| name | Steve Jobs
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| birth name | Steven Paul Jobs |
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| birth date | February 24, 1955 |
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| birth place | |
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| death date | October 05, 2011 |
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| death place | Palo Alto, California, U.S. |
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| nationality | American |
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| occupation | Co-founder, Chairman and CEO, Apple Inc., Co-founder and CEO, Pixar, Co-founder and CEO, NeXT Inc. |
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| alma mater | Reed College (dropped out) |
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| years active | 1974–2011 |
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| boards | The Walt Disney Company, Apple Inc. |
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| religion | Zen Buddhism |
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| spouse | Laurene Powell(1991–2011, his death) |
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| children | 4 – Lisa Brennan-Jobs, Reed, Erin, Eve |
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| relatives | Mona Simpson (sister) |
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| signature | Steve Jobs signature.svg |
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| signature size | 120px
}} |
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Steven Paul Jobs (; February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, designer and inventor. He is best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of
Apple Inc. Through Apple, he was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the
personal computer revolution and for his influential career in the computer and
consumer electronics fields. Jobs also co-founded and served as chief executive of
Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of
The Walt Disney Company in 2006, when Disney acquired Pixar.
In the late 1970s, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak engineered one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and, one year later, the Macintosh. During this period he also led efforts that would begin the desktop publishing revolution, notably through the introduction of the LaserWriter and the associated PageMaker software.
After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, which was spun off as Pixar. He was credited in ''Toy Story'' (1995) as an executive producer. He remained CEO and majority shareholder at 50.1 percent until its acquisition by The Walt Disney Company in 2006, making Jobs Disney's largest individual shareholder at seven percent and a member of Disney's Board of Directors.
After difficulties developing a new Mac OS, Apple purchased NeXT in 1996 in order to use NeXTSTEP as the basis for what became Mac OS X. As part of the deal Jobs was named Apple advisor. As Apple floundered, Jobs took control of the company and was named "interim CEO" in 1997, or as he jokingly referred to it, "iCEO". Facing near bankruptcy at the time of his return, Jobs quickly improved the company's fortunes and returned it to profitability in 1998. Over the next decade, Jobs oversaw the development of the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad and on the services side, the company's Apple Retail Stores, iTunes Store and the App Store. The enormous success of these products and services, providing years of stable financial returns, propelled Apple to become the world's most valuable company in 2011. The reinvigoration of the company is regarded as one of the greatest business turnaround stories in history.
In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreas neuroendocrine tumor. Though it was initially treated, he reported a hormone imbalance, underwent a liver transplant in 2009, and appeared progressively thinner as his health declined. On medical leave for most of 2011, Jobs resigned as Apple CEO in August that year and was elected Chairman of the Board. He died of respiratory arrest related to his metastatic tumor on October 5, 2011. He continues to receive honors and public recognition for his influence in the technology and music industries.
Early life and education
Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco on 24 February 1955, to two university students, Joanne Carole Schieble and
Syrian born Abdulfattah "John" Jandali (), who were both unmarried at the time. Jandali who was teaching in Wisconsin when Steve was born in 1955, said he had no choice but to put the baby up for adoption because his girlfriend's family objected to their relationship. He was adopted at birth by Paul Reinhold Jobs (1922–1993) and Clara Jobs (1924–1986). Clara's maiden name was Hagopian. When asked about his "adoptive parents," Jobs replied emphatically that Paul and Clara Jobs "were my parents." He later stated in his authorized biography that they "were my parents 1,000%." His biological parents subsequently married (December 1955), had a second child
Mona Simpson in 1957, and divorced in 1962.
The Jobs family moved from San Francisco to Mountain View, California when Steve was five years old. Paul and Clara later adopted a daughter, Patti. Paul Jobs, a machinist for a company that made lasers, taught his son rudimentary electronics and how to work with his hands. Clara was an accountant who taught him to read before he went to school. Clara Jobs had been a payroll clerk for Varian Associates, one of the first high-tech firms in what became known as Silicon Valley.
Jobs attended Monta Loma Elementary, Mountain View, Cupertino Junior High and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California. He frequented after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California, and was later hired there, working with Steve Wozniak as a summer employee. Following high school graduation in 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester, he continued auditing classes at Reed, while sleeping on the floor in friends' rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple. Jobs later said, "If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts."
Early career
In 1974, Jobs took a job as a technician at
Atari, Inc. in
Los Gatos, California. He traveled to India in mid-1974 to visit
Neem Karoli Baba at his Kainchi Ashram with a Reed College friend (and, later, an early Apple employee),
Daniel Kottke, in search of spiritual enlightenment. When they got to the Neem Karoli ashram, it was almost deserted as Neem Karoli Baba had died in September 1973. Then they made a long trek up a dry riverbed to an ashram of
Hariakhan Baba. In India, they spent a lot of time on bus rides from
Delhi to
Uttar Pradesh and back, then up to
Himachal Pradesh and back.
Jobs left India after staying for seven months and returned to the US ahead of Daniel Kottke, with his head shaved and wearing traditional Indian clothing. During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life". He also became a serious practitioner of Zen Buddhism, engaged in lengthy meditation retreats at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the oldest Sōtō Zen monastery in the US, considered taking up monastic residence, and maintained a lifelong appreciation for Zen. He later said that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not fully relate to his thinking.
Jobs returned to Atari and was assigned to create a circuit board for the game ''Breakout''. According to Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari offered $100 for each chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little interest in or knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line. According to Wozniak, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari gave them only $700 (instead of the offered $5,000) and that Wozniak's share was thus $350. Wozniak did not learn about the bonus until ten years later, but said that had Jobs told him about it and said he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.
Jobs began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Wozniak in 1975. He greatly admired Edwin H. Land, the inventor of instant photography and founder of Polaroid Corporation, and explicitly modeled his own career after that of Land's.
The revised, second-generation NeXTcube was released in 1990, also. Jobs touted it as the first "interpersonal" computer that would replace the personal computer. With its innovative NeXTMail multimedia email system, NeXTcube could share voice, image, graphics, and video in email for the first time. "Interpersonal computing is going to revolutionize human communications and groupwork", Jobs told reporters. Jobs ran NeXT with an obsession for aesthetic perfection, as evidenced by the development of and attention to NeXTcube's magnesium case. This put considerable strain on NeXT's hardware division, and in 1993, after having sold only 50,000 machines, NeXT transitioned fully to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel. The company reported its first profit of $1.03 million in 1994. In 1996, NeXT Software, Inc. released WebObjects, a framework for Web application development. After NeXT was acquired by Apple Inc. in 1997, WebObjects was used to build and run the Apple Store, MobileMe services, and the iTunes Store.
Pixar and Disney
In 1986, Jobs bought The Graphics Group (later renamed
Pixar) from
Lucasfilm's computer graphics division for the price of $10 million, $5 million of which was given to the company as capital.
The first film produced by the partnership, ''Toy Story'', with Jobs credited as executive producer, brought fame and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released in 1995. Over the next 15 years, under Pixar's creative chief John Lasseter, the company produced box-office hits ''A Bug's Life'' (1998); ''Toy Story 2'' (1999); ''Monsters, Inc.'' (2001); ''Finding Nemo'' (2003); ''The Incredibles'' (2004); ''Cars'' (2006); ''Ratatouille'' (2007); ''WALL-E'' (2008); ''Up'' (2009); and ''Toy Story 3'' (2010). ''Finding Nemo'', ''The Incredibles'', ''Ratatouille'', ''WALL-E'', ''Up'' and ''Toy Story 3'' each received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, an award introduced in 2001.
In the years 2003 and 2004, as Pixar's contract with Disney was running out, Jobs and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner tried but failed to negotiate a new partnership, and in early 2004, Jobs announced that Pixar would seek a new partner to distribute its films after its contract with Disney expired.
In October 2005, Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney, and Iger quickly worked to patch up relations with Jobs and Pixar. On January 24, 2006, Jobs and Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. When the deal closed, Jobs became The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with approximately seven percent of the company's stock. Jobs's holdings in Disney far exceeded those of Eisner, who holds 1.7 percent, and of Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who until his 2009 death held about one percent of the company's stock and whose criticisms of Eisner — especially that he soured Disney's relationship with Pixar — accelerated Eisner's ousting. Jobs joined the company's board of directors upon completion of the merger and also helped oversee Disney and Pixar's combined animation businesses from a seat on a special six-person steering committee. Upon Jobs's death his shares in Disney were transferred to the Steven P. Jobs Trust led by Laurene Jobs.
Return to Apple
In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $427 million. The deal was finalized in late 1996, bringing Jobs back to the company he co-founded. Jobs became ''de facto'' chief after then-CEO Gil Amelio was ousted in July 1997. He was formally named interim chief executive in September. In March 1998, to concentrate Apple's efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs terminated a number of projects, such as Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, "afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened. The reality was that Jobs's summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company." Jobs also changed the licensing program for Macintosh clones, making it too costly for the manufacturers to continue making machines.
With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company's technology found its way into Apple products, most notably NeXTSTEP, which evolved into Mac OS X. Under Jobs's guidance, the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac and other new products; since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs officially dropped the "interim" modifier from his title at Apple and became permanent CEO. Jobs quipped at the time that he would be using the title "iCEO".
Inventions and designs
His design sense was greatly influenced by the Buddhism which he experienced in India while on a seven-month spiritual journey. His sense of intuition was also influenced by the spiritual people with whom he studied.
, Jobs is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor in 342 United States patents or patent applications related to a range of technologies from actual computer and portable devices to user interfaces (including touch-based), speakers, keyboards, power adapters, staircases, clasps, sleeves, lanyards and packages. Most of these are design patents (specific product designs) as opposed to utility patents (inventions). He has 43 issued US patents on inventions. The patent on the Mac OS X Dock user interface with "magnification" feature was issued the day before he died.
Philanthropy
Arik Hesseldahl of ''
BusinessWeek'' magazine stated that "Jobs isn't widely known for his association with philanthropic causes", compared to
Bill Gates's efforts. Jobs said (in 1985) that he does charitable acts privately. After resuming control of Apple in 1997, Jobs eliminated all corporate philanthropy programs initially. Later, under Jobs, Apple signed to participate in
Product Red program, producing red versions of devices to give profits from sales to charity. Apple has gone on to become the single largest contributor to the charity since its initial involvement with it. The chief of the Product Red project, singer
Bono cited Jobs saying there was "nothing better than the chance to save lives," when he initially approached Apple with the invitation to participate in the program.
Personal life
Jobs's birth parents met at the
University of Wisconsin. Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, a
Syrian
Muslim, taught there. Joanne Carole Schieble was his student; they were the same age because Jandali had "gotten his PhD really young." In December 1955, ten months after giving up their baby boy, Schieble and Jandali married. In 1957, they had a daughter Mona together. They divorced in 1962, and Jandali lost touch with his daughter. Her mother remarried and had Mona take the surname of her stepfather, so she became known as
Mona Simpson.
In the 1980s, Jobs found his birth mother, Joanne Schieble Simpson, who told him he had a biological sister, Mona Simpson. They met for the first time in 1985 and became close friends. The siblings kept their relationship secret until 1986, when Mona introduced him at a party for her first book.
After deciding to search for their father, Simpson found Jandali managing a coffee shop. Without knowing who his son had become, Jandali told Mona that he had previously managed a popular restaurant in the Silicon Valley where "Even Steve Jobs used to eat there. Yeah, he was a great tipper." In a taped interview with his biographer
Walter Isaacson, aired on ''
60 Minutes'', Jobs said: "When I was looking for my biological mother, obviously, you know, I was looking for my biological father at the same time, and I learned a little bit about him and I didn't like what I learned. I asked her to not tell him that we ever met...not tell him anything about me." Jobs was in occasional touch with his mother Joanne Simpson, who lives in a nursing home in Los Angeles. When speaking about his biological parents, Jobs stated: "They were my sperm and egg bank. That's not harsh, it's just the way it was, a sperm bank thing, nothing more." Jandali stated in an interview with the ''
The Sun'' in August 2011, that his efforts to contact Jobs were unsuccessful. Jandali mailed in his medical history after Jobs's pancreatic disorder was made public that year.
In her eulogy to Jobs at his memorial service, Mona Simpson stated:
:I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us. Later, after I'd met my father, I tried to believe he'd changed his number and left no forwarding address because he was an idealistic revolutionary, plotting a new world for the Arab people. Even as a feminist, my whole life I'd been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I'd thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.
Jobs's first child, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, was born in 1978, the daughter of his longtime partner Chris Ann Brennan, a Bay Area painter. For two years, she raised their daughter on welfare while Jobs denied paternity by claiming he was sterile; he later acknowledged Lisa as his daughter. Jobs later married Laurene Powell on March 18, 1991, in a ceremony at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. Presiding over the wedding was Kobun Chino Otogawa, a Zen Buddhist monk. Their son, Reed, was born September 1991, followed by daughters Erin in August 1995, and Eve in 1998. The family lives in Palo Alto, California.
In the unauthorized biography, ''The Second Coming of Steve Jobs,'' author Alan Deutschman reports that Jobs once dated Joan Baez. Deutschman quotes Elizabeth Holmes, a friend of Jobs from his time at Reed College, as saying she "believed that Steve became the lover of Joan Baez in large measure because Baez had been the lover of Bob Dylan" (Dylan was the Apple icon's favorite musician). In another unauthorized biography, ''iCon: Steve Jobs'' by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon, the authors suggest that Jobs might have married Baez, but her age at the time (41) meant it was unlikely the couple could have children.
Jobs was also a fan of The Beatles. He referred to them on multiple occasions at Keynotes and also was interviewed on a showing of a Paul McCartney concert. When asked about his business model on ''60 Minutes'', he replied:
My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other's negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are never done by one person, they are done by a team of people. Jobs told Walter Isaacson "...he came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style." He was a pescetarian.
Jobs's car was a silver 2008 Mercedes-Benz SL 55 AMG, which does not display its license plates, as he took advantage of a California law which gives a maximum of six months for new vehicles to receive plates; Jobs leased a new identical SL every six months.
In a 2011 interview with biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs revealed at one point he met with U.S. President Barack Obama, complained of the nation's shortage of software engineers, and told Mr. Obama that he was "headed for a one-term presidency." Jobs proposed that any foreign student who got an engineering degree at a U.S. university should automatically be offered a green card. After the meeting, Jobs commented, "The president is very smart, but he kept explaining to us reasons why things can't get done.... It infuriates me."
Jobs contributed to a number of political candidates and causes during his life, giving $209,000 to Democrats, $19,000 to associated special interests and $1,000 to a Republican.
Health issues
In October 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with cancer, and in mid-2004, he announced to his employees that he had a cancerous tumor in his pancreas. The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very poor; Jobs stated that he had a rare, far less aggressive type known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor. Despite his diagnosis, Jobs resisted his doctors' recommendations for mainstream medical intervention for nine months, instead consuming a special alternative medicine diet in an attempt to thwart the disease. According to Harvard researcher Dr. Ramzi Amir, his choice of alternative treatment "led to an unnecessarily early death". According to Jobs's biographer, Walter Isaacson, "for nine months he refused to undergo surgery for his pancreatic cancer – a decision he later regretted as his health declined." "Instead, he tried a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments he found online, and even consulted a psychic. He also was influenced by a doctor who ran a clinic that advised juice fasts, bowel cleansings and other unproven approaches, before finally having surgery in July 2004." He eventually underwent a pancreaticoduodenectomy (or "Whipple procedure") in July 2004, that appeared to successfully remove the tumor.
Death
Jobs died at his California home around 3 p.m. on October 5, 2011, due to complications from a relapse of his previously treated islet-cell neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer, He had lost consciousness the day before, and died with his wife, children and sister at his side.
His death was announced by Apple in a statement which read:
Jobs is survived by Laurene, his wife of 20 years, their three children, and Lisa Brennan-Jobs, his daughter from a previous relationship. His family released a statement saying that he "died peacefully".
For two weeks following his death, Apple's corporate Web site displayed a simple page, showing Jobs's name and lifespan next to his grayscale portrait. Clicking on the image led to an obituary, which read:
Also dedicating its homepage to Jobs was Pixar, with a photo of Jobs, John Lasseter and Edwin Catmull, and the eulogy they wrote:
An email address was also posted for the public to share their memories, condolences, and thoughts. Over a million tributes were sent, which are now displayed on the Steve Jobs memorial page.
Shortly after his death was announced, ABC, CBS, and NBC interrupted scheduled programming to broadcast this news. Numerous newspapers around the world carried news of his death on their front pages the next day. Several notable people, including US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and The Walt Disney Company's Bob Iger commented on the death of Jobs. ''Wired News'' collected reactions and posted them in tribute on their homepage.
A small private funeral was held on October 7, 2011, of which details were not revealed out of respect to Jobs's family. Apple announced on the same day that they had no plans for a public service, but were encouraging "well-wishers" to send their remembrance messages to an email address created to receive such messages. Sunday, October 16, 2011, was declared "Steve Jobs Day" by Governor Jerry Brown of California. On that day, an invitation-only memorial was held at Stanford University. Those in attendance include Apple and other tech company executives, members of the media, celebrities, close friends of Jobs, and politicians, along with Jobs's family. Bono, Yo Yo Ma, and Joan Baez performed at the service, which lasted longer than an hour. The service was highly secured, with guards at all of the university's gates, and a helicopter flying overhead from an area news station.
Both Apple and Microsoft flew their flags at half-staff throughout their respective headquarters and campuses.
Bob Iger ordered all Disney properties, including Walt Disney World and Disneyland, to fly their flags at half-staff, from October 6 to 12, 2011.
A private memorial service for Apple employees was held on October 19, 2011, on the Apple Campus in Cupertino. Present were Cook, Bill Campbell, Norah Jones, Al Gore, and Coldplay, and Jobs's widow, Laurene, was in attendance. Some of Apple's retail stores closed briefly so employees could attend the memorial. A video of the service is available on Apple's website.
Jobs is buried at Alta Mesa Memorial Park, the only non-denominational cemetery in Palo Alto.
Major media published commemorative works. ''Time'' published a commemorative issue for Jobs on October 8, 2011. The issues cover featured a portrait of Jobs, taken by Norman Seeff, in which he is sitting in the lotus position holding the original Macintosh computer, first published in ''Rolling Stone'' in January 1984. The issue marked the eighth time Jobs has been featured on the cover of ''Time''. The issue included a photographic essay by Diana Walker, a retrospective on Apple by Harry McCracken and Lev Grossman, and a six-page essay by Walter Isaacson. Isaacson's essay served as a preview of his biography, ''Steve Jobs''.
''Bloomberg Businessweek'' also published a commemorative issue. The cover of the magazine features Apple-style simplicity, with a black-and-white, up-close photo of Jobs and his years of birth and death. The issue was published without advertisements. It featured extensive essays by Steve Jurvetson, John Sculley, Sean Wisely, William Gibson, and Walter Isaacson.
Free software pioneer Richard Stallman dissented from the prevailing hagiographic views of Jobs to draw attention to the tight corporate control Apple exercised over consumer computers and handheld devices, how Apple restricted news reporters, and persistently violated privacy: "Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died". Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker asserted that "Jobs's sensibility was editorial, not inventive. His gift lay in taking what was in front of him ... and ruthlessly refining it."
Although reporters wrote glowing elegies after Jobs died, ''Los Angeles Times'' media critic James Rainey reported that they "came courtesy of reporters who—after deadline and off the record—would tell stories about a company obsessed with secrecy to the point of paranoia. They remind us how Apple shut down a youthful fanboy blogger, punished a publisher that dared to print an unauthorized Jobs biography and repeatedly ran afoul of the most basic tenets of a free press."
Apple "has taken stances that, in my opinion, are outright hostile to the practice of journalism," said longtime Silicon Valley reporter Dan Gillmor. Under Jobs, Apple sued three "small fry" bloggers who reported tips about the company and its unreleased products and tried to use the courts to force them to reveal their sources. Under Jobs, Apple even sued a teenager, Nicholas Ciarelli, who wrote enthusiastic speculation about Apple products beginning at age 13. His popular blog, ThinkSecret, was a play on Apple's slogan "Think Different." Rainey wrote that Apple wanted to kill ThinkSecret as "It thought any leaks, even favorable ones, diluted the punch of its highly choreographed product launches with Jobs, in his iconic jeans and mock turtleneck outfit, as the star."
Honors and public recognition
After Apple's founding, Jobs became a symbol of his company and industry. When ''Time'' named the computer as the 1982 "Machine of the Year", the magazine published a long profile of Jobs as "the most famous maestro of the micro".
Jobs was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Ronald Reagan in 1985, with Steve Wozniak (among the first people to ever receive the honor), and a Jefferson Award for Public Service in the category "Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under" (also known as the ''Samuel S. Beard Award'') in 1987. On November 27, 2007, Jobs was named the most powerful person in business by ''Fortune'' magazine. On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Jobs into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.
In August 2009, Jobs was selected as the most admired entrepreneur among teenagers in a survey by Junior Achievement, having previously been named Entrepreneur of the Decade 20 years earlier in 1989, by ''Inc. magazine''. On November 5, 2009, Jobs was named the CEO of the decade by ''Fortune'' magazine.
In November 2010, Jobs was ranked No.17 on ''Forbes'': The World's Most Powerful People. In December 2010, the ''Financial Times'' named Jobs its person of the year for 2010, ending its essay by stating, "In his autobiography, John Sculley, the former PepsiCo executive who once ran Apple, said this of the ambitions of the man he had pushed out: 'Apple was supposed to become a wonderful consumer products company. This was a lunatic plan. High-tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product.'". The Financial Times closed by rhetorically asking of this quote, "How wrong can you be."
At the time of his resignation, and again after his death, Jobs was widely described as a visionary, pioneer and genius
Reality distortion field
Apple's Bud Tribble coined the term "reality distortion field" in 1981, to describe Jobs' charisma and its effects on the developers working on the Macintosh project. Tribble claimed that the term came from ''Star Trek''. Since then the term has also been used to refer to perceptions of Jobs' keynote speeches.
The RDF was said by Andy Hertzfeld to be Steve Jobs' ability to convince himself and others to believe almost anything, using a mix of charm, charisma, bravado, hyperbole, marketing, appeasement, and persistence. Although the subject of criticism, Jobs' so-called reality distortion field was also recognized as creating a sense that the impossible was possible. Once the term became widely known, it was often used in the technology press to describe Jobs' sway over the public, particuarly regarding new product announcements.
Portrayals and coverage in books, film, and theater
Books
''The Little Kingdom'' (1984) by Michael Moritz, documenting the founding of (then) Apple Computer.
''The Second Coming of Steve Jobs'' (2001), by Alan Deutschman
''iCon: Steve Jobs'' (2005), by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon
''Steve Jobs'' (2011), an authorized biography written by Walter Isaacson.
''Inside Apple'' (2012), a book by Adam Lashinsky that reveals the secret systems, tactics, and leadership strategies that allowed Steve Jobs and his company to work.
Documentaries
''The Machine That Changed the World'' Part 3 of this 1992 five-part documentary, called ''The Paperback Computer'', prominently featured Jobs and his role in the early days of Apple.
''Triumph of the Nerds'' a 1996 three-part documentary for PBS, about the rise of the home computer/personal computer.
''Nerds 2.0.1'' a 1998 three-part documentary for PBS, (and sequel to ''Triumph of the Nerds'') which chronicles the development of the Internet.
''iGenius: How Steve Jobs Changed the World'' a 2011 Discovery Channel documentary hosted by Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman.
''Steve Jobs: One Last Thing'' a 2011 PBS documentary produced by Pioneer Productions. A slightly shortened and localized version of the show was broadcast in the United Kingdom the following day titled, ''Steve Jobs: iChanged the World'' on Channel 4.
In February 2012, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released a 191-page file on Steve Jobs. The report was compiled during a 1991 background investigation of Jobs by the FBI after former president George H. W. Bush recommended his appointment to the President's Export Council. It consists of interviews with co-workers, friends, family members and even neighbors of Jobs.
Films
''Pirates of Silicon Valley'' a 1999 TNT film which chronicles the rise of Apple and Microsoft from the early 1970s to 1997. Jobs is portrayed by Noah Wyle.
Theater
''The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs'' - The Public Theater, New York City, 2012, starring Mike Daisey.
References
Further reading
Bantam Doubleday Dell. ISBN 0-385-48684-7.
Chapter 28
External links
"Thoughts on Flash" by Steve Jobs, April, 2010.
Bloomberg Game Changers: Steve Jobs A 48 minute video on Steve Jobs by Bloomberg
Steve Jobs Profile at ''Forbes''
Steve Jobs remembrance notes from the community. The only remaining tribute on the Apple website..
Federal Bureau of Investigation dossier on Steven Paul Jobs.
Articles
Interviews
Steve Jobs in 1994: The Rolling Stone Interview, ''Rolling Stone'' 1994, republished January 17, 2011. Archived URL
April 20, 1995.
The Seed of Apple's Innovation, ''BusinessWeek'' October 12, 2004.
How Big Can Apple Get?, ''Fortune'' February 21, 2005.
''Newsweek'', October 15, 2006.
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (video and transcript of on stage interview), AllThingsD, May 30, 2007.
Videotaped Deposition of Steven P. Jobs in front of the Securities and Exchange Commission, March 18, 2008
Interview with Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, Jobs's biological father, by Mohannad Al-Haj Ali, published in ''Al Hayat'' and reprinted by Ya Libnan, February 28, 2011
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cv:Джобс Стив
cs:Steve Jobs
cy:Steve Jobs
da:Steve Jobs
de:Steve Jobs
et:Steve Jobs
el:Στηβ Τζομπς
es:Steve Jobs
eo:Steve Jobs
ext:Steve Jobs
eu:Steve Jobs
fa:استیو جابز
fr:Steve Jobs
fy:Steve Jobs
ga:Steve Jobs
gv:Steve Jobs
gd:Steve Jobs
gl:Steve Jobs
ko:스티브 잡스
hy:Սթիվ Ջոբս
hi:स्टीव जॉब्स
hr:Steve Jobs
io:Steve Jobs
ilo:Steve Jobs
id:Steve Jobs
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it:Steve Jobs
he:סטיב ג'ובס
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kn:ಸ್ಟೀವ್ ಜಾಬ್ಸ್
pam:Steve Jobs
ka:სტივ ჯობსი
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lv:Stīvs Džobss
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lt:Steve Jobs
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lmo:Steve Jobs
hu:Steve Jobs
mk:Стив Џобс
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ml:സ്റ്റീവ് ജോബ്സ്
mt:Steve Jobs
mr:स्टीव्ह जॉब्स
mzn:استیو جابز
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my:စတိဗ်ဂျော့စ်
nah:Steve Jobs
nl:Steve Jobs
ne:स्टिभ जब्स
new:स्टीभ जब्स
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nn:Steve Jobs
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oc:Steve Jobs
uz:Steve Jobs
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pl:Steve Jobs
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sa:स्टीव जाब्स
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scn:Steve Jobs
simple:Steve Jobs
sk:Steve Jobs
sl:Steve Jobs
ckb:ستیڤ جۆبس
sr:Стив Џобс
sh:Steve Jobs
fi:Steve Jobs
sv:Steve Jobs
tl:Steve Jobs
ta:ஸ்டீவ் ஜொப்ஸ்
tt:Стив Джобс
te:స్టీవ్ జాబ్స్
th:สตีฟ จอบส์
tr:Steve Jobs
uk:Стів Джобс
ur:سٹیو جابز
vec:Steve Jobs
vi:Steve Jobs
war:Steve Jobs
yi:סטיוו זשאבס
yo:Steve Jobs
zh-yue:喬布斯
bat-smg:Steve Jobs
zh:史蒂夫·乔布斯
