\h first\hWest Coast Computer Faire\hin April 1977.\h
The main difference internally was a completely\h redesigned TV interface, which held the display\h\h
in memory. Now not only useful for simple text\h display, the Apple II included graphics and,\h\h
eventually, colour. Jobs meanwhile pressed\h for a much improved case and keyboard,\h\h
with the idea that the machine should be\h complete and ready to run out of the box.\h
Jobs usually went to work wearing a black\h long-sleeved\hmock turtleneck,\hblue Levi jeans,\h\h
and\hNew Balance\h991 sneakers.\hHe said his\h choice was inspired by that of\hStuart Geman,\h\h
a noted applied mathematics professor at Brown\h University. Jobs liked the idea of having a\h\h
uniform for its daily convenience\h and maintaining a signature style.
As Jobs became more successful with his\h new company, his relationship with Brennan\h\h
grew more complex. In 1977, the success of\h Apple was now a part of their relationship,\h\h
while Brennan and Jobs moved into a\h house near the Apple office in\hCupertino.\h\h
Brennan eventually took a position in the shipping\h department at Apple. The relationship between\h\h
Brennan and Jobs was deteriorating as his position\h with Apple grew, and she began to consider ending\h\h
the relationship through small changes. In\h October 1977, Brennan was approached by\hRod Holt\h\h
who was Apple’s 5th employee and developed\h the unique power supply for the Apple II,\h\h
who asked her to take "a paid apprenticeship\h designing blueprints for the Apples."\h\h
Both Holt and Jobs felt that it would be a good\h position for her, given her artistic abilities.\h\h
Holt was particularly eager that she take the\h position and puzzled by her ambivalence toward it.\h\h
Brennan's decision, however, was overshadowed\h by the fact that she realized she was pregnant\h\h
and that Jobs was the father. It took\h her a few days to tell Jobs, whose face,\h\h
according to Brennan "turned ugly" at the\h news. At the same time, according to Brennan,\h\h
at the beginning of her third trimester, Jobs\h never wanted to ask her to get an abortion.\h\h
But he also refused to discuss the pregnancy\h with her. Brennan herself felt confused about\h\h
what to do. She did not feel comfortable with the\h idea of having an abortion. She chose instead to\h\h
discuss the matter with Kobun, who encouraged\h her to keep the baby and pledged his support.\h\h
Meanwhile, Holt was waiting for her decision on\h the internship. Brennan stated that Jobs continued\h\h
to encourage her to take the job by saying, ”be\h pregnant and work at Apple, you can take the job.\h\h
I don't get what the problem is." Brennan however\h notes that she felt so ashamed at the thought\h\h
of having a growing belly in a professional\h work environment with the child being Jobs.
Brennan turned down the internship and decided\h to leave Apple. She stated that Jobs told her\h\h
"If you give up this baby for adoption, you will\h be sorry" and "I am never going to help you.”\h\h
She would sometimes ask Jobs for money but\h he always refused. Brennan hid her pregnancy\h\h
for as long as she could, living in a variety of\h homes and continuing her work with Zen meditation.\h\h
At the same time, according to Brennan,\h Jobs started to spread rumours that\h\h
she slept around and he couldn’t\h conceive a child as he was infertile.\h
A few weeks before she was due to give birth,\h Brennan was invited to deliver her baby at the\h\h
All One Farm and she accepted the offer. When\h Jobs was 23 (the same age as his biological\h\h
parents when they had him) Brennan gave birth\h to her baby,\hLisa Brennan, on May 17, 1978.
Jobs went there for the birth after he was\h contacted by\hRobert Friedland, their mutual\h\h
friend and the farm owner. While distant,\h Jobs worked with her on a name for the baby,\h\h
which they discussed while sitting in the fields\h on a blanket. Brennan suggested the name Lisa\h\h
which Jobs also liked and notes that Jobs was\h very attached to the name Lisa while he was also\h\h
publicly denying paternity. She would discover\h later that during this time, Jobs was preparing\h\h
to unveil a new kind of computer that he wanted\h to give a female name. She also stated that she\h\h
never gave him permission to use the baby's\h name for a computer and he hid the plans from\h\h
her. Jobs also worked with his team to come\h up with the phrase, "Local Integrated Software\h\h
Architecture" as an\halternative explanation\hfor\h the\hApple Lisa. Decades later, however, Jobs\h\h
admitted to his biographer\hWalter Isaacson\hthat\h "obviously, it was named for my daughter".
When Jobs denied paternity, a\hDNA test\hestablished\h him as Lisa's father. It required him to\h\h
give Brennan $385 a month in addition to\h returning the welfare money she had received.\h\h
Jobs gave her $500 a month at the time when\h Apple went public, as Jobs became a millionaire.
On December 12, 1980, Apple launched the\hInitial\h Public Offering\hof its stock to the investing\h\h
public. It generated more capital than any IPO\h since\hFord Motor Company\hin 1956 and instantly\h\h
created more millionaires (about 300) than any\h company in history. \hSeveral venture capitalists\h\h
cashed out, reaping billions in long-term capital\h gains. Jobs was worth over $1 million in 1978\h\h
when he was just 23 years old. This grew to\h over $250 million by the time he was 25. He\h\h
was also one of the youngest people ever to make\h the\hForbes\hlist of the nation's richest people—and\h\h
one of only a handful to have done it\h themselves, without inherited wealth.
While the Apple II was already established\h as a successful business-ready platform\h\h
because of Visicalc, Apple was not content.\h The Apple III was designed to take on the\h\h
business environment, released on May 19, 1980. The Apple III was a relatively conservative\h\h
design for computers of the era. However, Steve\h Jobs did not want it to have a fan; instead,\h\h
he wanted the heat generated by the electronics to\h be dissipated through the\hchassis\hof the machine,\h\h
forgoing the cooling fan. However, the physical design of the\h\h
case was not sufficient to cool the components\h inside it. By removing the fan from the design,\h\h
the Apple III was prone to overheating. This\h caused the\hintegrated circuit\hchips to disconnect\h\h
from the motherboard. Customers who contacted\h Apple customer service were told to "raise the\h\h
computers six inches in the air, and then let go",\h which would cause the ICs to fall back into place.\h
Thousands of Apple III computers\h were recalled. A new model was\h\h
introduced in 1983 to try and rectify the\h problems, but the damage was already done.\h
By August 1981 Apple was among the three largest\h microcomputer companies. IBM\hentered the personal\h\h
computer market that month with the\hIBM PC,\hbut\h Apple had many advantages. While IBM began with\h\h
one microcomputer, little available hardware\h or software, and a couple of hundred dealers,\h\h
Apple had five times as many dealers in the US and\h an established international distribution network.\h
After examining the IBM PC and finding it\h unimpressive, Apple confidently purchased\h\h
a full-page advertisement in\hThe Wall\h Street Journal\hwith the headline "Welcome,\h\h
IBM. Seriously". Microsoft head\hBill Gates\hwas at\h Apple headquarters the day of IBM's announcement\h\h
and later detailed about How Apple didn’t seem\h to care and it took them a year to realize what\h\h
was happening. By 1983 the PC surpassed the\h Apple II as the best-selling personal computer.\h
Apple's board told Jobs he needed\h adult supervision but he could sign\h\h
off on whoever they hired. Jobs and the\h board went through about 20 candidates,\h\h
most in the tech sector, but Jobs vetoed them\h all. Finally, he met John Sculley, who had\hrisen\h\h
to CEO of Pepsi in just 10 years. He also had a\h reputation for being a marketing master, having\h\h
helped create the "Pepsi Challenge" campaign that\h sparked the so-called cola wars of the 1970s.\h\h
Jobs lured\hJohn Sculley\haway from\hPepsi-Cola\hto\h serve as Apple's CEO, asking, "Do you want to\h\h
spend the rest of your life selling sugared water,\h or do you want a chance to change the world?"\h
Apple Computer's business division was focused\h on the Apple III, another iteration of the\h\h
text-based computer. Simultaneously the Lisa\h group worked on a new machine that would feature\h\h
a completely different interface and introduce the\h words\hmouse,\hicon, and\hdesktop\hinto the\hvocabulary\h\h
of the computing public. In return for the\h right to buy US$1,000,000 of pre-IPO\hstock,\h\h
Xerox granted Apple Computer three\h days access to the PARC facilities.\h\h
PARC was a sub research and development company.\h After visiting PARC, they came away with new\h\h
ideas that would complete the foundation for\h Apple’s first\hGraphical User Interface computer.\h
By 1984, Apple had proved twice over that it was\h a force to be reckoned with. It had taken on IBM,\h\h
the biggest name in business computing, and\h acquitted itself admirably. The Apple I and\h\h
II were resounding successes, but while the\h Apple III and Lisa had been remarkable failures,\h\h
Apple needed another hit. Both to guarantee its\h future and to target the lower end of the market,\h\h
which to date it had regularly ignored. That hit, was the Macintosh: the machine\h\h
that largely guaranteed the company's future. We'll always remember Steve Jobs as the man who\h\h
launched the Macintosh, but he only arrived on the\h project in 1981 -\htwo years after Jef Raskin had\h\h
started work on the low-cost computer for home and\h business use. Jobs quickly stamped his mark on it,\h\h
and Raskin left in 1982 - before the product\h shipped. We must give Raskin credit for original\h\h
idea and its name (his favourite kind of\h apple was the McIntosh, but otherwise the\h\h
machine that eventually launched was a fair way\h away from the one he’d originally envisaged.\h
Raskin's early prototypes had text-based displays\h and used function keys in place of the mouse for\h\h
executing common tasks. Raskin later endorsed the\h mouse, but with more than the single button that\h\h
shipped with the Macintosh. It was Jobs and Bud\h Tribble, the latter of whom is still at Apple,\h\h
that really pushed the team to implement\h the GUI for which it became famous.\h
They saw the potential of the GUI’s\h desktop metaphorical based design,\h\h
and they'd already laid much of the groundwork\h for Apple's own take on the system as part of the\h\h
Lisa project. Tribble tasked the Macintosh team\h with doing the same for their own machine which,\h\h
in hindsight, may have been the most important\h directive ever issued by anyone inside Apple.\h
If the Macintosh team had continued down the\h text-and-keyboard path, it's unlikely their\h\h
product would have sold as well as it did - and\h Apple, as we know it, might not exist today at\h\h
all. In early 1984, at Apple's annual\h shareholders meeting, an emotional Jobs introduced\h\h
the\hMacintosh\hto a wildly enthusiastic audience. Nobody would ever deny that the original Macintosh\h\h
was a work of genius. It was small, relatively\h inexpensive and friendly. It brought the GUI\h\h
to a mass audience and gave us all the tools we\h could ever need for producing graphics-rich work\h\h
that would have costs many times as much on\h any other platform. Yet, right from the start,\h\h
it was in danger of disappointing us. You see, Apple had built it up to be\h\h
something quite astounding. It was going to\h change the computing world, we were told, and as\h\h
launch day approached, the hype continued to\h grow. It was a gamble – a big one – that any\h\h
other company would likely have shied away from. But then no other company was ran by Steve Jobs.\h
Jobs understood what made the Macintosh special.\h And he knew that, aside from the keynote address\h\h
at which he would reveal it, the show-stopping\h machine needed a show-stopping ad. He put in\h\h
a call to Apple’s agency, and tasked them\h with filling sixty seconds during the third\h\h
quarter break of Super Bowl 18. The premise was simple enough,\h\h
but the message was a gamble, pitting Apple\h directly against its biggest competitor, IBM.\h\h
They dominated the workplace of the early 1980s,\h and the saying that ‘nobody ever got fired for\h\h
buying IBM’ was a powerful expression working\h in its favour. People trusted the brand, staking\h\h
their careers on the simple choice of IBM or\h one of the others. As a result, the others often\h\h
missed out, and if Apple wasn’t going to languish\h among them, it had to change that perception.\h
So the ad portrayed Apple as humanity’s only hope\h for the future. It dressed Anya Major, an athlete,\h\h
with a picture of the Mac on her vest. She was\h bright, fresh and youthful, and a stark contrast\h\h
to the cold, blue, shaven-headed drones around\h about her. They were brainwashed by Big Brother,\h\h
who lectured them through an enormous\h screen. But Major hurled a hammer through\h\h
the screen to destroy the evil talking head. Even without the tagline, the inference would have\h\h
been clear, but Jobs and CEO John Sculley agreed\h to add the memorable line, ‘On January 24th, Apple\h\h
Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll\h see why 1984 won't be like Nineteen Eighty-Four’.\h
Two days after the 1984 ad aired,\h the Macintosh went on sale.\h\h
It came bundled with two applications designed\h to show off its interface:\hMacWrite\hand\hMacPaint.\h\h
Although the Mac garnered an immediate,\h enthusiastic following, it was too radical\h\h
for some, who labelled it a mere "toy". Because\h the machine was entirely designed around the GUI,\h\h
existing text-mode and\hcommand-driven\h applications\hhad to be redesigned\h\h
and the programming code rewritten; this was\h a challenging undertaking that many\hsoftware\h\h
developers\hshied away from, and resulted in an\h initial lack of software for the new system.\h
It had all been good news so far for\h Apple. The company was still young,\h\h
but going from strength to strength, and it\h offered some serious competition for its larger,\h\h
longer-established rivals. Sculley and Jobs\h management styles were wildly different, though,\h\h
and it's perhaps inevitable that this led to some\h conflicts between the two men. Sculley didn't like\h\h
the way that Jobs treated other staff members, and\h the two came to blows over more practical matters,\h\h
including the pricing of the Macintosh. From the moment of its inception,\h\h
the Macintosh was always supposed to be a computer\h for the rest of us, keenly priced so that it would\h\h
sell in large numbers. The aim was to put out a\h $1000 machine, but over years of development – as\h\h
the project became more ambitious – this almost\h doubled. Shortly before its launch it was slated\h\h
to go on sale at $1,995, but Sculley could see\h that even this wasn't enough and he decreed\h\h
that it would have to be hiked by another\h $500. Jobs disagreed, but Sculley prevailed\h\h
and the Macintosh hit the shelves at $2,495. That was just the start of the friction between\h\h
the two men, which wasn't helped by a downturn\h in the company's fortunes. Sales of the Macintosh\h\h
started to tail off, the Lisa was discontinued and\h Jobs didn't hide the fact that his initial respect\h\h
for Sculley had cooled. The board urged Sculley to\h reign Jobs in. That's exactly what he did, but not\h\h
until March 1985 -\hjust shy of two years after\h arriving at the company. Sculley visited Jobs\h\h
in his office and told him that he was taking away\h his responsibility for running the Macintosh team.\h
Talking to the BBC in 2012, Sculley said\h “what went on inside the company at the time:\h\h
When the Macintosh Office was introduced in\h 1985 and failed, Steve went into a very deep\h\h
funk. He was depressed, and he and I had a major\h disagreement where he wanted to cut the price of\h\h
the Macintosh and I wanted to focus on the\h Apple II because we were a public company.\h\h
We had to have the profits of the Apple II and we\h couldn't afford to cut the price of the Macintosh\h\h
because we needed the profits from the Apple II\h to show our earnings -\hnot just to cover the Mac's\h\h
problems. That's what led to the disagreement and\h the showdown between me and Steve and eventually\h\h
the board investigated it and agreed that my\h position was the one they wanted to support.”\h
Sculley and Jobs's respective visions for the\h company greatly differed. Sculley favoured\hopen\h\h
architecture\hcomputers like the Apple II, sold\h to education, small business, and home markets\h\h
less vulnerable to IBM. Jobs wanted the company\h to focus on the\hclosed architecture\hMacintosh as\h\h
a business alternative to the IBM PC. Sculley had\h little control over chairman of the board Jobs's\h\h
Macintosh division; it and the Apple II division\h operated like separate companies, duplicating\h\h
services. Although its products provided\h 85 percent of Apple's sales in early 1985,\h\h
the company's January 1985\hannual meeting\hdid\h not mention the Apple II division or employees.\h\h
Many left including Wozniak, who stated that the\h company had "been going in the wrong direction\h\h
for the last five years" and sold most of his\h stock. The Macintosh's failure to defeat the PC\h\h
strengthened Sculley's position in the company. But Jobs wasn't ready to go without a fight.\h
Sculley had to leave the country on business that\h May, and Jobs saw this as the perfect opportunity\h\h
to wrestle back control of the company. He\h confided in the senior members of his own team,\h\h
which at the time included Jean-Louis Gassée,\h who was being lined up to take over from Jobs\h\h
on the Macintosh team. Gassée told Sculley what\h was happening, and Sculley cancelled his trip.\h\h
The following morning, Sculley confronted\h Jobs in front of the whole board,\h\h
asking if the rumours were true. Jobs said they\h were, and Sculley asked the board to choose\h\h
between the two of them –\hhim or Jobs. They\h sided with Sculley, and Jobs' fate was sealed.\h
Scully reorganised the company, installed\h Gassée at the head of the computer division\h\h
and made Jobs Apple's chairman. That might sound\h like a promotion – but in reality it was a largely\h\h
ceremonial role that took the co-founder away\h from the day-to-day running of the company.\h
A few months later, on September 17, 1985, Jobs\h submitted a letter of resignation to the Apple\h\h
Board. Five additional senior Apple employees also\h resigned and joined Jobs in his new venture,\hNeXT.\h
Jobs later explained that the industry went in\h to a recession and Sculley did not know what\h\h
to do. He said there was a leadership vacuum\h at the top of Apple, there were strong general\h\h
managers running divisions at Apple but there was\h a lack of leadership. Jobs described John Sculley\h\h
as having an incredible survival instinct\h so that when the going got tough he blamed\h\h
all of Apple’s problems on Jobs. Mentioning\h that you don’t become one of the top CEO’s\h\h
in corporate America without learning how to\h survive. Steve Jobs said he hired the wrong guy.\h
Following his resignation from Apple in 1985,\h Jobs founded\hNeXT Inc.\hwith $7\hmillion. A year\h\h
later he was running out of money, and he sought\h venture capital with no product on the horizon.\h\h
Eventually, Jobs attracted the\h attention of billionaire\hRoss Perot,\h\h
who invested heavily in the company.\hThe NeXT\h computer was shown to the world in what was\h\h
considered Jobs's comeback event,\ha lavish\h invitation only gala\hlaunch event\hthat was\h\h
described as a multimedia extravaganza. In 1986, Jobs funded the spinout of The\h\h
Graphics Group (later renamed\hPixar) from\hLucas\h film's computer graphics division for the price\h\h
of $10\hmillion, $5\hmillion of which was given to\h the company as capital and $5\hmillion of which was\h\h
paid to Lucasfilm for technology rights. Jobs did what the best managers often do:\h\h
He got out of the way. It was said that Jobs\h "saw the potential of what Pixar could be before\h\h
the rest of us," and had only one request\h of the animated films: "make it great."\h
Some\hbelieve, that without Steve Jobs, Pixar would\h not have survived long enough to make\hToy Story\hor\h\h
any of the films that followed. And when others\h urged Pixar to pick up the pace and churn out\h\h
more CGI films per year, Jobs let Lasseter and\h Co. maintain a relative snail's pace — at least\h\h
for a film company, ensuring a slow-but-steady\h stream of high-quality and award-winning movies.\h
The first film produced by Pixar\h with its\hDisney\hpartnership,\hToy\h\h
Story\h(1995), with Jobs credited as\h executive producer, brought fame and\h\h
critical acclaim to the studio when it was\h released. Jobs took Pixar public in 1996,\h\h
and by the end of the first day of trading, his 80\h percent share of the company was worth $1 billion.\h\h
After nearly 10 years of struggling, Jobs had\h finally hit it big. But the best was yet to come.\h
Chrisann Brennan\hnotes that after\h Jobs was forced out of Apple,\h\h
"he apologized many times over for his behaviour"\h towards her and Lisa. She also states that Jobs\h\h
"said that he never took responsibility when he\h should have, and that he was sorry. By this time,\h\h
Jobs had developed a strong relationship\h with Lisa and when she was nine, Jobs had\h\h
her name on her birth certificate changed\h from "Lisa Brennan" to "Lisa Brennan-Jobs."\h\h
In addition, Jobs and Brennan developed\h a working relationship to\hco-parent\hLisa,\h\h
a change Brennan credits to the influence\h of his newly found biological sister,\hMona\h\h
Simpson\h(who worked to repair the relationship\h between Lisa and Jobs). Jobs found Mona\h\h
after first finding his birth mother, Joanne\h Schieble Simpson, shortly after he left Apple.\h
But Jobs didn’t contact his birth family\h during his adoptive mother Clara's lifetime.\h\h
He would later tell his official biographer\h"I\h never wanted Paul and Clara to feel like I didn't\h\h
consider them my parents, because they were\h totally my parents. I loved them so much that\h\h
I never wanted them to know of my search, and I\h even had reporters keep it quiet when any of them\h\h
found out." However, in 1986 when he was 31, Clara\h was diagnosed with lung cancer. He began to spend\h\h
a great deal of time with her and learned more\h details about her background and his adoption,\h\h
information that motivated him to find his\h biological mother. Jobs found on his birth\h\h
certificate the name of the San Francisco doctor\h to whom Schieble had turned when she was pregnant.\h
Jobs only contacted Schieble after Clara died\h and after he received permission from his father,\h\h
Paul. Jobs stated that he was motivated to find\h his birth mother out of both curiosity and a need\h\h
to see if she was okay and to thank her, because\h he was glad he didn't end up as an abortion. She\h\h
was twenty-three and she went through a lot\h to have him. Schieble was emotional during\h\h
their first meeting (though she wasn't familiar\h with the history of Apple or Jobs's role in it)\h\h
and told him that she had been pressured into\h signing the adoption papers. She said that she\h\h
regretted giving him up and repeatedly apologized\h to him for it. Jobs and Schieble would develop a\h\h
friendly relationship throughout the rest of\h his life and would spend Christmas together.\h
During this first visit, Schieble told Jobs that\h he had a sister, Mona, who was not aware that she\h\h
had a brother. Schieble then arranged for them\h to meet in New York where Mona worked. Her first\h\h
impression of Jobs was that he was straightforward\h and lovely, just a normal and sweet guy.\hSimpson\h\h
and Jobs then went for a long walk to get to know\h each other.\hJobs later told his biographer that\h\h
Mona was not completely thrilled at first to have\h me in her life and have her mother so emotionally\h\h
affectionate toward me but as we got to know\h each other, we became really good friends,\h\h
and she is my family. I don't know what I'd do\h without her. I can't imagine a better sister.\h
In 1989, Jobs first met his\h future wife,\hLaurene Powell,\h\h
when he gave a lecture at the\hStanford Graduate\h School of Business, where she was a student.\h\h
Soon after the event, he stated that Laurene "was\h right there in the front row in the lecture hall,\h\h
and I couldn't take my eyes off of her\h ... kept losing my train of thought,\h\h
and started feeling a little giddy." After the\h lecture, Jobs met up with her in the parking\h\h
lot and invited her out to dinner. From that\h point forward, they were together, with a few\h\h
minor exceptions, for the rest of his life. Jobs proposed on New Year's Day 1990 with\h\h
a handful of freshly picked wildflowers. They\h married on March 18, 1991, in a Buddhist ceremony\h\h
at the\hAhwahnee Hotel\hin\hYosemite National\h Park. Fifty people, including his father, Paul,\h\h
and his sister, Mona, attended. The ceremony was\h conducted by Jobs's\hguru,\hKobun Chino Otogawa.\h\h
Jobs's and Powell's first child, Reed, was\h born September 1991.\hJobs's father, Paul,\h\h
died a year and a half later, on March 5,\h 1993. Jobs and Powell had two more children,\h\h
Erin, born in August 1995, and Eve, born in\h 1998.\hThe family lived in\hPalo Alto, California.\h\h
NeXT workstations were first released in 1990\h and priced at\h$9,999. Like the\hApple Lisa, the\h\h
NeXT workstation was technologically advanced and\h designed for the education sector, but was largely\h\h
dismissed as cost-prohibitive for educational\h institutions.\hThe NeXT workstation was known\h\h
for its technical strengths, chief among them was\h its\hobject-oriented\hsoftware development system.\h\h
Jobs marketed NeXT products to the financial,\h scientific, and academic community, highlighting\h\h
its innovative, experimental new technologies,\h such as the\hMach kernel, the\hdigital signal\h\h
processor\hchip, and the built-in\hEthernet\hport. NeXT went after the education market, which had\h\h
been Apple’s territory. However, it did it with\h even more expensive hardware than Apple’s. Outside\h\h
of the LC line, Apple’s systems were pricey in the\h early 1990s. NeXT attempted to make up for this\h\h
by aiming its sales teams at higher education,\h selling not mere computers, but “workstations.”\h
After the 1990 hardware didn’t sell well NeXT\h stopped manufacturing computers in 1993 to\h\h
become a software-only vendor, selling NeXTSTEP as\h a combination operating system and object-oriented\h\h
development environment. NeXTstep for Intel\h became a popular product among large companies\h\h
and especially financial institutions for rapidly\h developing and deploying custom software.\h\h
Meanwhile at Apple, the future isn’t looking so\h bright. Despite initially being quite successful\h\h
in chasing high profits with wide margins,\h its market is starting to shrink and, with it,\h\h
so did its retained income. For the first\h time in the company’s history, its year-end\h\h
results showed its cash balances to be rising\h more slowly than they had the year before.\h
That wasn't its only problem, though. IBM had been\h out-earning Apple since the mid-1980s, when it\h\h
established itself as the dominant force in office\h computing. There was little indicating that this\h\h
would change any time soon and, to make matters\h worse, Apple’s key differentiator was about to\h\h
be dealt a close-to-lethal blow: Microsoft was\h gearing up for Windows 3 -\ha direct competitor\h\h
to the all-graphical Macintosh System Software. Apple Computer bought NeXT in 1996 after its own\h\h
efforts to upgrade the Macintosh operating system\h failed.\h After the sale, Steve Jobs first began\h\h
working as an advisor but was later appointed\h acting-CEO, and then finally CEO of the company.\h\h
Apple said that NeXT’s “strengths in development\h software and operating environments” would be\h\h
combined with Apple’s “ease-of-use” and multimedia\h software. Apple initially said that NeXTSTEP\h\h
features would be used in its own operating\h system, Mac OS. Soon after Apple closed the deal,\h\h
however, NeXTSTEP became the foundation on\h which all future Apple operating systems,\h\h
including today’s macOS, could be traced. Arguably Apple saved Next from being a failure\h\h
however much of its software helped build\h the next generation of Apple. NeXT failed\h\h
to achieve its objectives and burned a ton\h of cash in the process. But the hardware and\h\h
software wasn’t without technical qualities. Some writers, like Randall Stross in\hSteve\h\h
Jobs and The NeXT Big Thing,\hwould pin\h the\hbusiness\hfailure mostly on Jobs,\h\h
and his personality, who famously micromanaged\h everything, insisted on bizarrely difficult and\h\h
expensive positions, alienated important partners,\h and pivoted wildly as they ran out of money and\h\h
investors. However this failure taught him so\h much that he was finally able to be a great CEO\h\h
when he returned to Apple in the late\h 1990s. Steve Wozniak\hexplained in a\h\h
2013 interview that while Jobs was at NeXT\h he was really getting his head together.\h
In 1996, Apple announced that it would\h buy\hNeXT\hfor $427\hmillion. The deal was\h\h
finalized in February 1997,\hbringing Jobs back\h to the company he had cofounded. Jobs terminated\h\h
a number of projects, such as\hNewton,\hCyberdog,\h and\hOpenDoc. In the coming months, many employees\h\h
developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding\h in the elevator, "afraid that they might not\h\h
have a job when the doors opened. The reality\h was that Jobs's summary executions were rare,\h\h
but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize\h a whole company."\hJobs also changed the licensing\h\h
program for\hMacintosh clones, making it too costly\h for the manufacturers to continue making machines.\h
When\hJobs returned, the company\hwasn't in a very\h good condition. Apple had begun to flounder as\h\h
cheap PCs running Windows flooded the market.\h Jobs found himself in the driver's seat again\hand\h\h
took some drastic steps to turn the company\h around. Jobs summoned Apple’s top employees to\h\h
the auditorium, and, wearing shorts and sneakers,\h got up on stage and asked everyone to tell him,\h\h
quote, “what’s wrong with this place.” After some murmurings and uncertain responses,\h\h
Jobs cut everyone off. “It’s the products! So\h what’s wrong with the products? The products\h\h
suck! There’s no sex in them anymore!” And that’s because while Jobs was away\h\h
Apple started to lose their iconic identity\h which was a trademark of Steve Jobs influence.\h\h
Prices went up and Macs suddenly stopped\h selling. The product line proliferated\h\h
and became so fragmented that it was impossible to\h tell the difference between models. This not only\h\h
confused customers, but also sales associates,\h and Apple’s image was damaged in the process.\h
Jobs started making steps to put back in place\h the Apple he had originally built. This started\h\h
at the 1997\hMacworld Expo, Steve Jobs announced\h that Apple would be entering into a partnership\h\h
with\hMicrosoft. Included in this was a five-year\h commitment to release\hOffice\hfor Macintosh as well\h\h
as a $150 million investment. As well as Apple and\h Microsoft agreed to settle a long-standing dispute\h\h
over whether Microsoft's Windows operating system\h infringed on any of Apple's patents. Jobs used the\h\h
money to ramp up advertising and highlight\h the products Apple already offered, while\h\h
choking off\hR&D\hmoney in non-producing areas. One of Jobs's first moves as new acting CEO was\h\h
to develop the\hiMac, which bought Apple time to\h restructure. The original iMac integrated a CRT\h\h
display and CPU into a streamlined, translucent\h plastic body. The line became a sales smash,\h\h
moving about one million units each year. It also\h helped re-introduce Apple to the media and public,\h\h
and showcased the company's new\h emphasis on design and aesthetics.\h
Through Jobs's guidance, the company increased\h sales significantly with the introduction of\h\h
the\hiMac\hand other new products. Their appealing\h designs and powerful marketing worked well\h\h
for Apple. And at the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs\h officially dropped the "interim" modifier from\h\h
his title and became Apple’s permanent CEO. In May 2001, after much speculation,\h\h
Apple announced the opening of their own retail\h stores, to be located throughout the major\h\h
U.S. computer buying markets. The stores\h were designed for two primary purposes:\h\h
to stem the tide of Apple's declining share of the\h computer market and to respond to poor marketing\h\h
of Apple products at third-party retail outlets. Another initial selling point was the original\h\h
incarnation of the Genius Bar, which\h featured pictures of Albert Einstein\h\h
and other famous geniuses who had been included\h in\hApple's "Think Different" ads\hof the time.\h\h
Jobs positioned the in-store "geniuses" as able to\h answer customers' questions —and if they couldn't,\h\h
there was a landline to someone in Cupertino who\h could.\h More than 500 fans lined up at the Tysons\h\h
store starting before dawn that first day. Over\h the weekend, Tysons and Glendale hosted more than\h\h
7500 visitors, and sold\ha combined\h $600,000\hin products over the first two days.\h
In the years following, the Apple Store has grown\h to more than 500 locations in over 20 countries.\h\h
It has surged in growth despite\h troubling times for the retail sector,\h\h
especially in the consumer electronics space.\h While helping to drive Apple's own growth\h\h
and playing a key role in the launches of\h iPod, iPhone, iPad and more, the Apple Store\h\h
also forever changed the look of computer\h and electronics retail. And that look has\h\h
been widely imitated, from\hMicrosoft launching a\h chain of lookalike stores\hto\hSony attempting the\h\h
same\hto\hactual knockoff Apple Stores\hin China.\h However, in order to grow faster, Apple needed\h\h
something other than the Mac. The company\h subsequently branched out, introducing and\h\h
improving upon other digital devices. Portable\hMP3\h players had been around since the mid-1990s,\h\h
but Apple found that everyone on the market\h offered a lackluster user experience.\h\h
Steve Jobs had a strong term for gadgets\h like that: “crap”. Everyone at Apple agreed.\h
Flash memory based players of the era held only\h about 15 songs.\hHard drive\hplayers held far\h\h
more but were relatively big, heavy, and\h they sported difficult-to-navigate user\h\h
interfaces that did not scale well when\h scrolling through thousands of songs.\h
Moreover, most portable media players used the\h pokey USB 1.1 standard to transfer music from\h\h
a host\hcomputer\hto the player, which made the\h user wait up to five minutes to transfer about\h\h
15 songs. When moving thousands of songs,\h the transfer time could shoot up to several\h\h
hours. Jobs decided that Apple should attempt\h to create its own MP3 player, one that played\h\h
well with iTunes and could potentially\h attract more customers to the Mac platform.\h
2001 marked an uncertain time for the company.\h The recent tech stock crash loomed fresh in\h\h
everyone’s minds, and Apple was just barely\h breaking even financially. The company’s\h\h
main focus was on the Mac\hcomputer\hline, and it\h had few resources to spare for other projects.\h
Due to this the iPod had to be finished\h quickly so Apple wouldn’t shut down the\h\h
project; the product had to justify its existence\h as a financial drain on the company. Product lead,\h\h
Tony Fadell also felt that competitors would\h beat Apple to market with a similar device\h\h
if Apple didn’t work as fast as it could. After six months of hard work,\h\h
the iPod began to come together. The concentrated\h and well-organized efforts of Apple’s various iPod\h\h
teams proved that they could finish the product\h in time, but one hiccup almost got in the way.\h
The events of September 11, 2001, took\h place during the final stretch of the iPod’s\h\h
development. As the attacks unfolded, an Apple\h team carrying key iPod prototypes from Taiwan\h\h
landed on U.S. soil—just before the U.S.\h government shut down air travel nationwide.\h\h
The iPod prototypes made it in time. The first iPod shipped in November 2001.\h\h
And to date, Apple has sold more than 304\h million units across four different models.\h
With the successful introduction of the\hiPod,\h the company entered the mobile device and\h\h
music distribution industries. Giving\h and enormous boost to Apple’s revenue.\h
In 2003 Apple launched the iTunes music\h store with 200,000 songs at 99 cents each,\h\h
giving people a convenient way to buy\h music legally online. It sold 1 million\h\h
songs in its first week. Music expert Mark\h Mulligan described Jobs as single-handedly\h\h
pulling the music industry into the digital age. Before Apple launched iTunes, Jobs met with dozens\h\h
of musicians in the hopes of corralling record\h labels into going along with the iTunes plan.\h\h
One of the people Jobs pitched to was\h prominent trumpet player Wynton Marsalis.\h\h
Marsalis said Jobs talked for two hours straight.\h “He was a man possessed,” he said. “After a while,\h\h
I started looking at him and not the computer,\h because I was so fascinated with his passion.”\h
Pitching and selling was a key part of Jobs’\h repertoire. He was one of the world’s best\h\h
presenters. His keynote speeches captivated\h audiences and have become a staple of the Apple\h\h
brand. He didn't just announce a new Apple\h product; he found ways to get the audience\h\h
as excited as possible while masterfully making\h that Apple product the next "must have" item. Jobs\h\h
passion shown through each and every presentation\h which resonated with the audience. He was both\h\h
admired and criticized for his skill at persuasion\h and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the\h\h
"reality distortion field" and was particularly\h evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially\h\h
known as "Stevenotes") at\hMacworld Expos\hand\h at\hApple Worldwide Developers Conferences.\h
However in October 2003, Jobs was diagnosed\h with cancer. In mid-2004, he announced to his\h\h
employees that he had a cancerous tumor in\h his\hpancreas.\hThe prognosis for\hpancreatic\h\h
cancer\his usually very poor;\hbut Jobs stated\h that he had a rare, much less aggressive type.\h
Despite his diagnosis, Jobs resisted his doctors'\h recommendations for medical intervention for nine\h\h
months,\hinstead relying on\halternative\h medicine\hto thwart the disease.\h\h
According to Harvard researcher Ramzi\h Amri, his choice of alternative treatment\h\h
"led to an unnecessarily early death". Other\h doctors agree that Jobs's diet was insufficient\h\h
to address his disease. With Kettering Cancer\h Center Chief Barrie Cassileth, saying, "Jobs'\h\h
faith in alternative medicine likely cost him his\h life.... He had the only kind of pancreatic cancer\h\h
that is treatable and curable.... He essentially\h committed suicide."\hAccording to Jobs’ biographer,\h\h
Walter Isaacson, he refused to undergo\h surgery for his cancer because, quote,\h\h
“he didn’t want his body being opened.” A decision\h Jobs later regretted as his health declined.\h
It was around this time in 2005, a year after he\h was first diagnosed with cancer, that Jobs made a\h\h
candid speech to graduating students at Stanford\h University. This speech is known as one of the\h\h
best Jobs has ever delivered. He talked about\h his love for what he does and the importance of\h\h
“Staying hungry, staying foolish.” He also\h reflects on the hardest moment of his life,\h\h
leaving Apple in 1985. He explains that he didn’t\h see it at the time but it ended up being the\h\h
best thing that could’ve happened to him. Back at Apple, Jobs began preparing for\h\h
the\hJune 6, 2005 Worldwide developers\h conference, where Apple would reveal\h\h
their plan to begin producing\hIntel-based Mac\h computers in 2006.\hAnd when that day arrived,\h\h
the new\hMacBook Pro\hand\hiMac\hbecame the first\h Apple computers to use Intel's\hCore Duo\hprocessor.\h\h
By August, Apple had made the transition\h to Intel chips for the entire Mac\h\h
product line—one year earlier than expected. And all of these great performances and products\h\h
helped to boost Apple's stock price, which\h increased more than tenfold between early 2003 and\h\h
2006, from around $6 per share to over $80. And\h in January 2006, Apple's\hmarket cap surpassed that\h\h
of\hDell, a huge milestone for the company.\hBecause\h nine years prior, Dell's CEO had said that if he\h\h
ran Apple he would "shut it down and give the\h money back to the shareholders." Jobs sent an\h\h
email to all employees when Apple's\hmarket\h capitalization\hrose above Dell’s, it read:\h
Team, it turned out that Michael Dell\h wasn't perfect at predicting the future.\h\h
Based on today's stock market close, Apple is\h worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and\h\h
things may be different tomorrow, but I thought\h it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve\h
Meanwhile Pixar's contract with Disney was running\h out, Jobs and Disney chief executive\hMichael\h\h
Eisner\htried but failed to negotiate a new\h partnership, and in early 2004, Jobs announced\h\h
that Pixar would seek a new partner to distribute\h its films after its contract with Disney expired.\h
But In October 2005,\hBob Iger\hreplaced Eisner at\h Disney, and Iger quickly worked to mend relations\h\h
with Jobs and Pixar. In 2006, the two announced\h that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an\h\h
all-stock transaction worth $7.4\hbillion. When the\h deal closed, Jobs became\hThe Walt Disney Company's\h\h
largest single shareholder with approximately\h seven percent of the company's stock.\h
In January 2007, Apple entered the smartphone\h business with the introduction of the\hiPhone.\h\h
It included a touch display, all the features\h of an iPod, and an internet browser. It was a\h\h
complete rebuke of the entire smartphone market,\h which had been fixated on adding more buttons,\h\h
more features, and more styluses. But all\h those things came at the detriment of the\h\h
user experience. That’s why Steve Jobs used this\h graph while introducing the iPhone. The Moto Q,\h\h
Nokia E62, and Palm Treo were more capable than\h the average cellphone, but those extra features\h\h
added complexity. The iPhone set out to deliver\h the best of both worlds: The most feature-filled\h\h
phone ever, while also being the easiest to use.\h And it all started by eliminating what Steve Jobs\h\h
had loathed throughout his entire career: Buttons. The iPhone had a huge multi touch display, with\h\h
only one button. That way, the interface could\h change depending on which app was being used.\h\h
An approach that had worked well on computers\h for decades. There was also pinch-to-zoom,\h\h
physics-based effects like inertial\h scrolling and rubber-banding,\h\h
and multitasking that allowed users to seamlessly\h switch from music to phone calls to web browsing\h\h
to email and back. The first-generation iPhone\h may be considered primitive by today’s standards,\h\h
with its 2-megapixel camera, small display,\h and thick frame. But the original iPhone\h\h
single-handedly began the modern smartphone\h era, with nearly all of today’s devices\h\h
borrowing it’s design and functionality elements. On June 28, 2007, the iPhone finally went on sale\h\h
after five months of anticipation. And the\h excitement resulted in lines forming outside\h\h
Apple Stores across the country two days before\h the product’s release. The iPhone was nothing\h\h
short of a success, with a quarter of a million\h units being sold on its first day. Smart phone\h\h
makers went back to the drawing board to develop\h multi-touch devices that could compete, and Apple\h\h
went to work on their next model, the iPhone 3G. In January 2009 Jobs issued a memo informing Apple\h\h
employees, quote, “that my health-related issues\h are more complex than I originally thought.”\h\h
And he took a six-month medical leave of absence,\h leaving Tim Cook in charge of Apple’s day to day\h\h
operation, as he did in 2004. At this point, Jobs\h finally agreed to undergo a liver transplant.\h\h
And by mere coincidence, Tim Cook happened to be\h an eligible donor since he shared Job’s O negative\h\h
blood type. But when Cook offered a portion of his\h liver, Jobs cut him off. Yelling, “No, I'll never\h\h
let you do that. I'll never do that." Instead,\h he was put on a waiting list in Tennessee,\h\h
where he had the best chance of receiving\h a liver transplant as quickly as possible.\h\h
And that’s exactly what happened in April 2009.\h Post surgery, Job’s prognosis was described as\h\h
“excellent.” And he returned to Apple\h six weeks later on a part-time basis.
The first public appearance Jobs made after\h his surgery was at an Apple Event in September\h\h
2009. When he walked on stage, Jobs was met with a\h standing ovation that lasted almost a minute long.\h\h
It was during this event that he unveiled the\h iPad. A product that was actually conceived\h\h
before the iPhone, but was shelved due to the\h smartphone project taking priority. The idea of\h\h
a tablet in particular appealed to Job’s, mainly\h because of its simplicity and portability. There\h\h
was no keyboard or mouse needed, just a sheet\h of glass that displayed anything you wanted.\h\h
In fact, Jobs called the iPad, quote, “the most\h important thing I’ve ever done.” Probably due\h\h
to its potential to replace traditional computers\h and usher in what’s been called the post-PC era.\h
Rumors of an Apple tablet circulated for\h many months before iPad was unveiled.\h\h
And people speculated what its operating\h system might look like. After all, the Mac,\h\h
iPod, and iPhone all featured their own operating\h systems optimized for the display and processing\h\h
power of each product. So why would the iPad be\h any different? The logic made sense. But Jobs saw\h\h
things differently. In his view, the iPad should\h run the same operating system as the iPhone,\h\h
while featuring tablet-versions of apps\h that take advantage of its larger display.\h
So when the iPad was finally introduced on January\h 27th, 2010, many people were disappointed. Posting\h\h
comments like, “It’s a giant iPhone. Not\h revolutionary at all.” “Just an oversized\h\h
iPod touch. This will not sell well, no need for\h this device.” “No chance of running OS X software,\h\h
biggest disappointment if you ask me and\h worthless for someone who owns an iPhone already.”\h\h
“Here’s your big iPod really, no USB, no\h printing, nothing.” These feelings were\h\h
commonly shared in the tech community, and\h it had a negative effect on Jobs. He said,\h\h
“I kind of got depressed today.\h It knocks you back a bit.”\h
But luckily for Apple, people outside the tech\h world were loving iPad. It received high praise\h\h
from well-known reviewers like David Pogue\h and Walt Mossberg, and most importantly,\h\h
customers were buying it like crazy. One\h million units were sold in its first 28 days.\h\h
Which is pretty astonishing considering that took\h the iPhone 74 days to achieve. The iPad went on\h\h
to become the fastest-selling consumer product in\h history. Beating out the previous record-holder:\h\h
The DVD player. Jobs was riding high,\h releasing one hit after another at Apple,\h\h
with no signs of slowing down. But there was one\h thing beginning to catch up with him, his health.\h
In early 2011, a year and a half since Jobs\h returned to Apple after his liver transplant,\h\h
he took a third medical leave of absence. His\h letter to employees looked the same as it had\h\h
the previous two times, and Tim Cook again took\h over in his stead. The only difference this time,\h\h
was that Jobs would never return to\h Apple. Despite the leave, Jobs still\h\h
appeared at the\hiPad 2\hlaunch event on March 2 and\h the\hWWDC on June 6th, when he introduced iCloud.\h
Ever since the early days of Apple, Jobs’ believe\h in creating a seamless and unified ecosystem for\h\h
users. That’s why he refused to license a third\h party operating system for the Mac, or even\h\h
license Apple’s own Macintosh System Software to\h third party computer manufactures. Despite the the\h\h
fact doing so would’ve made Apple more money\h and allowed their operating system to achieve\h\h
a higher marketshare. He recognized that the\h more a product was fragmented, the more problems\h\h
it would cause for customers. Part of Jobs’\h efforts to create a seamless user experience,\h\h
was to provide a cloud-based service that could\h keep all of a user’s data in sync across all their\h\h
devices. Initially that service was called\h MobileMe, which cost $99 a year. But the execution\h\h
was flawed and resulted in a product that just\h didn’t work. Jobs fired the person in charge,\h\h
and Apple made a second attempt with iCloud,\h which supplied users with 5GB of space for free.\h
It was introduced in 2011. And Jobs said,\h “We’re going to demote the PC and the Mac\h\h
to just be a device. We’re going to move\h your hub, the center of your digital life,\h\h
into the cloud.” This time, their cloud-based\h service actually worked. And it resulted in\h\h
a fairly magical experience for users. Photos\h shot on their iPhone would automatically appear\h\h
on their Mac and iPad, while emails and calendar\h events synced seamlessly across all their devices.\h\h
It was an incredible service that’s more important\h to Apple’s ecosystem today than ever before.\h
But despite Apple’s successes, Jobs’ health only\h continued to fail. His situation became so dire,\h\h
that he was forced to resign as Apple's CEO. In\h August 2011, Jobs wrote a letter to the board,\h\h
saying, "I have always said if there ever came\h a day when I could no longer meet my duties and\h\h
expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the\h first to let you know. Unfortunately, that\h\h
day has come." Jobs became chairman of Apple’s\h board and named Tim Cook as his successor as\h\h
CEO.\hAs chairman, Jobs continued to work for Apple\h until the day before his death six weeks later.\h
He passed away at his\hPalo Alto\h home around 3\hp.m. on October 5,\h\h
due to complications from a\hpancreatic tumor\h that resulted in\hrespiratory arrest.\hHis\h\h
wife, children, and sisters were at his side.\hMona\h Simpson described his death, saying "Steve's final\h\h
words, hours earlier, were monosyllables,\h repeated three times. Before embarking,\h\h
he'd looked at his sister Patty, then for a long\h time at his children, then at his life's partner,\h\h
Laurene, and then over their shoulders past\h them. Steve's final words were: 'Oh wow. Oh wow.\h\h
Oh wow.'" He then lost consciousness and died\h several hours later.\hA small private funeral\h\h
was held on October 7, the details of which, out\h of respect for Jobs's family, were not revealed.\h
For two weeks following his death, Apple displayed\h a photo of Jobs on their homepage in remembrance.\h\h
On October 19, a private memorial service was held\h on Apple’s campus. Jobs's widow, Laurene, was in\h\h
attendance, as well as Cook,\hBill Campbell,\hNorah\h Jones,\hAl Gore, and\hColdplay.\hSome of Apple's\h\h
retail stores closed briefly so employees could\h attend the memorial. A video of the service was\h\h
made availably publicly on Apple’s website. Jobs was one of the most innovative and\h\h
influential entrepreneurs of our time. He left a\h legacy that will be marveled over and studied for\h\h
decades. Despite his humble beginnings, Jobs was\h able to build the most valuable brand in the world\h\h
and revolutionize several industries. His identity\h was so intertwined with Apple’s, that when he\h\h
resigned, many predicted the company’s decline.\h Claiming they’d no longer be able to innovate\h\h
without their visionary leader. But many people\h failed to recognize the most crucial gift Jobs\h\h
left behind. His philosophy. When he was forced\h out of the company in 1985, John Sculley didn’t\h\h
share Jobs beliefs about what made a product\h great. But when Jobs resigned in 2011, the company\h\h
had been steeped in that philosophy. And Tim Cook\h was perhaps the individual who understood it best.\h
In fact, shortly before his death, Jobs told Cook,\h “Never ask what I would do. Just do what's right.”\h
Since Tim Cook took over the company in 2011,\h Apple’s value has grown exponentially. Fueled\h\h
by hit products like the Apple Watch and AirPods.\h Even though Jobs hasn’t been with the company for\h\h
a decade, his philosophy lives within Apple today,\h and will continue to exist long into the future.