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Ronald Wayne
Ron Wayne at Macworld 2009
Born	(1934-05-17) May 17, 1934 (age 78) Cleveland, Ohio

Ronald Gerald Wayne (born May 17, 1934) is a retired electronics industry worker. He founded Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs^[1], providing key administrative oversight for the new venture. He soon, however, gave up his share of the new company for a total of $2,300.^[2]

Biography[link]

Wayne was born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States.^[3] He worked with Steve Jobs at Atari before he, Jobs, and Wozniak founded Apple Computer on April 1, 1976. Serving as the venture's "adult supervision",^[2] Wayne drew the first Apple logo, wrote the three men's original partnership agreement,^[4] and wrote the Apple I manual.^[2][5]

Wayne received a 10% stake in Apple but relinquished his stock for US$800 less than two weeks later, on April 13, 1976.^[5][6] Legally, all members of a partnership are personally responsible for any debts incurred by any partner; unlike Jobs and Wozniak, then 21 and 25, Wayne had personal assets that potential creditors could seize.^[1][5] The failure of a slot machine company that he had started five years earlier also contributed to his decision to exit the partnership.^[2]

Later that year, venture capitalist Arthur Rock and Mike Markkula helped develop a business plan and convert the partnership to a corporation. Wayne received another check, for $1,500, for his agreement to forfeit any claims against the new company.^[2] In its first year of operations (1976), Apple's sales reached US$174,000. In 1977, sales rose to US$2.7 million, in 1978 to US$7.8 million, and in 1980 to US$117 million. By 1982 Apple had a billion dollars in annual sales. He claimed that he did not regret selling the stock as he had made the "best decision with the information available to me at the time."^[7]

Wayne also stated that he felt the Apple enterprise "would be successful, but at the same time there would be bumps along the way and I couldn't risk it. I had already had a rather unfortunate business experience before. I was getting too old and those two were whirlwinds. It was like having a tiger by the tail and I couldn't keep up with these guys."^[4] Had he kept his 10% stock it would have been worth over 35 billion dollars in August 2011.^[8]

After leaving Apple, Wayne resisted Jobs's attempts to recruit him back to Apple, remaining at Atari until 1978 when he joined Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and later an electronics company in Salinas, California.^[7] He is retired and sells stamps, rare coins, and gold from his Pahrump, Nevada home, and had never owned an Apple product until 2011, when he was given an iPad 2 by Aral Balkan at the Update Conference in Brighton, United Kingdom.^[2][9][10]

Wayne also ran a stamp shop in Milpitas, California for a short period of time in the late 1970s, "Wayne's Philatelics", on Dempsey Road. After a number of break-ins he moved his stamp operations to Nevada. Interestingly, his logo for the business was a wood-cut style design, with a man sitting under an apple tree, with the "Wayne's Philatelics" name written in a flowing ribbon curved around the tree. This particular logo is interesting because it was the original logo he designed for Apple Computer.

He holds a dozen patents but never had enough capital to make money from any of them.^[11]

Author[link]

Wayne published a memoir titled, Adventures of an Apple Founder, in July 2011, at most major book sellers. Plans for initial exclusivity on the Apple iBookstore don't appear to have panned out.^[12][13]

Wayne has also written a socio-economic treatise titled Insolence of Office, released on October 1, 2011 which he describes as:^[12]

...the product of decades of research and observation into the evolution of human governance, and the foundations of the American Constitutional Republic. Through this analysis the reader is introduced to a complete, yet simplified understanding of the architecture of our Constitution, its foundations, principles, and the essential meaning of its structure all in the context of modern living.

Documentaries[link]

Wayne appeared in the documentary Welcome to Macintosh where he describes some of his experiences with Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Apple Computer.^[14][15]

Personal life[link]

According to Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, Wayne came out as gay to Jobs shortly after February 1974, while both men were employees at Atari.^[16] Jobs later told Isaacson that "It was my first encounter with someone who I knew was gay." Wayne recalled to Isaacson that "Nobody at Atari knew, and I could count on my toes and fingers the number of people I told in my whole life. But I guess it just felt right to tell him, that he would understand, and it didn't have any effect on our relationship."

References[link]

External links[link]

• Ron Wayne – Official Website
• Ron Wayne on Facebook
• Ron Wayne on Twitter
• Ron Wayne interview by OMT
• NPR report "Lost" Apple Founder Has No Regrets – June 13, 2010
• Ron Wayne, Apple Co-Founder, Shares Steve Jobs' "Richest Man in the Cemetery" Sentiment Almost Verbatim, Village Voice, October 8, 2011

v t e Apple Inc. History Outline Founders Steve Jobs Steve Wozniak Ronald Wayne Board of directors Current Bill Campbell Millard Drexler Al Gore Tim Cook (CEO) Andrea Jung Arthur D. Levinson (Chairman) Ronald Sugar Bob Iger Former Jerry York Executives Current Tim Cook Eddy Cue Scott Forstall Jonathan Ive Bob Mansfield Peter Oppenheimer Phil Schiller Bruce Sewell Jeff Williams John Browett Former Ron Johnson Mark Papermaster Bertrand Serlet Sina Tamaddon Hardware products Apple TV iPad Original 2 3rd iPhone Original 3G 3GS 4 4S iPod Classic Nano Shuffle Touch Mac iMac MacBook MacBook Air MacBook Pro Mini Pro Discontinued products Accessories AirPort Thunderbolt Display iPod accessories Mighty Mouse Magic Mouse Magic Trackpad Keyboard Time Capsule Software products Aperture Bento FileMaker Pro Final Cut Studio GarageBand iLife iOS iTunes iWork Logic Studio Mac OS X Server QuickTime Safari Xsan Stores and services Developer AppleCare Apple Specialist Apple Store online App Store Certifications Game Center iAd Genius Bar iBookstore iTunes Store Mac App Store iWork.com MobileMe iCloud One to One ProCare Companies Braeburn Capital FileMaker Inc. Acquisitions Emagic FingerWorks Intrinsity Lala NeXT Nothing Real P.A. Semi Silicon Color Siri Spruce Technologies Related Advertising 1984 Think Different Get a Mac iPods Slogans Design IDg Typography History Community Criticism Litigation Book Category Portal Project Commons Template

Steve Wozniak
Born	Stephan Gary Wozniak (1950-08-11) August 11, 1950 (age 61) San Jose, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Other names	Woz
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley
Occupation	Computer scientist Electronics engineer
Net worth	US$100 million (2011)[1]
Spouse	Alice Robertson (m. 1976–1980) «start: (1976)–end+1: (1981)»"Marriage: Alice Robertson to Steve Wozniak" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Steve_Wozniak) Candice Clark (m. 1981–1987) «start: (1981)–end+1: (1988)»"Marriage: Candice Clark to Steve Wozniak" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Steve_Wozniak) Suzanne Mulkern (m. 1990–2004) «start: (1990)–end+1: (2005)»"Marriage: Suzanne Mulkern to Steve Wozniak" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Steve_Wozniak) Janet Hill (m. 2008) «start: (2008)»"Marriage: Janet Hill to Steve Wozniak" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Steve_Wozniak)
Children	3
Website
www.woz.org

Stephan Gary "Woz" Wozniak (born August 11, 1950)^[2] is an American computer engineer and programmer who founded Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne. Wozniak created the Apple I computer and co-created the Apple II computer in the mid-1970s, which contributed significantly to the microcomputer revolution of that era.^[3]

Nicknames[link]

Wozniak has been referred to frequently by the nickname "Woz" or "The Woz”^[4]; "WoZ" (short for "Wheels of Zeus") is also the name of a company Wozniak founded.

Apple Computer[link]

Origins of Apple[link]

Wozniak met Steve Jobs when fellow Homestead High School student, Bill Fernandez, introduced them to each other.^[5] In 1970, they became friends when Jobs worked for the summer at Hewlett-Packard (HP), where Wozniak was working on a mainframe computer.^[6] According to Wozniak's autobiography, iWoz, Jobs had the idea to sell a computer as a fully assembled printed circuit board. Wozniak, at first skeptical, was later convinced by Jobs that even if they were not successful they could at least say to their grandkids they had had their own company. Together they sold some of their possessions (such as Wozniak's HP scientific calculator and Jobs' Volkswagen van), raised USD $1,300, and assembled the first prototypes in Jobs' bedroom and later (when there was no space left) in Jobs' garage. Wozniak's apartment in San Jose was filled with monitors, electronic devices, and some computer games Wozniak had developed.

Excerpt from the Apple I design manual, including Wozniak's hand-drawn diagrams

By 1971, one year after enrolling, Wozniak withdrew from the University of California, Berkeley and developed the computer that eventually made him famous. By himself he designed the hardware, circuit board designs, and operating system for the Apple I.^[7] With the Apple I design, he and Jobs were largely working to impress other members of the Palo Alto-based Homebrew Computer Club, a local group of electronics hobbyists very interested in computing. The Club was one of several key centers which established the home hobbyist era, essentially creating the microcomputer industry over several years. Unlike other Homebrew designs, the Apple had an easy-to-achieve video capability that drew a crowd when it was unveiled.^[7]

On April 1, 1976, Jobs and Wozniak formed Apple Computer. Wozniak quit his job at Hewlett-Packard and became the vice president in charge of research and development at Apple. Their first product, the Apple I computer, was similar to the Altair 8800, the first commercially available microcomputer, except it had no provision for internal expansion cards. With the addition of expansion cards, the Altair could be attached to a computer terminal and could be programmed in BASIC. The Apple I was purely a hobbyist machine, a $25 microprocessor (MOS 6502) on a single-circuit board with 256 bytes of ROM, 4K or 8K bytes of RAM and a 40-character by 24-row display controller. It lacked a case, power supply, keyboard, or display, which had to be provided by the user.

The Apple I was priced at $666.66. (Wozniak later said he had no idea about the relation between the number and the mark of the beast, and "I came up with [it] because I like repeating digits." It was $500 plus a 1/3 markup, which is actually $666.67, rounding up to the nearest penny.) Jobs and Wozniak sold their first 50 system boards to Paul Terrell, who was starting a new computer shop, called the Byte Shop, in Mountain View, California.^[8]

Airplane crash[link]

In February 1981, Wozniak was injured in a private plane crash taking off from the Santa Cruz Sky Park.^[9] The cause of the crash was determined to be premature liftoff.^{[further explanation needed]} He was unable to recall details of the crash and, for many weeks after being released from the hospital, did not realize he had been in a crash at all. He says he wandered around in a haze and did not report to work, thinking every day was a weekend day. He did not remember one day to the next, and needed to be told how to get to places familiar to him. After questioning his wife,^{[citation needed]} he finally began to figure out what had happened, after which his memory began operating correctly again.

Employment with Apple[link]

Steve Wozniak in 1983

Wozniak did not immediately return to Apple after having recovered from the crash. Instead, he married Candice Clark and returned to UC Berkeley under the name "Rocky Clark" (Rocky Raccoon was his dog's name and Clark his wife's maiden name), finally earning his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering & computer sciences (EECS) in 1986.^[10] In May 1982 and 1983, Wozniak also sponsored two US Festivals to celebrate evolving technologies; they ended up as a technology exposition and a rock festival as a combination of music, computers, television and people.

In 1983 he returned to Apple product development, desiring no more of a role than that of an engineer and a motivational factor for the Apple workforce.^[8]

Wozniak permanently ended his full-time employment with Apple on February 6, 1987, 12 years after having created the company. He still remains an employee and receives a small token paycheck, est. to be roughly 120k per year.^[8][11][12] He is also an Apple shareholder.^[13] He also maintained connections with Steve Jobs until Jobs' death in October 2011,^[14] although in 2006 Wozniak stated that he and Jobs were not close friends.^[15]

Post-Apple career[link]

Wozniak founded a new venture called CL 9, which developed and brought the first programmable universal remote control to market in 1987.^[8] He says he "did a degree under an assumed name — Rocky Racoon Clark".^[16] Wozniak also taught fifth-grade students.

In 2001, Wozniak founded Wheels of Zeus (WoZ), to create wireless GPS technology to "help everyday people find everyday things. much easily" In 2002, he joined the Board of Directors of Ripcord Networks, Inc., joining Ellen Hancock, Gil Amelio, Mike Connor, and Wheels of Zeus co-founder Alex Fielding, all Apple alumni, in a new telecommunications venture. Later the same year he joined the Board of Directors of Danger, Inc., the maker of the Hip Top (a.k.a. Side Kick from T-Mobile).

In 2006, Wheels of Zeus was closed, and Wozniak founded Acquicor Technology, a holding company for acquiring technology companies and developing them, with Apple alumni Ellen Hancock and Gil Amelio.

In September 2006, Wozniak published his autobiography, iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It. It was co-authored by writer Gina Smith.

In March 2006, Wozniak attended the FIRST National Competition in Atlanta to show off Lego robots.^[17] In 2010, he attended another FIRST event, a regional event in downtown Phoenix Arizona at the Arizona State Fairgrounds. In 2012, he attended and was a judge at another FIRST event, the FRC Las Vegas Regional.

In February 2009, Steve Wozniak joined Fusion-io, a data storage and server company, in Salt Lake City, Utah as their chief scientist.^[18]

On November 18, 2010, Steve Wozniak gave a speech at the Science & Technology Summit at the World Forum Convention Center in The Hague in which he predicted that Android would be dominant over the iPhone market-wise but the iPhone would retain the quality edge.^[19]

On June 9, 2011, Wozniak joined members of Fusion-io’s management team to celebrate the company’s first day of trading on the NYSE by ringing The Opening Bell.^[20]

On October 20, 2011, Wozniak delivered a keynote presentation entitled "Today’s Science Fiction, Tomorrow’s Science Fact" at IP EXPO, a Computer expo which takes place at Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London.^[21]

On November 14, 2011, Steve Wozniak was the keynote speaker at "Rutgers Entrepreneurship Day" at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.^[22]

Philanthropy[link]

Joey Slotnick, left, poses with Steve Wozniak. Slotnick portrayed Wozniak in the film Pirates of Silicon Valley.

Since leaving Apple, Wozniak has provided all the money, as well as a good amount of on-site technical support, for the technology program in his local school district.^[8] Un.U.Son. (Unite Us In Song), an organization Wozniak formed to organize the two US Festivals, is now primarily tasked with supporting his educational and philanthropic projects.^[8] In 1986, Wozniak lent his name to the Stephen G. Wozniak Achievement Awards (referred to as Wozzie Awards), which he presented to six Bay Area high school and college students for their innovative use of computers in the fields of business, art and music.

Honors and awards[link]

In 1979, Wozniak was awarded the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award. In 1985, Wozniak received the National Medal of Technology (with Steve Jobs) from US President Ronald Reagan.^[8] In December 1989, he received an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he studied in the late sixties.^[23] Later he donated funds to create the "Woz Lab" at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 1997, he was named a Fellow of the Computer History Museum. Wozniak was a key contributor and benefactor to the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose; the street in front of the museum has been renamed Woz Way in his honor.^[24]

In September 2000, Wozniak was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame,^[25] and in 2001 he was awarded the 7th Annual Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy and Employment.^[26] The American Humanist Association awarded him the Isaac Asimov Science Award in 2011.

In December 2005, Wozniak was awarded an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from Kettering University.^[27] He also received honorary degrees from North Carolina State University and Nova Southeastern University, and the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology. In May 2011, Wozniak received an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from Michigan State University.^[28]

He was awarded the Global Award of the President of Armenia for Outstanding Contribution to Humanity Through IT in 2011.^[29]

Steve Wozniak's Honorary Doctor of Engineering degrees[link]

• University of Colorado at Boulder — 1989
• Kettering University — 2005
• North Carolina State University — 2005
• Nova Southeastern University — 2005
• ESPOL University in Ecuador — 2008
• Michigan State University — 2011
• Concordia University in Montreal Canada — June 22, 2011
• State Engineering University of Armenia — November 11, 2011

Patents[link]

Wozniak is listed as the sole inventor on the following patents:

• US Patent No. 4,136,359 — "Microcomputer for use with video display"^[30] — for which he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
• US Patent No. 4,210,959 — "Controller for magnetic disc, recorder, or the like"^[31]
• US Patent No. 4,217,604 — "Apparatus for digitally controlling PAL color display"^[32]
• US Patent No. 4,278,972 — "Digitally-controlled color signal generation means for use with display"^[33]

Television appearances[link]

After seeing her stand-up performance in Saratoga, California, Wozniak began dating comedian Kathy Griffin.^[34] Together, they attended the 2007 Emmy Awards,^[35] and he subsequently made many appearances on the fourth season of her show Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List. Woz is on the show as her date for the Producers Guild of America award show. However, on a June 19, 2008 appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Griffin confirmed that they were no longer dating and decided to remain friends.^[36]

Wozniak portrays a parody of himself in the first episode of the television series Code Monkeys; he plays the owner of Gameavision before selling it to help fund Apple. He later appears again in the twelfth episode when he is in Las Vegas at the annual Video Game Convention and sees Dave and Jerry. He also appears in a parody of the "Get a Mac" ads featured in the final episode of Code Monkeys' second season. Wozniak is also interviewed and featured in the documentary Hackers Wanted and on BBC.

Wozniak competed on Season 8 of Dancing with the Stars in 2009^[37][38] where he danced with Karina Smirnoff. Despite Wozniak and Smirnoff receiving 10 combined points from the three judges out of 30, the lowest score of the evening, he remained in the competition. He later posted on a social networking site that he felt that the vote count was not legitimate and suggested that the Dancing with the Stars judges had lied about the vote count to keep him on the show.^[39] After being briefed on the method of judging and vote counting, he retracted and apologized for his statements.^[40] Despite suffering a pulled hamstring and a fracture in his foot, Wozniak continued to compete,^[41] but was eliminated from the competition on March 31, with a score of 12 out of 30 for an Argentine Tango.^[42]

On September 30, 2010, he appeared as himself on The Big Bang Theory Season 4 Episode 2 Titled "The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplification". While dining in The Cheesecake Factory where Penny works and is approached by a robot Sheldon, Leonard tries to explain to Penny who Steve is, but she says she knows him from Dancing with the Stars.

Steve Wozniak signs a Modbook for a fan during an appearance at the Axiotron booth during Macworld Expo 2009.

Personal life[link]

Wozniak's father is Polish^[43] and his mother is German, though Wozniak has said that "Either family might have come from the other country, or near the border."^[44] Family immigrated to the USA, where Steve was born. Wozniak lives in Los Gatos, California.

He is a member of a Segway Polo team, the Silicon Valley Aftershocks. In 2006, they were challenged to a game by the newly formed New Zealand Pole Blacks (the Woz Challenge Cup); the match ended in a 2-2 tie, with the Woz Challenge Cup staying in Auckland. In 2007, the Silicon Valley Aftershocks avenged the tie by defeating the Pole Blacks 5-0 in the Woz Challenge Cup finals. The 2008 Woz Challenge Cup was held at the SegwayFesT 2008 in Indianapolis, Indiana, on August 8–10, 2008 (polo events ran August 7–9).^[45] Sept 30 through October 2, 2011, Woz played Segway Polo in the Zurich Cup in Berchtesgaden, Germany. He played for the Funky Move Turtles team which placed 7th in the tournament.

His favorite video game is Tetris.^[46] In the 1990s he submitted so many high scores for the game to Nintendo Power that they would no longer print his scores, so he started sending them in under the alphabetically reversed "Evets Kainzow".^{[citation needed]}

He is also a member of the Freemasons. Wozniak describes his impetus for joining the Freemasons as being able to spend more time with his wife at the time, Alice. Alice belonged to the Order of the Eastern Star, associated with the Masons. Wozniak has said that he quickly rose to a third degree Freemason because, whatever he does, he tries to do well. He was initiated in 1979 at Charity Lodge No. 362 in Campbell, California, now part of Mt. Moriah Lodge No. 292 in Los Gatos, California.^[47]

He is married to Janet Hill.^[48] According to his ex-girlfriend Kathy Griffin, “He met someone very quickly and then they [got] engaged. I have had dinner with them, and she’s a thousand times more appropriate!”^[49]

See also[link]

• Blue box
• iWoz — an autobiography
• Pirates of Silicon Valley — A movie based on the rise of Apple and Microsoft; Wozniak is portrayed by actor Joey Slotnick.
• Triumph of the Nerds — A documentary about the rise of the PC industry by Robert X. Cringely.
• Breakout

References[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (October 2011)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Steve Wozniak

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Steve Wozniak

• woz.org Wozniak's official site
• "Apple Computer The Early Days A Personal Perspective" by Paul Laughton
• How I Invented the Personal Computer discussion with Chris Kelley and Vintage Foster at Book Passage, September 2006
• Creativity in the 21st Century conversation at the Discovery Forum 2010 at Bay Area Discovery Museum, February 2010
• Interview with Steve Wozniak by Jessica Livingston

Videos[link]

• In Search of the Valley A 2006 documentary on Silicon Valley featuring Steve Wozniak
• iWoz: From Computer Geek to Culture Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It
• Steve Wozniak interview on iWoz Book An hour long video interview by Guy Kawasaki, November, 2006^{[dead link]}
• Steve Wozniak interviewed by Charlie Rose January 29, 2007

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]

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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]