Wire rimmed glasses, black turtleneck, and jeans society automatically knows this symbolizes Steve Jobs. The population also knows him from one five letter word, ‘Apple’. Steve Jobs is so influential to society that they know him from the smallest details. However, he was not always an influential person. He had to start from the bottom and push through barriers, trials, and tribulations and in the end, he succeeded. Steve Jobs became one of the most well-known technological engineers in power throughout all the endeavors that he endured.
Steve Jobs’ life all started when he was born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco, California. He was given up for adoption by his mother. Soon after, he was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs of Mountain View, California. As he attended school, he was not like the rest of the children. He was not interested in regular learnings. Instead, he was a class clown because he was so bored. His parents decided to move to Los Altos, California, when he was in junior high because he was not getting challenged enough. When he got to high school, he found an interest in technology. Once he knew what he wanted, he was determined. He was actually so bold that he contacted William Hewlett, the president of Hewlett Packard, so he could acquire some parts that he needed for an electronics project. The fact that he was bold and knew what he wanted benefited him in the end. He not only obtained the parts; he was offered a summer job at Hewlett Packard. He proceeded to graduate from high school in 1972. Jobs later attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, for two years before he dropped out abruptly.
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Although Jobs dropped out, he did not let that become a burden onto him. He moved forward and stayed in company with a group that called themselves the Homebrew Computer Club. The ‘club’ was led by Steve Wozniak, whom Jobs coincidentally knew from high school. At this point in time, computers were complicated and Wozniak wanted to engineer a small, simple system. While Wozniak worked on building the machine, Jobs lined up financing and grew his dream of marketing to the masses. This is where Apple all started, and it all began in a garage. The prototype that was produced was the original Apple computer. The first customer liked is so much that he immediately ordered 25 of the machines. It stood out more than other computers because it had a circuit board and many other features, like the fact it could load and read programs from other sources. Soon after, in 1977, Jobs and Wozniak came out with the second generation of the machine, the Apple II. It was only up from there. Sales of the Apple II were $2.7 million that first year, and in three years, sales skyrocketed to $200 million. Before they knew it, Wozniak and Jobs, both college dropouts, were multimillionaires before the age of 30. They did not celebrate for too long because Wozniak soon left the firm and returned to Berkeley to finish college. The decline continued as more competition was arising such as IBM, Radio Shack, and Commodore. The release of the Apple III was plagued by technological issues and ineffective marketing. They just could not compete with lower-priced machines from IBM. At the point, they had lost half of their market share to IBM. The bad news does not stop there. Apple soon came out with the Macintosh model in 1984. It was meant to be even more user-friendly, but it had its ‘Achilles heel’. Jobs did not include a hard disk drive or offer a top-quality printer with it. Soon after he left Apple to venture out.
After departing from Apple, Jobs started a new computer company, NeXT, which aimed to reach the educational market. He also acquired Pixar Animation Studios for $10 million from filmmaker, George Lucas. He took a risk and invested $50 million into Pixar. It all paid off in the end when first wholly computer-animated film, ‘Toy Story’ was a certified smash hit when it was released in 1995. Pixar thrived with ‘A Bug’s Life’ and the sequel to ‘Toy Story’. By 1999 Jobs’ 73 percent share of Pixar was worth $1.1 billion. It did not stop there. Pixar went on to make several more profitable films, including ‘Finding Nemo’ and ‘The Incredibles’. Shortly after, Apple was in dire need of his help. Apple acquired Jobs as a part-time consultant for Apple’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Gilbert Amelio. Jobs climbed his way back to the top and soon took over as interim CEO of the troubled company. In less than two years, jobs had brought the company back to where it needed to be when they introduced the iMac. Much later he produced the iPhone, which is widely known to this day. It did hit a few bumps in the road due to some scandals.
The continuing success of Apple was overshadowed, unfortunately, by Jobs’ health problems. In January 2009, Jobs announced that he had a treatable hormone imbalance. He was still trying to stay strong and push through because he cared so much about the company. He even vowed to run Apple while receiving treatment. A few weeks later, he stated that he was going to take a six-month medical leave of absence due to his health problems. Jobs later officially resigned as CEO of Apple in late August 2011. He did not want to bring the company down with him so he resigned. Only a caring would do that. Unfortunately, Jobs passed away at his home in Palo Alto on October 5, 2011.
Although Steve Jobs has passed away, he has left a legacy of power and growth behind for all of the world to see. He worked his way up from the bottom to get what he wanted, and that he certainly got. He once said, “Stay hungry, Stay foolish”. That quote is basically saying that if you want something, you need to go get it. People cannot just sit there and wait for things to be handed to you because that is not what life is. Life is about the struggle. People have to fight for what you want. So, if Steve Jobs, a drop out, could start a company from a little garage, then there should not be anything from stopping anyone else from what they want to do in life. There just has to be the drive.
Works Cited
- Shea, Therese. Steve Jobs and Apple. Rosen Pub., 2013.
- 'Steve Jobs'. Business Leader Profiles for Students, edited by Sheila Dow and Jaime E. Noce, vol. 1, Gale, 1999. Gale In Context: Biography, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1604000120/BIC?u=prin35678&sid=BIC&xid=0000a8a0 Accessed 17 Jan. 2020.
- 'Steve Jobs'. Newsmakers, Gale, 2000. Gale In Context: Biography, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1618002887/BIC?u=prin35678&sid=BIC&xid=0f4c816b Accessed 17 Jan. 2020.
- 'Steven Jobs'. Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, Gale, 1998. Gale In Context: Biography, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1631003374/BIC?u=prin35678&sid=BIC&xid=91bd426a Accessed 17 Jan. 2020.
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