Gilbert Frank Amelio (born March 1, 1943, in New York City) is an American technology executive. He grew up in Miami, Florida and received a bachelor's degree, master's degree, and Ph.D. in physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Amelio worked at Bell Labs, Fairchild Semiconductor, and the semiconductor division of Rockwell International but is best remembered as a former CEO of National Semiconductor and Apple. Amelio was CEO of National Semiconductor from May 27, 1991, to February 2, 1996. During his tenure at National Semiconductor, Amelio cut costs and returned the company to profitability.^{[citation needed]}

At Bell Labs in 1970, Amelio was on the team that demonstrated the first working charge-coupled device (CCD). He moved to Fairchild Semiconductor in 1971, where he led the development of the first commercial CCD image sensors in the early 1970s, and in 1977 became head of the MOS division.

Amelio was CEO of National Semiconductor from 1991 to 1995.

In 1994 Amelio joined the Board of Directors of Apple. After his resignation from National Semiconductor Amelio became Apple CEO on February 2, 1996, succeeding Michael Spindler. His salary was a reported $990,000 plus bonuses and a $5 million loan.^{[citation needed]} He also received approximately $100,000 for the use of his business jet by Apple the previous year according to the section "Certain Transactions" in the Apple Proxy Statement for 1996.^{[citation needed]}

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.

Dark horse is a term used to describe a little-known person or thing that emerges to prominence, especially in a competition of some sort or a contestant that seems unlikely to succeed.

The term began as horse racing parlance. A dark horse is a race horse that is not known to gamblers and thus is difficult to place betting odds on.

The earliest-known use of the phrase is in Benjamin Disraeli's novel The Young Duke (1831). Disraeli's protagonist, the Duke of St. James, attends a horse race with a surprise finish: "A dark horse which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph."

The term has been used politically in such countries as Peru, Philippines and United States.

Politically, the term reached America in the nineteenth century when it was first applied to James K. Polk, a relatively unknown Tennessee Democrat who won the Democratic Party's 1844 presidential nomination over a host of better-known candidates. Polk won the nomination on the ninth ballot, and went on to win the presidential election.

Jeffrey Lynn "Jeff" Goldblum (born October 22, 1952) is an American actor. His career began in the mid-1970s and he has appeared in major box-office successes including The Fly, Jurassic Park and its sequel Jurassic Park: The Lost World, and Independence Day. He starred as Detective Zach Nichols for the eighth and ninth seasons of the USA Network's crime drama series Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Goldblum was born in the Pittsburgh suburb of West Homestead, Pennsylvania, the son of Shirley S. (née Temeles), a radio broadcaster who later ran a kitchen equipment and appliances sales firm, and Harold L. Goldblum, a medical doctor. He has a sister, Pamela, and an older brother, Lee. Another older brother, Rick, died at age 23. His family is Jewish and belonged to an Orthodox synagogue.

Goldblum's parents were interested in show business. Goldblum moved to New York City at 17 to become an actor. Goldblum worked on the stage and studied acting at the renowned Neighborhood Playhouse under the guidance of acting coach Sanford Meisner. He made his Broadway debut in the Tony Award-winning musical Two Gentlemen of Verona. He is also an accomplished jazz pianist and declared that if he did not act, he would have become a professional musician. He made his film debut as a thug in the 1974 Charles Bronson film Death Wish. He briefly appeared as a protester in the TV movie Columbo A Case of Immunity (1975).