Zero2Cool
13 years ago
Never really bought into the Apple hype, although Steve was an incredible speaker that had my attention, just not my wallet.

Steve Jobs, the visionary in the black turtleneck  who co-founded Apple in a Silicon Valley garage, built it into the world's leading tech company and led a mobile-computing revolution with wildly popular devices such as the iPhone, died Wednesday. He was 56.

The hard-driving executive pioneered the concept of the personal computer and of navigating them by clicking onscreen images with a mouse. In more recent years, he introduced the iPod portable music player, the iPhone and the iPad tablet -- all of which changed how we consume content in the digital age.

More than one pundit, praising Jobs' ability to transform entire industries with his inventions, called him a modern-day Leonardo Da Vinci.

"Steve Jobs is one of the great innovators in the history of modern capitalism," New York Times columnist Joe Nocera said in August. "His intuition has been phenomenal over the years."

View a time line of Steve Jobs' work

Jobs' death, while dreaded by Apple's legions of fans, was not unexpected. He had battled cancer for years, took a medical leave from Apple in January and stepped down as chief executive in August because he could "no longer meet (his) duties and expectations."

Born February 24, 1955, and then adopted, Jobs grew up in Cupertino, California -- which would become home to Apple's headquarters -- and showed an early interest in electronics. As a teenager, he phoned William Hewlett, president of Hewlett-Packard, to request parts for a school project. He got them, along with an offer of a summer job at HP.
How Steve Jobs grew up

Jobs dropped out of Oregon's Reed College after one semester, although he returned to audit a class in calligraphy, which he says influenced Apple's graceful, minimalist aesthetic. He quit one of his first jobs, designing video games for Atari, to backpack across India and take psychedelic drugs. Those experiences, Jobs said later, shaped his creative vision.

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future," he told Stanford University graduates during a commencement speech in 2005. "You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

While at HP, Jobs befriended Steve Wozniak, who impressed him with his skill at assembling electronic components. The two later joined a Silicon Valley computer hobbyists club, and when he was 21, Jobs teamed with Wozniak and two other men to launch Apple Computer Inc.

It's long been Silicon Valley legend: Jobs and Wozniak built their first commercial product, the Apple 1, in Jobs' parents' garage in 1976. Jobs sold his Volkswagen van to help finance the venture. The primitive computer, priced at $666.66, had no keyboard or display, and customers had to assemble it themselves.

The following year, Apple unveiled the Apple II computer at the inaugural West Coast Computer Faire. The machine was a hit, and the personal computing revolution was under way.

Jobs was among the first computer engineers to recognize the appeal of the mouse and the graphical interface, which let users operate computers by clicking on images instead of writing text.

Apple's pioneering Macintosh computer launched in early 1984 with a now-iconic, Orwellian-themed Super Bowl ad. The boxy beige Macintosh sold well, but the demanding Jobs clashed frequently with colleagues, and in 1986, he was ousted from Apple after a power struggle.

Then came a 10-year hiatus during which he founded NeXT Computer, whose pricey, cube-shaped computer workstations never caught on with consumers.

Jobs had more success when he bought Pixar Animation Studios from George Lucas before the company made it big with "Toy Story." Jobs brought the same marketing skill to Pixar that he became known for at Apple. His brief but emotional pitch for "Finding Nemo," for example, was a masterful bit of succinct storytelling.

Share your memories and images of Steve Jobs

In 1996, Apple bought NeXT, returning Jobs to the then-struggling company he had co-founded. Within a year, he was running Apple again -- older and perhaps wiser but no less of a perfectionist. And in 2001, he took the stage to introduce the original iPod, the little white device that transformed portable music and kick-started Apple's furious comeback.

Thus began one of the most remarkable second acts in the history of business. Over the next decade, Jobs wowed launch-event audiences, and consumers, with one game-changing hit after another: iTunes (2003), the iPhone (2007), the App Store (2008), and the iPad (2010).

Observers marveled at Jobs' skills as a pitchman, his ability to inspire godlike devotion among Apple "fanboys" (and scorn from PC fans) and his "one more thing" surprise announcements. Time after time, he sold people on a product they didn't know they needed until he invented it. And all this on an official annual salary of $1.

He also built a reputation as a hard-driving, mercurial and sometimes difficult boss who oversaw almost every detail of Apple's products and rejected prototypes that didn't meet his exacting standards.

By the late 2000s, his once-renegade tech company, the David to Microsoft's Goliath, was entrenched at the uppermost tier of American business. Apple now operates more than 300 retail stores in 11 countries. The company has sold more than 275 million iPods, 100 million iPhones and 25 million iPads worldwide.

Jobs' climb to the top was complete in summer 2011, when Apple listed more cash reserves than the U.S. Treasury and even briefly surpassed Exxon Mobil as the world's most valuable company.

But Jobs's health problems sometimes cast a shadow over his company's success. In 2004, he announced to his employees that he was being treated for pancreatic cancer. He lost weight and appeared unusually gaunt at keynote speeches to Apple developers, spurring concerns about his health and fluctuations in the company's stock price. One wire service accidentally published Jobs' obituary.

Jobs had a secret liver transplant in 2009 in Tennessee during a six-month medical leave of absence from Apple. He took another medical leave in January this year. Perhaps mindful of his legacy, he cooperated on his first authorized biography, scheduled to be published by Simon & Schuster in November.

Jobs is survived by his wife of 20 years, Laurene, and four children, including one from a prior relationship.

He always spoke with immense pride about what he and his engineers accomplished at Apple.

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do," he told the Stanford grads in 2005.

"If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on."


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Formo
13 years ago
I wouldn't refute the claim of Jobs as the modern day Da Vinci.
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Thanks to TheViking88 for the sig!!
Pack93z
13 years ago
One of the greatest technological minds to come along in to date.. rest in peace and god bless to those left behind.


His Birth Mother was from Green Bay, born and raised on a Mink farm and taught in the Green Bay area. Has a biological sister that became an author, in which dedicated a Novel in part to him, "Anywhere But Here".

Six Degrees of Green Bay so to speak.
"The oranges are dry; the apples are mealy; and the papayas... I don't know what's going on with the papayas!"
Zero2Cool
13 years ago
I was surprised when I read the article in the Press Gazette that he had ties to that land, because I dated a girl who's grandparents sold the land to Walmart. One of my few slip ups as a young man with women, her and I were driving past and I said 'a friend of mine's grandparents sold that land to Walmart'... she smiled and said "whats this friends name Kev?". She knew, I knew, ... I messed up. Got the girls confused, oops. Hey, it happens to everyone.


Anyways, the more I read about Steve Jobs, for good and bad, we're surprisingly very similar in personality. Except one glaring difference, I'm not a genius and I never had the balls to put everything I have in my vision.

I don't buy many books, however, I'll buy "I, Steve" or whatever its called.
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Wade
  • Wade
  • Veteran Member
13 years ago
Personally, I find the other Apple Steve (Wozniak) more interesting and compelling.

Jobs is important in the way that people at the top of successful big companies are almost always stories worth listening to. Not because they're "special" themselves, so much as they are going to be regularly moving in ways that come into contact with interesting people and see interesting processes. Not because "leaders" are more important, but because as someone considered a leader they end up playing in interesting games where environments get re-shaped and re-invented.

But Jobs the person? Unless I was particularly interested in marketing (where he undoubtedly was *a* key figure for some time), nah.

Sad when anyone dies in what should be the prime of life. Of course. But no more sad because its Steve Jobs than I would be if is an acquaintance 56-year-old down the block who died.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)
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Martha Careful (1-Apr) : Too bad camera's can't spot the ball as well.
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beast (31-Mar) : It might of gotten more popular recently, but braiding hair (even men) in certain cultures goes back for centuries.
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beast (29-Mar) : Zero2Cool (25-Mar) : I was thinking email because I think it'll make folks keep it up todate lol
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earthquake (27-Mar) : Which seemed strange to my 9 year old self, that you could be a fan for a team other than the one you play for
earthquake (27-Mar) : Nothing eventful happened, other than it being clear that he was a bengals fan
earthquake (27-Mar) : And we went and hung out with him one afternoon, I must have been 9 or so
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Mucky Tundra (27-Mar) : Only career highspot was a 200 yard rushing game while playing for the Cardinals
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Zero2Cool (25-Mar) : I was thinking email because I think it'll make folks keep it up todate lol
wpr (25-Mar) : I don't think there is a significant difference. I use a user name for many. Others email.
Martha Careful (25-Mar) : email
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beast (24-Mar) : And the only time they have won the Championship in an even year, was the first time they did, in 2006.
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Zero2Cool (23-Mar) : I don't think it's completed yet. it was just announced last month, right?
dhazer (23-Mar) : did netflix ever release the Packers documentary
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beast (21-Mar) : Unsigned FA QB Rodgers is supposedly in the Steelers building
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