George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (Armenian: Գեորգի Իվանովիչ Գյուրջիև, Georgian: გიორგი გურჯიევი, Greek: Γεώργιος Γεωργιάδης, Russian: Гео́ргий Ива́нович Гюрджи́ев, January 13, 1866 – October 29, 1949) was an influential spiritual teacher of the early to mid-20th century who taught that the vast majority of humanity lives their entire lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it was possible to transcend to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff developed a method for doing so, calling his discipline "The Work" (connoting "work on oneself") or "the Method" according to his principles and instructions,. Gurdjieff's method for awakening one's consciousness is different from that of the fakir, monk or yogi, so his discipline is also called (originally) the "Fourth Way". At one point he described his teaching as being "esoteric Christianity".

At different times in his life, Gurdjieff formed and closed various schools around the world to teach the work. He claimed that the teachings he brought to the West from his own experiences and early travels expressed the truth found in ancient religions and wisdom teachings relating to self-awareness in people's daily lives and humanity's place in the universe. The title of his third series of writings, Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am', expresses the essence^{[citation needed]} of his teachings. His complete series of books is entitled All and Everything.

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (/ˈdʒɒbz/; February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, designer and inventor. He is best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Through Apple, he was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields. Jobs also co-founded and served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, when Disney acquired Pixar.

In the late 1970s, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak engineered one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and, one year later, the Macintosh. During this period he also led efforts that would begin the desktop publishing revolution, notably through the introduction of the LaserWriter and the associated PageMaker software.

Frederic Chiu (born 20 October 1964) is a Chinese American classical concert pianist.

Chiu was born in Ithaca, New York. He studied music and computer science at Indiana University, then pursued his musical studies in New York at the Juilliard School, where he studied with Abbey Simon. During his studies he won numerous piano competitions, including the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Piano Competition and the Music Teachers National Association Competition, both in 1984. He was awarded the American Pianist Association Fellowship (formerly known as the Beethoven Foundation).

After his studies, he moved to France, where he lived for 12 years. His career developed without entering the circuit of international piano competitions. His recording career began in 1991 with Harmonia Mundi USA, with the well-received release of a program of piano transcriptions. He followed that with a large project of recording the complete Piano Sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev. His recorded repertoire includes Mendelssohn, Rossini, Chopin, Liszt, Grieg, Brahms, Ravel, Decaux, Schoenberg, Schubert, Prokofiev and Saint-Saëns. He recorded the Liszt transcription for solo piano of the Beethoven Symphony #5.

Thomas Alexandrovich de Hartmann (Russian: Фома́ Александро́вич Га́ртман) September 21, 1885 – March 28, 1956 was a Russian composer and prominent student and collaborator of George Gurdjieff.

Thomas de Hartmann was born in Khoruzhivka, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire, now Sumy Oblast, Ukraine. At the age of 18 he received his diploma from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He studied conducting in Munich with Felix Mottl before World War I.

Thomas de Hartmann was a graduate of the Imperial Conservatory of Music. He studied musical composition with three of the greatest Russian composers of the 19th century: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Anton Arensky and Sergei Taneyev. His piano teacher was Anna Yesipova, the second wife and former student of Theodor Leschetizky. Most of de Hartmann's compositions were for voice and piano. In 1907, his ballet The Pink Flower, produced by Sergei Diaghilev with Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina in the cast, was presented at the Imperial Opera. The Tsar was so impressed that he himself granted de Hartmann exemption from military duty so that he might study conducting in Munich.