Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs co-founded Apple, was forced out of it, and returned to make it the most valuable company in the world. Born in San Francisco in 1955 to graduate students who gave him up for adoption, he was raised in Mountain View by Paul and Clara Jobs, and his adoptive father's work restoring cars taught him that the parts nobody sees should be finished properly. He dropped out of Reed College after a semester and audited a calligraphy course, which he later credited for the Macintosh's typography. He travelled in India, worked at Atari, and in 1976 founded Apple with Steve Wozniak, who designed the machines while Jobs sold them. The Apple II made the company. The Macintosh of 1984 brought the graphical interface and the mouse — seen at Xerox PARC — to a consumer product. He was removed from his own company in 1985 after losing a boardroom fight with the chief executive he had recruited. The exile was productive. He founded NeXT, whose software became the foundation of every later Apple operating system, and bought Pixar from George Lucas, which produced Toy Story in 1995 and eleven more films. Apple bought NeXT in 1996 and he returned, cutting the product line to four machines and then producing the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad. He was demanding to the point of cruelty, took credit freely, and denied paternity of his eldest daughter for years. He was diagnosed with a pancreatic tumour in 2003 and delayed surgery for nine months trying alternative treatments. He died in 2011.
- Lived: 1955 CE – 2011 CE
- Nationality: American
- Roles: entrepreneur, inventor, ceo
