Overview
Steven Paul Jobs (1955-2011) was the co-founder, twice-CEO, and spiritual architect of Apple Inc., the company whose 1977 Apple II, 1984 Macintosh, 1998 iMac, 2001 iPod, 2007 iPhone, and 2010 iPad successively re-defined entire industries. A college dropout who audited calligraphy classes at Reed College, Jobs turned aesthetic minimalism and obsessive control into a $2-tr-plus market-cap empire, while simultaneously shepherding Pixar from a Lucasfilm spin-off into the studio that made the first fully computer-animated feature, Toy Story (1995). His career spanned three seismic acts: the garage-to-IPO rocket of Apple (1976-85), the wilderness years at NeXT and Pixar (1985-96), and the triumphant return that vaulted Apple from near-bankruptcy to the world’s most valuable public company (1997-2011). When he died of pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer on 5 Oct 2011, he left a legacy of 338 issued patents and a consumer-electronics landscape permanently tilted toward seamless hardware-software integration.
Background & Origins
Born 24 Feb 1955 in San Francisco and adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs of Mountain View, California, Steve grew up in the nascent Silicon Valley, tinkering with electronics in the family garage. A prank-call "blue box" built with future co-founder Steve Wozniak in 1971 foreshadowed his belief that well-designed tech should feel magical. After Homestead High School (1972) and a single-semester stint at Reed College, Jobs worked the night shift at Atari to fund a 1974 trip to India seeking spiritual insight. Returning with a shaved head and Buddhist leanings, he joined the Homebrew Computer Club where Wozniak’s hobby board became the 1976 Apple I.
Major Achievements & Milestones
Apple Computer Co. Founded (1 Apr 1976): Jobs, Wozniak, and Ron Wayne incorporate Apple in Cupertino; the Apple I kit sells for $666.66.
Apple II Launched (Jun 1977): First mass-market plastic-cased computer with color graphics and a 1 MHz 6502 CPU; sales exceed 5 million units by 1993.
Macintosh Introduced (24 Jan 1984): 128 KB, 9-inch b/w screen, $2,495; popularizes GUI and mouse, setting the template for modern PCs.
NeXT Computer (Oct 1988): Jobs’s post-Apple start-up ships a magnesium-cube workstation running NeXTSTEP OS; Tim Berners-Lee uses it to invent the World Wide Web at CERN.
Pixar IPO (29 Nov 1995): After buying Lucasfilm’s graphics division for $5 million in 1986, Jobs steers Toy Story to $373 million global box office; Pixar stock debuts at $22, valuing his 80 % stake at ~$1.2 billion.
iPod Unveiled (23 Oct 2001): 5 GB, 1,000 songs in your pocket; pairs with iTunes (Jan 2001) to ignite legal digital music; 400 million units sold by 2014.
iPhone Released (29 Jun 2007): 3.5-in capacitive multi-touch, 2G, iOS 1.0; spawns the app economy and reaches 1 billion units sold in 2016.
iPad Debuts (3 Apr 2010): 9.7-in, 1 GHz A4 chip; sells 300,000 units on launch day, creates the modern tablet market worth $70 billion by 2020.
Timeline
- 1955: Born in San Francisco; adopted by the Jobs family.
- 1972: Graduates Homestead High; enrolls at Reed, drops out after one semester.
- 1976: Co-founds Apple Computer; Apple I goes on sale for $666.66.
- 1977: Apple II introduced at West Coast Computer Faire.
- 1980: Apple IPO creates ~300 millionaires overnight; largest since Ford, 1980.
- 1984: Macintosh debuts during Super Bowl XVIII with Ridley Scott’s "1984" ad.
- 1985: Forced out by Apple board; founds NeXT.
- 1986: Acquires Pixar from Lucasfilm for $5 million.
- 1995: Toy Story released; Pixar IPO.
- 1996: Apple buys NeXT for $429 million; Jobs returns as interim CEO (iCEO) 1997.
- 1998: iMac G3 launches; company returns to profitability.
- 2001: First Apple retail stores open; iPod ships.
- 2003: iTunes Store opens with 200,000 songs at 99 ¢ each.
- 2007: iPhone introduced; Apple Inc. drops "Computer" from name.
- 2010: iPad ships; A4 chip debuts.
- 2011: Resigns as CEO 24 Aug; becomes chairman; dies 5 Oct.
Impact & Legacy
Jobs’s insistence that technology must be "insanely great" elevated design from afterthought to core business strategy, influencing everything from Samsung’s Galaxy line to Google’s Material UI. The App Store (2008) created a $500 billion-plus software ecosystem employing 20 million developers worldwide. His 2007 iPhone keynote effectively killed the physical keyboard and ushered in the mobile-first era—by 2023, 92 % of global internet users access the web via phones. Pixar’s string of hits under his chairmanship (11 Academy Awards, $14 billion box office) proved that computer animation could be emotionally resonant, forcing Disney to re-invest in its own CG division. Even his failures—NeXT’s $6,500 workstation—became seeds of success: NeXTSTEP evolved into macOS, iOS, and watchOS. The phrase "Think Different" remains shorthand for entrepreneurial audacity, while Apple’s $3-tr market cap (first achieved 2022) stands as the ultimate valuation of that vision.
