Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Steve Jobs  February 24 1955  October 5 2011 was an American entrepreneur marketer and inventor who was the cofounder chairman and CEO of Apple Inc Through Apple he is widely recognized as a charismatic and designdriven pioneer of the personal computer revolution and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields transforming one industry after another from computers and smartphones to music and movies Jobs also cofounded 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 Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARCs mousedriven graphical user interface which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and a year later the Macintosh He also played a role in introducing the LaserWriter one of the first widely available laser printers to the market After a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985 Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT a computer platform development company specializing in the highereducation and business markets In 1986 he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm which was spun off as Pixar He was credited in Toy Story 1995 as an executive producer He served as CEO and majority shareholder until Disneys purchase of Pixar in 2006 In 1996 after Apple had failed to deliver its operating system Copland Gil Amelio turned to NeXT Computer and the NeXTSTEP platform became the foundation for the Mac OS X Jobs returned to Apple as an advisor and took control of the company as an interim CEO Jobs brought Apple from near bankruptcy to profitability by 1998 As the new CEO of the company Jobs oversaw the development of the iMac iTunes iPod iPhone and iPad and on the services side the companys Apple Retail Stores iTunes Store and the App Store The success of these products and services provided several years of stable financial returns and propelled Apple to become the worlds most valuable publicly traded company in 2011 The reinvigoration of the company is regarded by many commentators as one of the greatest turnarounds in business history In 2003 Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreas neuroendocrine tumor Though it was initially treated he reported a hormone imbalance underwent a liver transplant in 2009 and appeared progressively thinner as his health declined On medical leave for most of 2011 Jobs resigned in August that year and was elected Chairman of the Board He died of respiratory arrest related to the tumor on October 5 2011 Jobs received a number of honors and public recognition for his influence in the technology and music industries He has been referred to as legendary a futurist and a visionary and has been described as the Father of the Digital Revolution a master of innovation the master evangelist of the digital age and a design perfectionist