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"I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done"
- Steve Jobs, 2008
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He is a poster child for the rebellious. He is an icon in the world of business and technology. He is a symbol of rare determination and grit. The tall, balding 54-year old Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, is the man who made people ‘think differently.’ And to no one’s surprise he has been selected as Fortune’s CEO of the Decade and was one of the finalists for TIME magazine’s Person of the Year 2009.
Born to unmarried parents, an Egyptian father and an American mother, Jobs was given up for adoption soon after his birth. Named Steven Paul by his foster parents, he was raised during the 1960s and early 1970s in what later became California’s Silicon Valley. It was an era coming alive with technological innovations, one that captured his young imagination. Bright and curious, he became captivated with electronics, prompting him to write to William Hewlett for a rare electronic part for a high school project. That letter landed him a job at Hewlett-Packard as a summer employee, and it was there that he met his future business partner and electronic whiz-kid Steve Wozniak.
But Jobs was quirky, rebellious and a free spirit. He dropped out of Oregon’s Reed College after just one semester, worked a short stint for game maker Atari, and later backpacked through India in search of himself, shaving his head. When he returned, he met up with Wozniak once again, this time during a computer club meeting.
The team up of Wozniak and Job worked. Wozniak was an electronics genius, and Jobs a charismatic fellow who knew how to sell an idea. With Wozniak’s basic version of a computer, and Jobs’ inspiration to build a company, the two friends started the business of making computers in Jobs’ parents’ garage in 1976. The company was christened “Apple” because of Jobs’ fond childhood memory of working in an apple orchard. A year later they introduced Apple II, which was the first personal computer to be commercially marketed on a grand scale.
In the next several years, Apple grew on Wozniak’s technical genius and Jobs’ marketing skills to a $2 billion company with more than 4000 employees. Sadly, Wozniak left Apple after a plane crash left him with a battered memory.
By now in a war with IBM which introduced its own competing computer in 1981, Jobs went on to unveil the Apple Macintosh in 1984, which introduced revolutionary and easy-to-use graphics. This marriage of technology and visual graphics, with curbside appeal, became a phenomenon that changed the fortunes of the company. But not so for Jobs. Known for being mercurial and short-tempered, Jobs lost control of his own company after a fallout with then CEO John Sculley.
Determined not to be defeated, Jobs launched NeXT Computers in 1989, and bought Pixar, a floundering animation company. In 1995, Pixar scripted the worldwide hit animation movie “Toy Story” and the very next year NeXT was bought by Apple for $400 million. Jobs was invited to return to the company he founded.
It proved to be Jobs’ second coming. Apple had been badly stumbling in Jobs’ absence, with the company’s market share reduced to a mere 8% in 1993. But in the next four years, Jobs turned the company around to profitability. Once again proving his genius in design, he introduced the wildly popular iMac and iBook range of computers, which enhanced Apple’s brand name. Meanwhile, Pixar continued its success streak with a string of box-office hits and in 2001 Jobs again revolutionized the lives of millions, unveiling the iPod music player and later the ground-breaking iPhone.
But the joy of success was momentarily snuffed out when Jobs health took a turn for the worse. He has undergone two surgeries in the past five years – to treat pancreatic cancer and for a liver transplant. Yet, as Jobs biographer Alan Deutschman told the San Francisco Chronicle, “Steve's special quality is his extraordinary tenacity and resilience. You knock the guy down, and he keeps coming back and he keeps taking risks.”
Risks are what Jobs, always clad in his signature anti-corporate black turtleneck and blue faded denim is known for. But he is also revered as a clever businessman, a crafty salesman and a visionary who continues to work the magic behind Apple’s stellar performance. Even during the debilitating financial recession, Apple has stood strong, worth about $170 billion today and commanding 73% of the U.S. mp3 player market. Apple’s fourth quarter 2009 revenues totaled an astounding $9.87 billion, recording its second best quarter ever. Jobs was, “thrilled to have sold more Macs and iPhones than in any previous quarter.”
In the world of technology and innovation, Jobs has achieved an iconic aura. But his illness is a constant reminder of his mortality. Jobs once said, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” And this could not be truer for the man who changed the lifestyle of the world.
Image Credit: Aido2002 under a Creative Commons license
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