On Thursday, 6 October 2011
Steve
Jobs has died at the age of 56. Jobs was the charismatic mastermind
behind Apple. With his leadership, the company went from a startup in
his parents' garage to the highest-valued company in the world,
introducing the idea that technology can be an object of desire.
@techradar - RIP Steve Jobs - You made the world a more interesting place. A leading light in technology has been extinguished
Jobs'
career began when he dropped out of Reed College on Oregon after a
year, choosing instead to drop in on other classes at the campus. One
was calligraphy. "It was beautiful, historical, artistically
subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it
fascinating,"
A
decade later that course influenced his work on the Macintosh, which
introduced beautiful typography to a computer for the first time.
"And since Windows just copied the Mac," he later
explained, "it's likely that [without this] no personal computer
would have them."
@simonwalton - You don't have to be an Apple fan to appreciate just how much Jobs shaped our world. What a genius he was.
Jobs'
intuition for balancing technology and art would become the
cornerstone of Apple's game plan, but his business savvy and sales
ability would also pave his way to a rare fortune.
One
example was in 1975. A 20-year-old Jobs was working for Atari,
building a reputation for getting things done.
@stephenfry - Woke to the news of Steve Jobs's death. He changed the world. I knew him a little and admired him entirely. Love to Apple and his family.
Bosses
offered Steve a huge bonus if he could improve their flagship arcade
game, Breakout.
Jobs turned to his geeky friend Steve 'Woz' Wozniak, offering half
the $700 fee if he could complete it in four days.
Apple
began one year later, when Jobs found Woz building his own computer.
He saw potential in the relatively small prototype, and suggested
they go into business -- Woz as product designer, Jobs as salesman.
Everything
was perfect; they were young, talented and living in Silicon Valley
at just the right time. Computers were set to become the most
profitable industry in the world. After one year they brought their
flagship computer to market: the Apple II. It made them rich.
@xeonwales - Mac changed computers. iPod changed music. iPhone changed mobile phones. Pixar changed movies . Jobs changed the world. #RIPSteveJobs
"From
almost the beginning at Apple we were, for some incredibly lucky
reason, fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time,"
he told the Smithsonian. "The contributions we tried to make
embodied values not only of technical excellence and innovation --
which I think we did our share of -- but innovation of a more
humanistic kind."
Jobs
became a superstar in the 80s, but with the growing pressure of
running a global business, he needed help. He turned to Pepsi boss
John Sculley in 1983, famously asking, "Do you want to sell
sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me
and change the world?"
@VINNYGUADAGNINO - Everybody put an iPhone up in the air one time #ripstevejobs
Sculley
accepted, but the relationship soured. Jobs was fired.
Being
kicked out of the company he founded and lived for most of his adult
life left him devastated.
But
Jobs later admitted it was the best thing that ever happened to him.
The weight of Apple's vast success had begun to starve his
creativity, and being fired let him appreciate being a beginner
again.
During
this time he founded Pixar, which made the first ever computer
animated film, Toy
Story -- a genuine classic. When Disney bought the
company for $7.4bn in 2006, Jobs became Disney's largest single
shareholder.
At
the same time, Jobs also ventured back into computing with a new
company, NeXT. It built an operating system and Jobs later sold it to
his old friends at Apple, who renamed it OS X.
@TNADixie - Saddened to hear about the passing of Steve Jobs. A true visionary and leader. It's amazing how one person's ideas truly changed our lives.
But
Apple had begun to flounder without its original visionary, and Jobs
returned to lead it in 1997.
From
that point on, every leading Apple product was given at least one
killer feature to separate it from the copycat industry that would
surround it.
The
first iMac was a stylish jab at the beige computers of the day, with
a striking range of colours. Jony Ive's refreshing design became a
thing of mainstream technology lust -- you didn't need to be a geek
to love computers any more.
Then
the iPod and iTunes brought about a revolution in the music industry.
In fact, it was so much more than just music -- it opened the door to
digital products being a normal thing to buy.
The
iPhone would be Apple's greatest coup. It brought touchscreen phones
to the mainstream and Apple became a leading player in the mobile
phone industry, out of nowhere. Suddenly, Apple could do anything.
The
iPad could be the culmination of Jobs' genius. The product had been
planned for decades: this
concept video is
from 1987. It shows how Apple wanted to produce a tablet with what
would become FaceTime and Siri two decades ago, predicting it would
be available in September 2011.
"My
model for business is The Beatles," Jobs
said in 2003.
"There were four guys who kept each others', kind of, negative
tendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total was
greater than the sum of the parts. And that's how I see business. You
know, great things in business are never done by one person. They're
done by a team of people."
Away
from his work, Jobs was a family man, married in 1991 to Laurene
Powell. After stepping down from Apple after his third medical leave
in August this year, with Tim
Cook taking
his seat as CEO, a neighbour described his son's high school
graduation.
"There
Steve stood, tears streaming down his cheeks, his smile wide and
proud, as his son received his diploma and walked on into his own
bright future, leaving behind a good man and a good father who can be
sure of the rightness of this, perhaps his most important legacy of
all."
Jobs'
greatest words could be from that Stanford University speech he made
in 2005.
"Sometimes
life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith... Your work
is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be
truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only
way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it
yet, keep looking. Don't settle.
"As
with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And,
like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the
years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
"Stay
hungry. Stay foolish."
Steve
Jobs, 1955-2011
