Philippe Starck
Philippe Starck, 2011
Born	Philippe Patrick Starck (1949-01-18) January 18, 1949 (age 63) Paris, France
Nationality	French
Alma mater	École Camondo
Occupation	Product designer Interior designer Architect
Years active	1968–present
Employer	Alessi Target Stores and many more
Known for	Juicy Salif, among many other designs
Home town	New York
Children	Mary Starck, Angus Starck, Ara Starck, Oa Starck, K Starck, Lago Starck
Website
Starck.com

Philippe Patrick Starck (born January 18, 1949, Paris) is a French product designer and probably the best known designer in the New Design style. His designs range from interior designs to mass produced consumer goods such as toothbrushes, chairs, and even houses.

He was educated in Paris at the École Camondo and in 1968, he founded his first design firm, which specialized in inflatable objects. In 1969, he became art director of his firm along with Pierre Cardin.

Career[link]

Alarm clock Telefunken ca. 1995, Design Ph. Starck

Starck's career started to climb in earnest in 1982 when he designed the interior for the private apartments of the French President François Mitterrand.^[1]

In 1986 he joined Domus Academy Department of Design as an associate lecturer.

Starck has worked both independently as an interior designer and as a product designer since 1975. In 2002, he created a number of what are considered relatively inexpensive product designs for the large American retailer Target Stores.^[2]

His most recent notable designs include an optical mouse for Microsoft,^[3] several yachts including the $300 million A,^[4] and even new packaging for a beer company. He was commissioned to design the Virgin Galactic "spaceport" in New Mexico^[5] (Foster and Partners are its architects).^[6]

He made the exhibit Democratic Ecology with Pramac.^[7]

In autumn 2009 Starck appeared in a BBC Two programme Design for Life in which 12 aspiring design students competed to gain a six month placement with Starck's Paris based company.^[8]

Design[link]

Aprilia Moto 6.5 designed by Starck

Products[link]

Two of Starck's designs include stylized toothbrushes (1989) and a sleek juicer dubbed the Juicy Salif created for Alessi in 1990. The Juicy Salif has become an affordable and popular cult item. In 2004 he designed the first toothbrush sanitizer for the Yonkers, NY based company VIOlight which won the 2005 Industrial Design Excellence Award.

In 2008 he created wireless speakers for the iPod and iPhone known as the Zikmu Parrot. He has also designed some external hard drive enclosures for hardware manufacturer LaCie.^[9]

Starck also has a line of Starck watches with Fossil, Inc.

Furnishings[link]

Minimum Table (Cassina); Louis Ghost & Victoria Ghost chairs (Kartell)

Street lights designed by Starck on the parvise of Metz railway station

Regarding Starck's furniture designs, he is widely known for his designs for the Italian manufacturer Kartell, many of which are made from polycarbonate plastic. These include the transparent Louis Ghost chair, Ero|S| chair, Bubble Club Sofa and Armchair, and La Bohème stool. He has also been involved in the relaunch of the World War II-era Navy Chair in the U.S., designing a classic furniture collection around it.^[10]

The Bubble Club chair is featured prominently in the television series Boston Legal. A pair sit on the balcony outside Denny Crane's office, where he and Alan Shore end each episode with a cigar and a glass of Scotch while discussing the events of the episode.

The Louis Ghost chair is also featured in Ugly Betty: two such chairs can be seen front of Wilhelmina's desk in the 2010 episodes.

Starck's furniture has been featured at Pinkberry locations.

Restaurant interiors[link]

Among his interior designs for restaurants, Starck designed the Felix restaurant-bar at The Peninsula Hong Kong, a classic hotel facing the Hong Kong harbour on the Kowloon side. This design, located on the 28th floor, is known for several design features including the men's washroom, which features urinals facing glass, and a spectacular view of the Hong Kong cityscape.^[11][12]

An earlier design by Starck, now world famous, was for the Café Costes in Paris (1984).

His design presence is heavily noted in Los Angeles, where his work is evident in numerous trendy restaurants, lounges and nightclubs including Katsuya, XIV by Michael Mina, The Bazaar at SLS Beverly HIlls, and s-bar Hollywood.

Hotel interiors[link]

In 1988, Starck was commissioned by famed nightclub impresario Ian Schrager, former co-owner of Studio 54, to refit the Royalton Hotel on New York's West 44th Street.^[13] It was a design moment that has since changed the hotel industry; boutique hotels, where hotel design is an important factor, became the industry buzz.

The Starck-Schrager design hotel partnerships continued in New York at the Paramount hotel, and then spread to Miami with the opening of the Delano Hotel^[14] in South Beach in 1995, to Los Angeles with the Mondrian Hotel in December 1996,^[15][16] to London with both the St. Martins Lane hotel in 1999^[17][18] and the Sanderson hotel in 2000,^[19] to San Francisco and the Clift hotel, and finally back to New York with the Hudson hotel, with what is described as "Cheap Chic".^[20]

The look and feel of Starck-Schrager hotels has been highly influential, including the approaches at Starwood's W hotels.

Starck also designed Jia, the first Philippe Starck-designed boutique hotel in Asia.

From 2007 until 2022, Starck is under an exclusive contract with nightclub mogul Sam Nazarian to design Nazarian's new hotel brand, SLS Hotels. The first property, SLS Los Angeles at Beverly Hills (a massive renovation of the former Le Méridien At Beverly Hills), was opened on October 28, 2008, and was entirely designed by Starck. The hotel lobby features unique Starck-designed display cases presenting rotating design items curated by gallerist Murray Moss.

From December 2007, Philippe Starck and his daughter Ara were involved in the redecoration of public areas at Le Meurice, Paris.^[21]

Property developments[link]

Through residential design company Yoo Ltd, Starck has been involved in the development of several properties featuring Starck interiors.^[22][23]

Wind energy[link]

His work with the Pramac energy group,^[24] has produced a design for windmills that also function as wind instruments.^[25]

He has created a personal power-generating windmill (L'éolienne individuelle Pramac)^[26] in polycarbonate^[27] resting on one platform in wood, that can be purchased for about 400 Euros (about $633). It is a design, but also functional, generating a claimed 20 to 60 percent of a home's energy needs. Although none have been independently tested in a scientific manner to support these claims.^[28]

Other works[link]

Starck re-designed the interior of some Eurostar trains in 2003.^[29][30] He designed the Asahi Beer Hall in Tokyo,^[31] decorated the Musée Baccarat in the Place des États-Unis, Paris; and renovated the Alhóndiga in Bilbao, Spain.^[32]

He designed the information panels Histoire de Paris (sometimes called Starck Shovels because of their shape). They are information panels installed in the streets of Paris in front of some Parisian monuments.^[33]

Personal life[link]

Starck lives in four different cities: Paris for public relations; New York, where he does most of his technical work; Burano (Italy), where he also works; and London.

As of 2008^[update], Starck has had five children and four marriages:^[34]

• By Brigitte, to whom he was married to for 22 years, he has a daughter Ara Starck.
• By Patricia, he has a son Oa Starck.
• By Nori, an American, he has two daughters, Lago Starck and K Starck.
• He is currently married to Jasmine Abdellatif, they had a baby girl named Justice on 2 May 2011.^[35]

See also[link]

• Sustainable design
• Sustainable energy
• Emotional Design by Donald Norman

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Philippe Starck

• Starck.com : Philippe Starck's official website
• Emeco Chairs designed by Philippe Starck
• Philippe Starck British Phone Box A Phone Box that has had the Philippe Starck interior.
• Citizen Stark Video
• Heritage Against Recycling Video
• BBC Imagine... Exquisite Corpse game, contribution by Philippe Starck
• Philippe Starck thinks deep on design Talk at TED : Ideas worth spreading
• A possible similarity between Starck and Brancusi
• Thought Economics Interviews Philippe Starck An interview with Philippe Starck on the role of design and creativity in the story of human culture.

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (December 2008)

Kelly Elaine Hoppen MBE (born July 1959)^{[citation needed]} is a South African-born British interior designer and owner of Kelly Hoppen Interiors.

Career[link]

Hoppen began her career at the age of 16. Her first restaurant design was the Gary Rhodes restaurant Rhodes W1.^[1] She went on to design apartments for a number of celebrities including Martin Shaw, who was one of her first clients.^[2]. Kelly's other well known projects include designing the British Airways first class cabins, the Royal Mougins Golf Club in the South of Franc and boutique hotel Murmuri in Barcelona. As well as sharing her knowledge in the Kelly Hoppen Design School, Kelly also designs ranges of home accessories, wall paper, wall art, furniture, taps, lighting, carpets, fabrics, paints, bed linen, candles & scents as well as a highly successful QVC range. In 2011, she presented her own show on Channel 5 called Superior Interiors.

Hoppen is famous for using a neutral colour palette such as taupe and beige.^[2][1] Of her design philosophy she has said, "My philosophy has always remained the same, its about creating calm balanced environments based on Eastern cultures, ie order and creation of harmony. How people feel in a space is as important as the way it looks, one can't be without the other to succeed."

In 1996 she was awarded the Andrew Martin Interior Design Award by Andrew Martin International. She has subsequently won a number of other awards including European Woman Of Achievement in 2007.^[2] In March 2009 Kelly was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.^[3] The award was given for services to Interior Design. Kelly is an ambassador for the Princes Trust, the Government’s GREAT campaign and now works with UK Trade & Investment and other parts the government, as an adviser and mentor to small businesses.

Personal life[link]

Hoppen was born in Cape Town, South Africa.^[4] She moved, with her family, to London when she was 2 but returned to South Africa every year for Christmas. She was bullied at school because of her dyslexia .^[5] Her father worked in the fashion industry and her mother was a businesswoman specialising in antique maps of Africa and books.^[6] During her childhood her parents divorced. Hoppen lived with her father^[7] until his sudden death just before Christmas^[8] when she was 16.^[2] Her older brother,^[2] Michael Hoppen, owns the Michael Hoppen Gallery.^[5]

In 1982, aged 22, Hoppen married Graham Corrett and daughter Natasha was born a year later. They divorced in 1989 and she later married Ed Miller, the father of Sienna Miller but divorced after 15 years of marriage.

[edit] News of the World legal action

Hoppen has lodged a claim against the News of the World and one of its reporters, Dan Evans, for "accessing or attempting to access her voicemail messages between June 2009 and March 2010".^[9] Hoppen's case was one of five test cases concerning the hacking of the mobile phones of public figures by the paper due to be brought before the High Court early in 2012. Since settlement her test case has been replaced by that of footballer Ashley Cole. ^[10] In October 2011 she accepted £60,000 in damages from News International in relation to phone hacking in 05/06. No acceptance of liability was made in relation to the allegations against Evans in respect of 09. ^[11]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Kelly Hoppen Retail
• [3]
• Kelly Hoppen talks about her style

Sir Terence Orby Conran, FCSD, (born 4 October 1931) is an English designer, restaurateur, retailer and writer.^[1]

Early life and education[link]

Terence Conran was born in Kingston upon Thames, the son of Christina Mabel (Halstead) and South African-born Gerard Rupert Conran, a businessman who owned a rubber importation company in East London.^[2] Conran was educated at Bryanston School in Dorset and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design where he studied textiles and other materials.

Work[link]

Conran's first professional work came when he worked in the Festival of Britain on the main South Bank site. He left college to take up a job with Dennis Lennon's architectural company, which had been commissioned to make a 1/4 scale interior of a Princess Flying Boat.^[3]

Conran started his own design practice in 1956 with the Summa furniture range and designing a shop for Mary Quant. In 1964 he opened the first Habitat shop in Chelsea with his third wife Caroline Herbert, which grew into a large chain selling household goods and furniture in contemporary designs. In the mid-1980s, Conran expanded Habitat into the Storehouse plc group of companies that included Mothercare and Heals but in 1990 he lost control of the company. His later retail companies include the Conran Shop and FSC-certified wood furniture maker Benchmark Furniture, which he co-founded with Sean Sutcliffe in 1983.

He has also been involved in architecture and interior design, including London's Michelin House (which he turned into the restaurant Bibendum) and the Bluebird Garage both in Chelsea. Conran had a major role in the regeneration in the early 1990s of the Shad Thames area of London next to Tower Bridge that includes the Design Museum which is managed by the Conran Foundation.

Conran has also created various other London restaurants including the Soup Kitchen, Orrery, Quaglino's, Mezzo (restaurant), Pont de la Tour, Blueprint Cafe, Butler's Wharf Chop House, together with restaurants in various other countries. In 2005 he was named as the most influential restaurateur in the UK by CatererSearch, the website of Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine. In 2007, 49% of the entire Conran restaurant business was sold to D&D, a company run by two former Conran employees, Des Gunewardena and David Loewi.[1] In 2008, he returned to the restaurant business on a personal basis by opening Boundary in Shoreditch, East London, a restaurant/bar/cafe/meeting room complex.This was followed in 2009 by Lutyens, a restaurant and private club within the former Reuters building in Fleet Street London.

He has written and published various books, particularly on interior design. Many were published by Conran Octopus, a division of Octopus Publishing Group, a cross-platform illustrated book publisher founded by Sir Terence and Paul Hamlyn.

Representation and Awards[link]

Conran was knighted in 1983.

Conran is a winner of the Chartered Society of Designers Minerva Medal, the Society's highest award.

Between 2003 and 2011, he was provost of the Royal College of Art. In 2003 he received the Prince Phillip Designers Prize, in recognition of his lifetime achievements in design. In 2007, he received an honorary degree from London South Bank University.

Family[link]

Fashion designer Jasper Conran is his son with his second wife, writer Shirley Conran. Other members of the family include Sebastian Conran (designer), Tom Conran (restaurateur), and daughter Sophie Conran (cars, pies, and design). His youngest son, Edmund (known as Ned) has suffered from psychiatric problems; he was remanded in a secure unit in November 2001 after an assault on a tourist in London.^[4][5]

Conran and Caroline Herbert divorced in 1996; she settled for £6.2 million out of his £80 million assets. Although the court had acknowledged that she had for more than 30 years made an outstanding contribution to the Habitat and restaurant businesses, the trial judge thought it "absurd" to suggest that she had played an equal role in the generation of wealth.

Conran's sister Priscilla is the former wife of Antonio Carluccio who once worked for Conran.

Conran and his wife, Vicki, live in London, Berkshire and France.....

Bibliography[link]

• The House Book. Pub. Mitchell Beazley, 1974. ISBN 0855330414.
• The Kitchen Book. Crown Publishers, 1977.
• The Bed and bath Book. Crown Publishers, 1978. ISBN 0-517-53399-5.
• The Cook Book. with Caroline Conran. Crown Publishers, 1980. ISBN 0517540185,.
• The Vegetable Book. Crescent, 1984. ISBN 0517446456.
• Terence Conran's New house book. Villard Books, 1985. ISBN 0-394-54633-4.
• Terence Conran's plants at home. with Susan Conder. Conran Octopus, 1986. ISBN 1-85029-056-3.
• Terence Conran's France. with Pierrette Pompon Bailhache, Maurice Croizard. Little, Brown, 1987. ISBN 0-316-15327-3.
• Terence Conran's Home Furnishings. 1987. ISBN 5-551-98206-8.
• Terence Conran's do-it-yourself with style. Simon & Schuster, 1989. ISBN 0671687190.
• Tableware. with Jeremy Myerson, Sylvia Katz. Pub. Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1990.
• Conran's Decorating with Plants. Smithmark Pub, 1990. ISBN 0-8317-2169-3.
• Terence Conran's garden style, with John McGowan. Ed. Roger DuBern. Crown Publishers, 1991. ISBN 0517584638.
• The Soft furnishings book. Conran Octopus, 1995.
• The French Room: Simple French Style for Your Home. with Elizabeth Wilhide. Conran Octopus, 1995. ISBN 1-85029-825-4.
• Terence Conran on design. Conran Octopus, 1996. ISBN 1-85029-771-1.
• The Essential garden Book', Three Rivers Press, 1998. ISBN 0-609-80022-1.
• Terence Conran's Easy Living. Soma Books, 1999. ISBN 1-57959-045-4.
• Terence Conran on restaurants. Overlook Press, 2000. ISBN 1585670456.
• Terence Conran Small Spaces. Clarkson N Potter Publishers, 2001. ISBN 5-559-43946-0.
• Kitchens: the hub of the home. Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2002. ISBN 0-609-61052-X.
• Bathrooms: just add water. Conran Octopus, 2004. ISBN 1-84091-357-6.
• Designers on Design. with Max Fraser. Collins Design, 2005. ISBN 0060834102.
• The Ultimate House Book: For Home Design in the Twenty-First Century. Ed. Elizabeth Wilhide. Pub. Conran Octopus, 2006. ISBN 1-84091-468-8.
• The Conran Cookbook. with Simon Hopkinson, Caroline Conran. Conran Octopus, 2007. ISBN 1-84091-496-3.
• How to live in small spaces: design, furnishing, decoration, detail for the smaller home. Pub. Conran Octopus, 2007. ISBN 1840914734.
• Storage: Get Organized. Conran Octopus, 2007. ISBN 1-84091-434-3.
• Chef's Garden: Fresh Produce from Small Spaces. Conran Octopus, 2008. ISBN 1-84091-510-2,.
• Terence Conran's Inspiration. with Stafford Cliff. Conran Octopus, 2009. ISBN 1-84091-494-7.

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Terence Conran. by Nicholas Ind. Sidgwick & Jackson, 1996. ISBN 0-283-06294-0.
• Terence Conran: design and the quality of life by Elizabeth Wilhide. Watson-Guptill, 1999.

External links[link]

• Conran.com
• Content by Conran furniture line
• D&D London
• Light By Conran
• Vision By Conran
• The Conran Shop
• Conran & Partners Architecture, Product Design, Interior Design, Graphic Design
  • Conran's personal awards
• BBC website article
• Guardian newspaper article
• Terence Conran profile on CatererSearch
• Terence Conran interviewed by Ginny Dougary (2005)
• "Conran Fabrics". Fashion, Jewellery & Accessories. Victoria and Albert Museum. http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/0-9/1960s-textile-designers/. Retrieved 2007-08-05. 

Steve Jobs
Jobs holding a white iPhone 4 at Worldwide Developers Conference 2010
Born	Steven Paul Jobs (1955-02-24)February 24, 1955[1][2] San Francisco, California, U.S.[1][2]
Died	October 5, 2011(2011-10-05) (aged 56)[2] Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Pancreatic cancer
Nationality	American
Ethnicity	Syrian, German[3]
Alma mater	Reed College (dropped out)
Occupation	Co-founder, Chairman and CEO, Apple Inc. Co-founder and CEO, Pixar Co-founder and CEO, NeXT Inc.
Years active	1974–2011
Board member of	The Walt Disney Company[4] Apple Inc.
Religion	Zen Buddhism
Spouse	Laurene Powell (1991–2011, his death)
Children	Lisa Brennan-Jobs Reed Erin Eve
Relatives	Mona Simpson (sister)
Signature

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (/ˈdʒɒbz/; February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)^[5][6] 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^[7][8] 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.^[9]

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.^[10] 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,^[11] making Jobs Disney's largest individual shareholder at seven percent and a member of Disney's Board of Directors.^[12][13]

After difficulties developing a new Mac operating system, Apple purchased NeXT in 1996 in order to use NeXTSTEP as the basis for what became Mac OS X.^[14] 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". Under his leadership, Apple was saved from near bankruptcy, and became profitable by 1998.^[15][16] 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.^[17] The success of these products and services, providing several years of stable financial returns, propelled Apple to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company in 2011.^[18] The reinvigoration of the company is regarded by many commentators as one of the greatest turnarounds in business history.^[19][20][21]

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.^[22] 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.

Jobs has received a number of honors and public recognition for his influence in the technology and music industries. He has widely been referred to as "legendary", a "futurist" or simply "visionary",^{[23][24][25][26]} and has been described as the "Father of the Digital Revolution",^[27] a "master of innovation",^[28][29] and a "design perfectionist".^[30][31]

Early life and education[link]

Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco on February 24, 1955 to two university students, Joanne Carole Schieble and Syrian-born Abdulfattah "John" Jandali (Arabic: عبدالفتاح جندلي‎), who were both unmarried at the time.^[32] 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.^[33] The baby was adopted at birth by Paul Reinhold Jobs (1922–1993) and Clara Jobs (1924–1986), an Armenian-American^[3] whose maiden name was Hagopian.^[34] Later, when asked about his "adoptive parents," Jobs replied emphatically that Paul and Clara Jobs "were my parents."^[35] He stated in his authorized biography that they "were my parents 1,000%."^[36] Unknown to him, his biological parents would subsequently marry (December 1955), have a second child Mona Simpson in 1957, and divorce in 1962.^[36]

The Jobs family moved from San Francisco to Mountain View, California when Steve was five years old.^[1][2] The parents later adopted a daughter, Patti. Paul was a machinist for a company that made lasers, and taught his son rudimentary electronics and how to work with his hands.^[1] The father showed Steve how to work on electronics in the family garage, demonstrating to his son how to take apart and rebuild electronics such as radios and televisions. As a result, Steve became interested in and developed a hobby of technical tinkering.^[37]

Clara was an accountant^[35] who taught him to read before he went to school.^[1] Clara Jobs had been a payroll clerk for Varian Associates, one of the first high-tech firms in what became known as Silicon Valley.^[38]

Jobs's youth was riddled with frustrations over formal schooling. At Monta Loma Elementary school in Mountain View, he was a prankster whose fourth-grade teacher needed to bribe him to study. Jobs tested so well, however, that administrators wanted to skip him ahead to high school—a proposal his parents declined.^[39]

Jobs then attended Cupertino Junior High and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California.^[2] At Homestead, Jobs became friends with Bill Fernandez, a neighbor who shared the same interests in electronics. Fernandez introduced Jobs to another, older computer whiz kid, Stephen Wozniak (also known as "Woz"). In 1969 Woz started building a little computer board with Fernandez that they named “The Cream Soda Computer”, which they showed to Jobs; he seemed really interested.^[40] Jobs frequented after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California, and was later hired there, working with Wozniak as a summer employee.^[41]

Following high school graduation in 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Reed was an expensive college which Paul and Clara could ill afford. They were spending much of their life savings on their son’s higher education.^[40] Jobs dropped out of college after six months and spent the next 18 months dropping in on creative classes, including a course on calligraphy.^[42] He continued auditing classes at Reed while sleeping on the floor in friends' dorm rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple.^[43] 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."^[43]

Early career[link]

This section may be in need of reorganization to comply with Wikipedia's layout guidelines. Please help by editing the article to make improvements to the overall structure. (March 2012)

Homebrew Computer Club Newsletter, September 1976

In 1974, Jobs took a job as a technician at Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California.^[44] He traveled to India in mid-1974^[45] to visit Neem Karoli Baba^[46] 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.^[44] 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.^[44]

After staying for seven months, Jobs left India^[47] and returned to the US ahead of Daniel Kottke.^[44] Jobs had changed his appearance; his head was shaved and he wore traditional Indian clothing.^[48][49] During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, later calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life".^[50] 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.^[51] He considered taking up monastic residence at Eihei-ji in Japan, and maintained a lifelong appreciation for Zen.^[52] Jobs would later say that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not fully relate to his thinking.^[50]

Jobs then returned to Atari, and was assigned to create a circuit board for the arcade video game Breakout. According to Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari offered $100 for each chip that was eliminated in the machine. At that time, Jobs had little specialized 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 engineers, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line.^{[further explanation needed]} According to Wozniak, Jobs told him that Atari gave them only $700 (instead of the offered $5,000), and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.^[53] Wozniak did not learn about the actual bonus until ten years later, but said that if Jobs had told him about it and had said he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.^[54]

In the early 1970s, Jobs and Wozniak were drawn to technology like a magnet. Wozniak had designed a low-cost digital "blue box" to generate the necessary tones to manipulate the telephone network, allowing free long-distance calls. Jobs decided that they could make money selling it. The clandestine sales of the illegal "blue boxes" went well, and perhaps planted the seed in Jobs's mind that electronics could be fun and profitable.^[55]

In 1976, Jobs and Wozniak formed their own business, which they named “Apple Computer Company” in remembrance of a happy summer Jobs had spent picking apples. At first they started off selling circuit boards, but eventually they produced a complete computer prototype.^[56] Jobs began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Wozniak in 1975.^[2] He greatly admired Edwin H. Land, the inventor of instant photography and founder of Polaroid Corporation, and would explicitly model his own career after that of Land's.^[57][58]

Career[link]

Apple Computer[link]

Home of Paul and Clara Jobs, on Crist Drive in Los Altos, California. Steve Jobs formed Apple Computer in its garage with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976. Wayne stayed only a short time, leaving Jobs and Wozniak as the primary co-founders of the company.

Jobs and Steve Wozniak met in 1971, when their mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, introduced 21-year-old Wozniak to 16-year-old Jobs. In 1976, Wozniak invented the Apple I computer. Jobs, Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple computer in the garage of Jobs's parents in order to sell it.^[59] They received funding from a then-semi-retired Intel product-marketing manager and engineer Mike Markkula.^[60]

In 1978, Apple recruited Mike Scott from National Semiconductor to serve as CEO for what turned out to be several turbulent years. In 1983, Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple's CEO, 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?"^[61]

In the early 1980s, 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. One year later, Apple employee Jef Raskin invented the Macintosh.^[62][63]

The following year, Apple aired a Super Bowl television commercial titled "1984". At Apple's annual shareholders meeting on January 24, 1984, an emotional Jobs introduced the Macintosh to a wildly enthusiastic audience; Andy Hertzfeld described the scene as "pandemonium".^[64]

Apple logo in 1977, created by Rob Janoff with the rainbow color theme used until 1998.

While Jobs was a persuasive and charismatic director for Apple, some of his employees from that time described him as an erratic and temperamental manager. Disappointing sales caused a deterioration in Jobs's working relationship with Sculley and it eventually became a power struggle between Jobs and Sculley.^[65] Jobs kept meetings running past midnight, sent out lengthy faxes, then called new meetings at 7:00 am.^[66]

Sculley learned that Jobs—believing Sculley to be "bad for Apple" and the wrong person to lead the company—had been attempting to organize a boardroom coup, and on May 24, 1985, called a board meeting to resolve the matter.^[65] Apple's board of directors sided with Sculley and removed Jobs from his managerial duties as head of the Macintosh division.^[67][68] Jobs resigned from Apple five months later^[65] and founded NeXT Inc. the same year.^[66][69]

In a speech Jobs gave at Stanford University in 2005, he said being fired from Apple was the best thing that could have happened to him; "The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life." And he added, "I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it."^[43][70][71]

NeXT Computer[link]

A NeXTstation with the original keyboard, mouse and the NeXT MegaPixel monitor

After leaving Apple, Jobs founded NeXT Computer in 1985, with $7 million. A year later, Jobs was running out of money, and with no product on the horizon, he appealed for venture capital. Eventually, he attracted the attention of billionaire Ross Perot who invested heavily in the company.^[72] NeXT workstations were first released in 1990, priced at $9,999. Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced, but was largely dismissed as cost-prohibitive by the educational sector for which it was designed.^[73] The NeXT workstation was known for its technical strengths, chief among them its object-oriented software development system. Jobs marketed NeXT products to the financial, scientific, and academic community, highlighting its innovative, experimental new technologies, such as the Mach kernel, the digital signal processor chip, and the built-in Ethernet port. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web on a NeXT computer at CERN.^[74]

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.^[75] Jobs ran NeXT with an obsession for aesthetic perfection, as evidenced by the development of and attention to NeXTcube's magnesium case.^[76] 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.^[77] The company reported its first profit of $1.03 million in 1994.^[72] 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,^[77] MobileMe services, and the iTunes Store.

Pixar and Disney[link]

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.^[78]

The first film produced by the partnership, Toy Story, with Jobs credited as executive producer,^[79] 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.^[80]

Steve Jobs on computer graphics Steve Jobs on computer graphics. Interview excerpt from 1995.[81]

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,^[82] 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.^[12] 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.^[83] Upon Jobs's death his shares in Disney were transferred to the Steven P. Jobs Trust led by Laurene Jobs.^[84]

Return to Apple[link]

Logo for the Think Different campaign designed by TBWA\Chiat\Day and initiated by Jobs after his return to Apple Computer in 1997.

In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $427 million. The deal was finalized in late 1996,^[85] 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.^[86] 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."^[87] 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.^[88] Jobs quipped at the time that he would be using the title "iCEO".^[89]

Jobs on stage at Macworld Conference & Expo, San Francisco, January 11, 2005

The company subsequently branched out, introducing and improving upon other digital appliances. With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company made forays into consumer electronics and music distribution. On June 29, 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell phone, which also included the features of an iPod and, with its own mobile browser, revolutionized the mobile browsing scene. While stimulating innovation, Jobs also reminded his employees that "real artists ship".^[90]

Jobs was both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the "reality distortion field" and was particularly evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as "Stevenotes") at Macworld Expos and at Apple Worldwide Developers Conferences. In 2005, Jobs responded to criticism of Apple's poor recycling programs for e-waste in the US by lashing out at environmental and other advocates at Apple's Annual Meeting in Cupertino in April. A few weeks later, Apple announced it would take back iPods for free at its retail stores. The Computer TakeBack Campaign responded by flying a banner from a plane over the Stanford University graduation at which Jobs was the commencement speaker.^[43] The banner read "Steve, don't be a mini-player—recycle all e-waste".

In 2006, he further expanded Apple's recycling programs to any US customer who buys a new Mac. This program includes shipping and "environmentally friendly disposal" of their old systems.^[91]

Resignation[link]

In August 2011, Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple, but remained with the company as chairman of the company's board.^[92][93] Hours after the announcement, Apple Inc. (AAPL) shares dropped five percent in after-hours trading.^[94] This relatively small drop, when considering the importance of Jobs to Apple, was associated with the fact that his health had been in the news for several years, and he had been on medical leave since January 2011.^[95] It was believed, according to Forbes, that the impact would be felt in a negative way beyond Apple, including at The Walt Disney Company where Jobs served as director.^[96] In after-hours trading on the day of the announcement, Walt Disney Co. (DIS) shares dropped 1.5 percent.^[97]

Business life[link]

Wealth[link]

Jobs earned only $1 a year as CEO of Apple,^[98] Jobs held 5.426 million Apple shares worth $2.1 billion, as well as 138 million shares in Disney (which he received in exchange for Disney's acquisition of Pixar) worth $4.4 billion.^[99][100] Jobs quipped that the $1 per annum he was paid by Apple was based on attending one meeting for 50 cents while the other 50 cents was based on his performance.^[101] Forbes estimated his net wealth at $8.3 billion in 2010, making him the 42nd wealthiest American.^[102]

Stock options backdating issue[link]

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at the fifth D: All Things Digital conference (D5) in 2007

In 2001, Jobs was granted stock options in the amount of 7.5 million shares of Apple with an exercise price of $18.30. It was alleged that the options had been backdated, and that the exercise price should have been $21.10. It was further alleged that Jobs had thereby incurred taxable income of $20,000,000 that he did not report, and that Apple overstated its earnings by that same amount. As a result, Jobs potentially faced a number of criminal charges and civil penalties. The case was the subject of active criminal and civil government investigations,^[103] though an independent internal Apple investigation completed on December 29, 2006, found that Jobs was unaware of these issues and that the options granted to him were returned without being exercised in 2003.^[104]

On July 1, 2008, a $7-billion class action suit was filed against several members of the Apple Board of Directors for revenue lost due to the alleged securities fraud.^[105][106]

Management style[link]

Jobs was a demanding perfectionist^[107][108] who always aspired to position his businesses and their products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting trends, at least in innovation and style. He summed up that self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007, by quoting ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky

There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will.^[109]

Steve Jobs announcing the transition to Intel processors in 2005.

Much was made of Jobs's aggressive and demanding personality. Fortune wrote that he was "considered one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs".^[110] Commentaries on his temperamental style can be found in Michael Moritz's The Little Kingdom, The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, by Alan Deutschman; and iCon: Steve Jobs, by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon. In 1993, Jobs made Fortune's list of America's Toughest Bosses in regard to his leadership of NeXT.

NeXT Cofounder Dan'l Lewin was quoted in Fortune as saying of that period, "The highs were unbelievable ... But the lows were unimaginable", to which Jobs's office replied that his personality had changed since then.^[111]

In 2005, Jobs banned all books published by John Wiley & Sons from Apple Stores in response to their publishing an unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs.^[112] In its 2010 annual earnings report, Wiley said it had "closed a deal ... to make its titles available for the iPad."^[113] Jef Raskin, a former colleague, once said that Jobs "would have made an excellent king of France", alluding to Jobs's compelling and larger-than-life persona.^[114] Floyd Norman said that at Pixar, Jobs was a "mature, mellow individual" and never interfered with the creative process of the filmmakers.^[115]

Jobs had a public war of words with Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, starting in 1987 when Jobs first criticized Dell for making "un-innovative beige boxes".^[116] On October 6, 1997, in a Gartner Symposium, when Michael Dell was asked what he would do if he ran then-troubled Apple Computer, he said "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."^[117] In 2006, Jobs sent an email to all employees when Apple's market capitalization rose above Dell's. The email read:

Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.^[118]

Jobs was also a board member at Gap Inc. from 1999 to 2002.^[119]

Reality distortion field[link]

Apple's Bud Tribble coined the term "reality distortion field" in 1981, to describe Jobs's charisma and its effects on the developers working on the Macintosh project.^[120] Tribble claimed that the term came from Star Trek.^[120] Since then the term has also been used to refer to perceptions of Jobs's keynote speeches.^[121]

The RDF was said by Andy Hertzfeld to be Steve Jobs's 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's 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's sway over the public, particularly regarding new product announcements.^[122][123]

Inventions and designs[link]

His design sense was greatly influenced by the Buddhism which he experienced in India while on a seven-month spiritual journey.^[124] His sense of intuition was also influenced by the spiritual people with whom he studied.^[124]