Steve Jobs

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, investor, co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc. He was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Pixar Animation Studios until it was bought by The Walt Disney Company. He was the largest shareholder at Disney and a member of Disney's Board of Directors. He was seen as a leading figure in both the computer and entertainment industries. In August 2011, Jobs resigned, and was appointed Chairman of Apple. He served in that position until he died. Jobs died at the age of 56 on October 5, 2011. He had pancreatic cancer and died because the tumour had metastasised.

Early life
Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955 in San Francisco, California, U.S. Steve Jobs' mother, Joanne Schieble was Swiss-American; his father, Abdulfattah "John" Jandali was Syrian. Jobs was adopted at birth. His birth parents wanted Steve to be adopted by college graduates, that was not the case. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs who promised Steve would go to college. Jobs went to Reed College for a semester and then dropped out. He spent 18 more months dropping in on more creative classes. He also took part in ballet as a child.

Founding of Apple Inc.
He was a Silicon Valley businessman most famous for his work with the company Apple Computer Inc. which later changed to Apple Inc.

Together with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Jobs helped make the idea of the personal computer popular in the late 1970s. In the early 1980s, still at Apple, Jobs was one of the first to see the commercial potential of using a mouse to use with the GUI. During this period, Apple had hired a number of other people to be president of the company.

He was a supporter of the Democratic Party of the United States. He dropped out of high school.

Out of Apple Inc., NeXT Computer and Pixar
In 1985 Apple's Board of Directors fired Jobs from his position with the company. He then started NeXT, a computer platform development company which dealt with higher education and business markets. Apple's 1997 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded where he worked as the CEO of Apple. He was paid $1m per year plus stock options. While Jobs was away from Apple, he bought a computer animation studio from film director George Lucas called Pixar. Jobs later sold Pixar to Disney and gained a seat on the Disney board of directors. Their first film from Pixar was Toy Story (1995) which was a huge success. Pixar went on to make films such as Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), Cars (2006), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009), among others. Jobs actually made more money with Pixar than he did during his first stint with Apple.

Introduction of the iPhone and retirement
Jobs presented the iPhone on January 9, 2007. On August 24, 2011, Jobs retired as CEO of Apple. He suggested Tim Cook as his successor. Following Jobs' request, Jobs continued as the chairman of the Apple Inc.'s Board of Directors.

Final years
Jobs had health problems for the last few years and had a liver transplant. When he died of respiratory arrest caused by pancreatic cancer in 2011 in Palo Alto, California, he was worth $8.3 billion.

Jobs has 4 children. His two daughters Erin Siena Jobs and Eve Jobs and son Reed Paul Jobs and with his first wife, and a daughter Lisa Brennan Jobs while in a relationship with Chrisann Brennan.

Steve Jobs has been played by American actor Ashton Kutcher in the 2013 biographical movie Jobs and by German-born Irish actor Michael Fassbender in the 2015 movie Steve Jobs.

Other websites

 * YouTube video of first Jobs' Macworld keynote in 1997, when he returned to Apple, where he announced partnership with Microsoft.
 * YouTube video of Jobs' commencement address at Stanford University, June 12, 2005.
 * Steve Jobs at NNDB

Interviews

 * Rolling Stone, Steve Jobs: The Rolling Stone Interview—December 3, 2003
 * BusinessWeek, The Seed of Apple's Innovation—October 12, 2004
 * Fortune, How Big Can Apple Get?—February 21, 2005
 * ‘Good for the Soul’—Newsweek, October 15, 2006