Steve Jobs is best known for being the co-founder of the giant technology company; Apple Inc. Jobs was born on February 24th, 1955, and is the current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Apple. Steve Jobs got started in the 1970s, along with his partners Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula, and others, by building computers in Steve’s garage. Since then, Jobs has been through a lot, and made Apple a huge success.
Jobs was born in San Francisco, California, and is the adopted son of Paul and Clara Jobs. His sister, who is also adopted, is named Patty. Job’s biological sister is Mona Simpson, a novelist. Jobs attended Cupertino Junior high School, and Homestead High School, which are located in Cupertino, California. Steve got his start in computers by attending after school lectures by the Hewlett Packard Company, and later got a job working in the summer with them with Steve Wozniak. After graduating Jobs would go to Reed College, in Oregon but would drop out shortly after. Jobs later would start attending meetings at Homebrew Computer Club with Steve Wozniak, and later got a job with Atari, which at the time was the largest video game producer.
Shortly after he had enough money saved up from his various jobs, he decided that he would take a spiritual trip to India. This trip influenced him very much, as he came back a Buddhist, and dressed in Indian culture, and talking about his experiences with LSD and psychedelic drugs.
In 1976, Steve Jobs along with Steve Wozniak and others would found their own computer company, called Apple. The company started off slow, selling computers out of their garage. The company would get the CEO of Pepsi at the time, John Sculley. Steve Jobs recruited him by asking him “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water to children, or do you want a chance to change the world?” Apple Computer originally started slow, as it was tough to compete with the large companies that could sell their computers for much cheaper than Apple. Steve Jobs refused to license his operating system like Bill Gates did with Microsoft, as he wanted to sell the computers and operating system as a whole. Of course, computer giants were able to sell their computers cheaper, which is why Windows became more popular than Apple. Apple computers were still known as better computers, and more advanced than Windows PCs. Apple was the first computers to have the graphical user interface, including the mouse.
Steve Jobs would make Apple a huge success, with the invention of the iPod especially. Apple is best known for an excellent design, great fan base, and innovative products, which eventually get copied by the other companies. Almost everyone has an iPod, so that was Apple’s biggest success. Due to the success of other products, the company was changed from Apple Computer, to just Apple Inc. The creation of the iTunes store, has also made iPods a huge success, and created a large amount of revenue for Apple. Apple also offers other great products, including their newest launch, the iPad. The iPad is a touch screen tablet computer, similar to the iPod touch or iPhone. Apple’s expansion into the phone market was a huge success for them, as the iPhone makes up a huge percentage of the Smartphone market, and Apple makes a huge amount of revenue based on the App Store, which they opened up to third party developers.
Steve did have to leave Apple for a short period of time, due to health reasons. Jobs needed work done on his liver, but was able to return to Apple, and Apple has been running smoothly since. His typical management style is back in effect, and the stock price for Apple has been the talk of many, and has risen greatly since the invention of the iPod, iPhone, and the iPad. It’s unclear as of now if the iPad will be a success, or as big of a success as the iPod and iPhone, but it is still a great product.
