Steve Jobs: Biography and Career

Steven Jobs was born on February 24nd 1955 in San Francisco, California to AbduleFattah Jandali and Joanne Carole. Joanne Schieble (later Joanne Simpson) and Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, two University of Wisconsin graduate students, gave up their unnamed son, Steve Jobs, for adoption. Jobs’ father, Jandali, was a Syrian political science professor, and his mother, Schieble, worked as a speech therapist. Shortly after Steve was placed for adoption, his biological parents married and had another child, Mona Simpson. It was not until Jobs was 27 that he was able to uncover information on his biological parents.

As an infant, Jobs was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs and named Steven Paul Jobs. Clara worked as an accountant and Paul was a Coast Guard veteran and machinist. The family lived in Mountain View, California, within the area that would later become known as Silicon Valley. Jobs grew up with his one sister Patty. As a boy, Jobs and his father worked on electronics in the family garage. Paul showed his son how to take apart and reconstruct electronics. He showed an early interest in electronics and gadgetry. He spent a lot of time working in the garage workshop of a neighbor who worked at Hewlett-Packard, an electronics manufacturer.

He later was admitted to the Hewlett-Packard Explorer club at the age of twelve years. He had an opportunity to interact with world’s best engineers and at the age of 12 he came face to face with a computer for the first time (Wilson & Suzan, 2010). It was so interesting that he vowed he wanted to work with computers.

While in high school, Jobs attended lectures at the Hewlett-Packard plant. On one occasion he boldly asked William Hewlett (1931–2001), the president, for some parts he needed to complete a class project. Hewlett was so impressed he gave Jobs the parts and offered him a summer internship at Hewlett-Packard.

After graduating from high school in 1972, Jobs attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, for two years. He dropped out after one semester to visit India and study eastern religions in the summer of 1974. In 1975, Jobs joined a group known as the Homebrew Computer Club. One member, a technical whiz named Steve Wozniak (1950–), was trying to build a small computer. Jobs became fascinated with the marketing potential of such a computer. In 1976, Jobs and Wozniak formed their own company. They called it Apple Computer Company, in memory of a happy summer Jobs had spent picking apples. They raised $1,300 in startup money by selling Jobs’ microbus and Wozniak's calculator. At first, they sold circuit boards (the boards that hold the internal components of a computer) while they worked on the computer prototype (sample).

Career

Jobs had noted the scarcity of computers in the market. He also noted that the few computers that were there far much big in size that they could fit in a big house. These computers were always referred to as the mainframe computers. Apart from the volume these computers were so expensive and only the rich could have afforded to buy one. They also had noted the slowness of the computer in performing their functions. There were advances in computers producing some smaller units, however, the rate was too low to cater for the increasing demand of computers daily. As a result of this, Jobs and Wozniack re-established the idea with the intention of developing personal computers which could be used by individuals. This led to the establishment of Apple Company in the year 1977. That same year, the company registered high sales of up to $2.7 million. The company grew rapidly and in a span of 3 years with a capital worth of $200 million sales. This was an entire new market in the United States.

Jobs and Wozniack developed a whole different idea of computers which could be personalized. By the year 1980, personal computers had already taken its place in the market. Due to many entrepreneurs following the same suit, Apple was forced to keep on updating their product so that they can keep up with the new competition in the market.

During that same period, Jobs was heading the most important project in the company’s history. In 1979 he led a small group of Apple engineers to a technology demonstration at the Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to see how the graphical user interface could make computers easier to use and more efficient. Soon afterward, Jobs left the engineering team that was designing Lisa, a business computer, to head a smaller group building a lower-cost computer. Both computers were redesigned to exploit and refine the PARC ideas, but Jobs was explicit in favoring the Macintosh, or Mac, as the new computer became known. Jobs referred his engineers as artists. Jobs demanded a redesign of an internal circuit board because he considered it unattractive. He would later be renowned for his insistence that the Macintosh be not merely great but “insanely great.” In January 1984, Jobs himself introduced the Macintosh in a brilliantly choreographed demonstration that was the centerpiece of an extraordinary publicity campaign. It would later be pointed to as “event marketing.”

Macintosh had some small pictures on the screen known as icons. To use the computer, one had to click on the icons. This type of technology was quick and easily accessible. Unfortunatly, Macintosh did not do well in the market sales, this saw the down fall of Apple and job resigned from the company he had founded in the year 1985 though he still retained his position as the overall chair of the company.

Later in 1988 Job employed staffs from Apple and formed the NeXT which was launched officially in San Francisco. This brand was purely aimed for educational purposes. The response was good, and the product picked up at a very high speed (Butcher, 2009). This was because of its outstanding features. Such as beautiful graphics display, high-speed processor as well as an awesome sound system. However, despite its wonderful features, the NeXT could not match other computers in the market because it was very expensive. It had a black and white display and could only operate alone for there was no room for merging it with other computers.

NeXT was purchased by Apple in the year 1996 at a cost of $400 million after NeXT failed terrible in the market. Steve made a comeback to Apple but this time round as a senior advisor to the Chief Executive Officer. On the onset of 1997, Apple signed a collaboration partnership with Microsoft, one of her worthy competitors. The two companies argued that they had too much to share and work together in efforts to produce better products. This market took place in New York and according to a report given by the New York Times; the two companies had agreed to work in many technological fronts.
The same year, Steve Jobs announced that apple would start selling its product via internet and phone to direct users. This was the step rise for apple as they recorded huge sales in only one week. As a result, in September of 1997 Steve jobs was announced the interim CEO of Apple (Butcher, 2009).

In 1998, Job through Apple announced the release of yet another ultra-efficient system known as the iMac. IMac was affordable as well as had quality features. The iBook was released in the year 1999. This was a kind of a laptop which had very distinctive colors, had high internet integration and was very efficient. It had the Apple Airports which was a system where one would access internet icon on the laptop without using the cable. He also established the Apples internet distribution strategies which include the Macintosh internet strategy. Jobs also made it clear that he was taking over as the permanent CEO of Apple. And it's worth putting in years of your life to make it come into existence." Jobs have really worked to transform ideas into consumable units which are helpful to the human kinds. Steven Jobs was pivotal in establishing the personal portable computers as well as touch screen phones (Young &Jeffrey, 2015).

Steve reestablished Apple in quite a fantastic way. He established the iPhone in 2007 which was a phone that had various features such as a touch screen and later there was the birth of the iPhone tablets. Through his efforts, iPod was established in 2008. This gadget had classic sound waves and it revolutionized the music industry across the globe. By the end of the year, Apple had made an estimated profit of $200 million through the sales of iPods. Jobs always had the desire to develop new products which people would use; he can be described as an innovative designer.

Family and Personal Life

Brennan and Jobs relationship began in 1972 while they were students in high school together. Brennan remained involved with Jobs while he was at Reed College. Their relationship was complicated and could never commit to one another. However, on May 17th 1978, Chrisann gave birth to a baby girl and named her Lisa. Initially Jobs denied the girl wasn’t his but he later accepted the responsibility.

He later married Laurene Powell in 1991 and together they had 3 children. They settled in California.

Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the year 2003. Since then he faced health problems which constantly kept him out of his duty. He was forced to request Tim Cook to manage Apple on his behalf.

He went through a kidney transplant on the year 2009. He worked with Apple up to 2011 when he quitted to concentrate on his health (Wilson & Suzan, 2010). He died on the 5th of Oct. 2011 after suffering a cardiac arrest. Jobs is said to have portrayed agnosticism belief.

The 16th of October is celebrated as the “Steve Jobs day” in the state of California. This was declared by Jerry Brown, who was the governor of California by the time Job died. Job was named the greatest entrepreneur of the year by Fortune magazine.

References

1. Brashares, A. (2011). Steve Jobs: Think Different. Brookfield: Twenty-first Century Books.
2. Butcher, L. (2009) Accidental Millionaire: The Rise and Fall of Steven Jobs at Apple
3. Computer. New York, Paragon House.
4. Wilson & Suzan.(2010) Steve Jobs: Wizard of Apple Computer. Berkeley Heights.Enslow.
5. Young &Jeffrey S.(2015)Steve Jobs: The Journey is the Reward. Glenview, Scott.
6. Website https://www.notablebiographies.com/Ho-Jo/Jobs-Steve.html#ixzz5mZwH7Yiz

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