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Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an influential American entrepreneur, inventor, and investor, most famously known for co-founding Apple Inc. Jobs also founded NeXT and was the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar. He played a key role in the personal computer revolution during the 1970s and 1980s, alongside his early business partner and Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak.
Born in San Francisco in 1955, Jobs was adopted shortly after birth. He enrolled at Reed College in 1972 but dropped out later that same year. In 1974, Jobs embarked on a journey to India in search of spiritual enlightenment and subsequently delved into Zen Buddhism. In 1976, he and Wozniak co-founded Apple to develop and market Wozniak’s Apple I personal computer. The following year, their partnership brought them fame and fortune as they introduced one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputers.
In 1979, Jobs recognized the commercial potential of the Xerox Alto, which featured a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI). This insight led to the creation of the Apple Lisa in 1983, which was not commercially successful but paved the way for the groundbreaking Macintosh in 1984. The Macintosh was the first computer with a GUI, revolutionizing the industry. In 1985, the addition of the Apple LaserWriter, the first laser printer with vector graphics and PostScript, helped launch the desktop publishing industry.
In 1985, after a prolonged power struggle with the company’s board and then-CEO John Sculley, Steve Jobs left Apple. That same year, he took a group of Apple employees with him to found NeXT, a computer platform development company targeting higher education and business markets, where he served as CEO. In 1986, Jobs significantly impacted the visual effects industry by funding the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, which later became Pixar. Pixar produced the first 3D computer-animated feature film, Toy Story (1995), and has since become a leading animation studio, producing over 27 films.
In 1997, Jobs returned to Apple as CEO following the company’s acquisition of NeXT. He was instrumental in revitalizing Apple, which was on the brink of bankruptcy at the time. Jobs collaborated closely with British designer Jony Ive to create a series of products and services that had a profound cultural impact. This era of innovation began with the “Think Different” advertising campaign and led to the development of the iMac, iTunes, Mac OS X, Apple Store, iPod, iTunes Store, iPhone, App Store, and iPad.
In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. Despite his illness, he continued to lead and innovate until he died in 2011 due to a respiratory arrest related to the tumor. In 2022, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Early Life
Family
Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco, California, on February 24, 1955, to Joanne Carole Schieble and Abdulfattah “John” Jandali (Arabic: عبد الفتاح الجندلي). Abdulfattah Jandali was raised in a Muslim household as the youngest of nine siblings in a wealthy Syrian family. After earning his undergraduate degree at the American University of Beirut, Jandali pursued a PhD in political science at the University of Wisconsin. There, he met Joanne Schieble, an American Catholic of Swiss-German descent whose family owned a mink farm and real estate in Green Bay. Despite falling in love, the couple faced opposition from Schieble’s father due to Jandali’s Muslim faith. When Schieble became pregnant, she arranged for a close adoption and traveled to San Francisco to give birth.
Schieble requested that her son be adopted by college graduates. Initially, a lawyer and his wife were chosen, but they withdrew after learning the baby was a boy. Consequently, Jobs was adopted by Paul Reinhold and Clara (née Hagopian) Jobs. Paul Jobs, an American of German descent, was the son of a dairy farmer from Washington County, Wisconsin. After dropping out of high school, he worked as a mechanic before joining the US Coast Guard. When his ship was decommissioned in San Francisco, he bet he could find a wife within two weeks. He met Clara Hagopian, an American of Armenian descent, and the two were engaged ten days later, in March 1946, and married that same year.
The couple initially moved to Wisconsin, then Indiana, where Paul worked as a machinist and later as a car salesman. However, Clara missed San Francisco, and she convinced Paul to move back. In San Francisco, Paul worked as a repossession agent, and Clara became a bookkeeper. After suffering an ectopic pregnancy in 1955, the couple decided to adopt a child. Since they lacked a college education, Schieble initially refused to sign the adoption papers and went to court to request that her son be removed from the Jobs household and placed with a different family. However, she changed her mind after Paul and Clara promised to pay for their son’s college tuition.
Infancy
In his youth, Steve Jobs’s parents took him to a Lutheran church. When Jobs was in high school, his mother Clara confided in his girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan, revealing that she “was too frightened to love [Steve] for the first six months of his life… I was scared they were going to take him away from me. Even after we won the case, Steve was so difficult a child that by the time he was two, I felt we had made a mistake. I wanted to return him.” When Chrisann shared this with Jobs, he replied that he was already aware of it.
Despite this challenging start, Jobs later expressed that he felt deeply loved and indulged by Paul and Clara. His wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, remarked that Jobs believed he had been truly blessed to have Paul and Clara as his parents. Jobs would become upset when they were referred to as his “adoptive parents,” insisting they were his parents “1,000%.” He viewed his biological parents merely as his “sperm and egg bank,” emphasizing that this was not harsh but simply how he saw the situation: “a sperm bank thing, nothing more.”
Childhood
Paul Jobs held various jobs throughout his life, including stints as a machinist. He tried his hand at several different occupations before ultimately returning to work as a machinist.
“I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics… then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.”
—Steve Jobs
Paul and Clara adopted Jobs’s sister Patricia in 1957, and by 1959 the family had moved to the Monta Loma neighborhood in Mountain View, California. Paul built a workbench in his garage for his son to “pass along his love of mechanics.” Jobs admired his father’s craftsmanship, noting, “He knew how to build anything. If we needed a cabinet, he would build it. When he built our fence, he gave me a hammer so I could work with him… I wasn’t that into fixing cars… but I was eager to hang out with my dad.”
By the time he was ten, Jobs was deeply involved in electronics and befriended many of the engineers who lived in the neighborhood. However, he had difficulty making friends with children his age and was seen by his classmates as a “loner.”
Jobs had difficulty functioning in a traditional classroom, often resisting authority figures, frequently misbehaving, and getting suspended several times. Clara had taught him to read as a toddler, and Jobs later remarked that he was “pretty bored in school and [had] turned into a little terror… you should have seen us in the third grade, we destroyed the teacher.” He often played pranks at Monta Loma Elementary School in Mountain View. His father, Paul, who had been abused as a child, never reprimanded him and instead blamed the school for not challenging his brilliant son.
Jobs later credited his fourth-grade teacher, Imogene “Teddy” Hill, with turning him around: “She taught an advanced fourth-grade class, and it took her about a month to get hip to my situation. She bribed me into learning. She would say, ‘I want you to finish this workbook. I’ll give you five bucks if you finish it.’ That kindled a passion in me for learning things! I learned more that year than I think I learned in any other year in school. They wanted me to skip the next two years in grade school and go straight to junior high to learn a foreign language, but my parents very wisely wouldn’t let it happen.” Jobs skipped the fifth grade and transferred to the sixth grade at Crittenden Middle School in Mountain View, where he became a “socially awkward loner.”
Jobs was often bullied at Crittenden Middle, and in the middle of seventh grade, he gave his parents an ultimatum: either they would take him out of Crittenden, or he would drop out of school.
The Jobs family was not affluent, and only by expending all their savings were they able to buy a new home in 1967, allowing Steve to change schools. The new house, a three-bedroom home on Crist Drive in Los Altos, California, was in the better Cupertino School District and was surrounded by an environment even more populated with engineering families than the Mountain View area. The house was declared a historic site in 2013 as the first site of Apple Computer. As of 2013, it was owned by Jobs’s sister, Patty, and occupied by his stepmother, Marilyn.
When he was 13, in 1968, Jobs was given a summer job by Bill Hewlett (of Hewlett-Packard) after Jobs cold-called him to ask for parts for an electronics project.
Homestead High
The location of the Jobs family home in Los Altos allowed Steve Jobs to attend nearby Homestead High School, which had strong ties to Silicon Valley. He began his first year there in late 1968, along with Bill Fernandez, who introduced Jobs to Steve Wozniak. Fernandez would later become Apple’s first employee. Neither Jobs nor Fernandez came from engineering households, so they enrolled in John McCollum’s Electronics I class. Jobs, who had grown his hair long and embraced the counterculture, eventually clashed with McCollum and lost interest in the class.
During the mid-1970s, Jobs experienced a personal transformation: “I got stoned for the first time; I discovered Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, and all that classic stuff. I read Moby Dick and went back as a junior taking creative writing classes.” Jobs later told his official biographer, “I started to listen to music a whole lot, and I started to read more outside of just science and technology — Shakespeare, Plato. I loved King Lear… when I was a senior I had this phenomenal AP English class. The teacher was this guy who looked like Ernest Hemingway. He took a bunch of us snowshoeing in Yosemite.”
During his last two years at Homestead High, Jobs developed two primary interests: electronics and literature. These dual passions were particularly evident during his senior year, as his closest friends were Wozniak and his first girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan, an artistic junior at Homestead.
In 1971, after Steve Wozniak began attending the University of California, Berkeley, Jobs visited him there a few times a week. This experience led him to spend time at nearby Stanford University’s student union. Instead of joining the electronics club, Jobs put on light shows with a friend for Homestead’s avant-garde jazz program. A Homestead classmate described him as “kind of brain and kind of hippie… but he never fit into either group. He was smart enough to be a nerd but wasn’t nerdy. And he was too intellectual for the hippies, who just wanted to get wasted all the time. He was kind of an outsider. In high school, everything revolved around what group you were in, and if you weren’t in a carefully defined group, you weren’t anybody. He was an individual in a world where individuality was suspect.” By his senior year in late 1971, Jobs was taking a freshman English class at Stanford and working on a Homestead underground film project with Chrisann Brennan.
Around that time, Wozniak designed a low-cost digital “blue box” to generate the necessary tones to manipulate the telephone network, allowing free long-distance calls. He was inspired by an article titled “Secrets of the Little Blue Box” from the October 1971 issue of Esquire. Jobs decided to sell the blue boxes and split the profit with Wozniak. The clandestine sales of the illegal blue boxes went well and perhaps planted the seed in Jobs’s mind that electronics could be both fun and profitable. In a 1994 interview, he recalled that it took six months for him and Wozniak to design the blue boxes. Jobs later reflected that had it not been for Wozniak’s blue boxes, “there wouldn’t have been an Apple.” He stated it showed them that they could take on large companies and beat them.
By his senior year of high school, Jobs began using LSD. He later recalled that on one occasion, he consumed it in a wheat field outside Sunnyvale and experienced “the most wonderful feeling of my life up to that point.” In mid-1972, after graduation and before leaving for Reed College, Jobs and Brennan rented a house from their other roommate, Al.
Reed College
In September 1972, Steve Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Despite the high cost of attendance, which was a strain on his parents Paul and Clara, Jobs was determined to apply only to Reed. While at Reed, he quickly befriended Robert Friedland, who was the student body president at the time. Chrisann Brennan remained a part of Jobs’s life during his time at college.
After just one semester, Jobs dropped out of Reed College without informing his parents. He later explained that he felt it was wasteful to spend his parents’ money on an education that did not seem meaningful to him. Even though he left formally, he continued to audit classes, including one on calligraphy taught by Robert Palladino. In a 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University, Jobs shared that during this period, he slept on friends’ dorm room floors, collected Coke bottles for money, and received free meals weekly at a local Hare Krishna temple. Jobs reflected that if he had not attended that calligraphy class, the Macintosh might never have featured multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.
I was interested in Eastern mysticism which hit the shores about then. At Reed there was a constant flow of people stopping by – from Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, to Gary Snyder. There was a constant flow of intellectual questioning about the truth of life. That was the time when every college student in the country read Be Here Now and Diet for a Small Planet.
—Steve Jobs
1974–1985
Pre-Apple
In February 1974, Steve Jobs returned to his parents’ home in Los Altos and began job hunting. He was soon employed by Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California, as a computer technician. Back in 1973, Steve Wozniak had designed his version of the classic video game Pong and had given its electronics board to Jobs. According to Wozniak, Atari hired Jobs because they believed he had created the board himself. Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell later described Jobs as “difficult but valuable,” noting that he was often the smartest person in the room and made sure others knew it.
In mid-1974, Jobs traveled to India with his Reed College friend and future Apple employee Daniel Kottke, seeking spiritual enlightenment. They intended to visit Neem Karoli Baba at his Kainchi ashram. Upon arrival, they discovered the ashram was nearly empty, as Neem Karoli Baba had passed away in September 1973. The two then undertook a long journey up a dry riverbed to reach the ashram of Haidakhan Babaji.
After spending seven months in India, Steve Jobs returned to the US, arriving ahead of his friend Daniel Kottke. Jobs had significantly altered his appearance, sporting a shaved head and traditional Indian attire. During this period, he explored psychedelics, later describing his experiences with LSD as “one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life.” He also spent time at All One Farm, a commune in Oregon owned by Robert Friedland.
During this time, Jobs and Chrisann Brennan both became practitioners of Zen Buddhism under Zen master Kōbun Chino Otogawa. Jobs participated in extended meditation retreats at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the oldest Sōtō Zen monastery in the US. He even considered monastic life at Eihei-ji in Japan and developed a lifelong appreciation for Zen, Japanese cuisine, and artists like Hasui Kawase.
Jobs returned to Atari in early 1975, where he was tasked with creating a circuit board for the arcade game Breakout, aiming to minimize the number of chips used. Knowing that Jobs would involve Wozniak, Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell assigned the job to him. Wozniak, working during his day job at HP, drew the circuit designs, while Jobs implemented them at Atari. Atari offered $100 for each TTL chip eliminated, and Jobs and Wozniak agreed to split the fee. Wozniak reduced the TTL count from 100 to 45 within four days, a significant achievement, although Atari later modified the design for easier testing and additional features. Wozniak later discovered that Atari had paid only $750 of the $5,000 bonus. Jobs had not disclosed the full amount, but Wozniak, if informed, would have shared the extra funds.
Jobs and Wozniak also attended meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club in 1975, which played a crucial role in the development and marketing of the first Apple computer.
According to a document released by the Department of Defense, Jobs claimed he was arrested in Eugene, Oregon, for being a minor in possession of alcohol, though he denied having any alcohol. The police found an outstanding arrest warrant for an unpaid speeding ticket, which Jobs subsequently paid. The arrest allegedly occurred behind a store.
I was lucky to get into computers when it was a very young and idealistic industry. There weren’t many degrees offered in computer science, so people in computers were brilliant people from mathematics, physics, music, zoology, whatever. They loved it, and no one was really in it for the money […] There are people around here who start companies just to make money, but the great companies, well, that’s not what they’re about.
—Steve Jobs
Apple (1976–1985)
By March 1976, Steve Wozniak had completed the basic design of the Apple I computer and shared it with Steve Jobs. Although Wozniak was initially hesitant about selling the computer, Jobs convinced him to pursue the idea. In April 1976, Jobs, Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne established Apple Computer Company (now known as Apple Inc.) as a business partnership, setting up operations in Jobs’s parents’ home on Crist Drive. The initial work was conducted in Jobs’s bedroom before relocating to the garage. Ronald Wayne soon left, leaving Jobs and Wozniak as the primary co-founders of the company.
The name “Apple” was chosen after Jobs returned from a stay at the All One Farm commune in Oregon, where he had spent time in an apple orchard. Initially, Jobs intended to sell only the bare printed circuit boards of the Apple I to computer enthusiasts for $50 each (approximately $270 in 2023). To fund the production of the first batch, Wozniak sold his HP scientific calculator, and Jobs sold his Volkswagen van. Later that year, computer retailer Paul Terrell bought 50 fully assembled Apple I units for $500 each. In total, around 200 Apple I computers were produced.
Basically Steve Wozniak and I invented the Apple because we wanted a personal computer. Not only couldn’t we afford the computers that were on the market, those computers were impractical for us to use. We needed a Volkswagen. The Volkswagen isn’t as fast or comfortable as other ways of traveling, but the VW owners can go where they want, when they want and with whom they want. The VW owners have personal control of their car.
—Steve Jobs
A neighbor on Crist Drive remembered Steve Jobs as an eccentric figure who would sometimes greet clients “with his underwear showing, barefoot, and in a hippie-like manner.” Another neighbor, Larry Waterland, who had recently earned his PhD in chemical engineering from Stanford, initially underestimated Jobs’s venture. Waterland recalled being unimpressed when Jobs showed him the setup in the garage, which included a circuit board, a DuMont TV set, a Panasonic cassette tape deck, and a keyboard. Waterland’s reaction was one of skepticism, dismissing the Apple computer as a trivial endeavor compared to the established industry of mainframe computers with punch cards.
Daniel Kottke, a friend from Reed College and India who later worked for Apple, remembered that he was the only person working in the garage at the time. Wozniak would visit weekly with new code, while Jobs was not directly involved in the technical aspects. Much of the early work occurred in Jobs’s kitchen, where he spent considerable time on the phone seeking investors for the company.
Funding came from Mike Markkula, a semi-retired Intel product marketing manager and engineer. Scott McNealy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, noted that Jobs broke through a “glass age ceiling” in Silicon Valley by building a highly successful company at a young age. Markkula introduced Apple to Arthur Rock, who, impressed by the crowded Apple booth at the Home Brew Computer Show, invested $60,000 and joined the Apple board. Jobs was displeased when Markkula brought in Mike Scott from National Semiconductor to become Apple’s first president and CEO in February 1977.
After Chrisann Brennan returned from her trip to India, she and Steve Jobs rekindled their relationship. Brennan noticed changes in Jobs that she attributed to their mutual Zen teacher, Kōbun Chino Otogawa. During this period, Jobs showcased a prototype of the Apple II computer to Brennan and his parents in their living room. At this time, Apple’s development and the influence of Kōbun were significant forces in Jobs’s life.
In April 1977, Jobs and Wozniak unveiled the Apple II at the West Coast Computer Faire. This was Apple’s first consumer product. While Wozniak primarily designed the Apple II, Jobs oversaw the development of its distinctive case, and Rod Holt engineered its innovative power supply. There was some tension during the design process: Jobs initially insisted on having two expansion slots for the Apple II, while Wozniak advocated for eight. After a heated dispute, Wozniak threatened to quit, leading to an eventual compromise with eight slots. The Apple II went on to become one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputers globally.
As Jobs’s success with Apple grew, his relationship with Brennan became increasingly strained. In 1977, they, along with Daniel Kottke, moved into a house near Apple’s Cupertino office. Brennan took a job in Apple’s shipping department, but as Jobs’s role at Apple expanded, their relationship deteriorated. In October 1977, Rod Holt offered Brennan a paid apprenticeship to design blueprints for Apple computers. Holt and Jobs believed this role would suit Brennan’s artistic skills, but she was conflicted. Her decision to decline the internship was overshadowed by the realization that she was pregnant with Jobs’s child. When she informed Jobs, he reportedly reacted with visible displeasure and refused to discuss the pregnancy. Jobs told her, “I never wanted to ask that you get an abortion. I just didn’t want to do that,” and avoided further discussion about it.
Brennan decided to leave Apple and turn down the internship. She claimed that Jobs pressured her with statements like, “If you give up this baby for adoption, you will be sorry” and “I am never going to help you.” Jobs allegedly spread rumors suggesting that Brennan was unfaithful and that he could not be the father. As her due date approached, Brennan accepted an invitation to deliver the baby at the All One Farm, where she was supported by Jobs’s friend Robert Friedland.
On May 17, 1978, Brennan gave birth to Lisa Brennan-Jobs. Although Jobs was not deeply involved, he visited for the birth and worked with Brennan on naming the baby. Brennan suggested the name “Lisa,” which Jobs accepted. Jobs was attached to the name but publicly denied paternity. Later, it was revealed that Jobs was preparing to name a new computer after his daughter, initially considering “Claire” but ultimately choosing “Lisa.” Jobs later admitted to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, that the Apple Lisa was indeed named after his daughter.
When Jobs initially denied paternity, a DNA test confirmed he was Lisa’s father. This determination required Jobs to pay Brennan $385 per month (equivalent to about $1,200 in 2023) and reimburse her for welfare benefits she had received. At the time Apple went public and Jobs became a millionaire, he was paying her $500 monthly (about $1,500 in 2023). In early 1983, Brennan participated in an interview with Michael Moritz for Time magazine’s Time Person of the Year special. Despite the magazine considering naming Jobs as the Person of the Year, they ultimately chose to honor the personal computer as the “Machine of the Year.” Jobs questioned the paternity test’s reliability, which indicated a 94.1% probability that he was the father, arguing that “28% of the male population of the United States could be the father.” Time also pointed out that the Apple computer named Lisa shared its name with Jobs’s daughter.
By 1978, at the age of 23, Jobs had a net worth exceeding $1 million (equivalent to $4.67 million in 2023). By the age of 25, his fortune had surged to an estimated $250 million (about $838 million in 2023). Jobs became one of the youngest individuals ever to make the Forbes list of the nation’s wealthiest people, achieving this status through his efforts rather than inherited wealth.
In 1982, Jobs purchased the top two floors of The San Remo, a renowned Manhattan building known for its progressive reputation. Although he never resided there, Jobs invested years in renovating the apartment with the help of architect I. M. Pei.
In 1983, Jobs successfully recruited John Sculley from Pepsi-Cola to become Apple’s CEO by famously asking, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?”
In 1984, Jobs acquired the Jackling House and estate, where he lived for a decade before leasing it out. By 2000, he ceased maintaining the property, leading to its deterioration. In 2004, Jobs received permission from Woodside to demolish the historic house to construct a smaller, modern home. After several years of legal battles, the Jackling House was finally demolished in 2011, just months before Jobs’s death.
In 1981, Steve Jobs assumed leadership of the Macintosh project from Jef Raskin, an early Apple employee who had originally conceived the idea. Wozniak, who had significantly contributed to the project, was on leave following an airplane crash earlier that year, which facilitated Jobs’s takeover.
On January 22, 1984, Apple aired a groundbreaking Super Bowl commercial titled “1984,” which concluded with the promise: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.” The following day, Jobs introduced the Macintosh at Apple’s annual shareholders meeting held at De Anza College’s Flint Auditorium. The event was described by Macintosh engineer Andy Hertzfeld as “pandemonium.” The Macintosh was inspired by the Lisa, which in turn was influenced by Xerox PARC’s pioneering mouse-driven graphical user interface. The new computer garnered significant media praise and enjoyed strong initial sales. However, its performance issues and limited software availability caused a sharp decline in sales by mid-1984.
Tensions grew between Jobs and CEO John Sculley, as their visions for Apple diverged. Sculley preferred the open architecture of the Apple II, targeting the education, small business, and home markets, while Jobs advocated for the Macintosh’s closed architecture as a business-oriented alternative to the IBM PC. This disagreement led to a lack of cohesion within the company, with the Macintosh and Apple II divisions functioning almost like separate entities, each duplicating services. Despite the Apple II products accounting for 85% of Apple’s sales in early 1985, the division and its employees were not mentioned at the company’s January annual meeting. This oversight led to a significant departure of employees, including Wozniak, who expressed his discontent with the company’s direction and sold most of his stock. Despite his dissatisfaction with the focus shift away from the Apple II, Wozniak left on good terms, remaining an honorary employee and maintaining a lasting friendship with Jobs.
Sculley and Jobs held starkly contrasting visions for Apple’s future. Sculley advocated for an open architecture approach typified by the Apple II, which targeted education, small businesses, and home markets less susceptible to IBM’s dominance. Meanwhile, Jobs staunchly championed the closed architecture of the Macintosh, envisioning it as a business challenger to the IBM PC. This divergence led to a fractured internal structure: under Sculley’s presidency, Jobs wielded significant autonomy within the Macintosh division, which operated almost independently alongside the Apple II division, despite both being under the same corporate umbrella.
Despite generating 85% of Apple’s sales in early 1985, the Apple II division faced neglect during the company’s annual meeting that year, prompting key departures including co-founder Steve Wozniak. Wozniak, disillusioned by Apple’s direction, sold off most of his stock but maintained cordial ties with Jobs, who shared his frustration over the company’s prioritization of the Macintosh over the Apple II.
As the Macintosh struggled to compete with the IBM PC by early 1985, Sculley’s influence within Apple solidified. Encouraged by Arthur Rock, Sculley proposed a restructuring plan that marginalized Jobs by reassigning him to oversee “New Product Development.” In response, Jobs formulated a counterplan to oust Sculley from Apple’s leadership. However, when Jobs’s intentions were leaked, he offered his resignation to the Apple Board, which was declined. Nonetheless, Jobs eventually resigned on September 17, 1985, along with several senior Apple executives, to launch NeXT, his new venture.
Following Jobs’s departure, the Macintosh continued to face challenges. Despite its innovative features and initial fanfare, its high price tag hampered sales. Additionally, Microsoft’s growing influence posed a threat as it negotiated a pivotal license for the Mac operating system, eventually leading to competitive difficulties for Apple. The emergence of affordable IBM PC clones equipped with Microsoft software further eroded Apple’s market share, signaling the beginning of a challenging era for the company as it struggled against the expanding clone market.
As the 1980s drew to a close, it became evident that Apple’s solitary stance against the IBM clone tide was unsustainable. The Macintosh, once a symbol of technological innovation, faced increasing competition and diminishing market presence, highlighting the strategic and managerial rifts that shaped Apple’s turbulent trajectory during this pivotal period.
1985–1997
NeXT computer
From 1985 to 1997, Steve Jobs embarked on a transformative journey with NeXT Inc. following his departure from Apple. Founded with an initial investment of $7 million, NeXT initially struggled until billionaire Ross Perot came on board as a significant investor, injecting much-needed capital into the venture. The company’s flagship product, the NeXT computer, made its debut in a highly anticipated event on October 12, 1988, at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. This gala launch, noted for its multimedia extravagance, marked Jobs’s return to the spotlight and signaled NeXT’s ambitious entry into the tech industry.
NeXT workstations hit the market in 1990, priced at a lofty $9,999 (equivalent to approximately $23,000 today). While technologically advanced like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation faced criticism for its prohibitive cost, limiting its adoption primarily to the education sector. Nevertheless, it garnered acclaim for its strengths in object-oriented software development and introduced groundbreaking technologies such as the Mach kernel, digital signal processor chip, and built-in Ethernet port. Notably, it was on a NeXT computer that Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web in 1990 at CERN, Switzerland, underscoring the machine’s significance in computing history.
In 1990, NeXT released the second-generation NeXTcube, hailed by Jobs as the inaugural “interpersonal” computer poised to supersede personal computing. It introduced NeXTMail, a multimedia email system enabling the exchange of voice, image, graphics, and video—an innovation lauded for its potential to revolutionize human communications and group collaboration.
Steve Jobs’s meticulous attention to design excellence was evident in NeXT’s products, epitomized by the magnesium case of the NeXTcube. However, despite these technological achievements, NeXT struggled financially, selling only 50,000 units by 1993. Consequently, the company pivoted entirely to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel in 1993, marking a critical shift in its strategy.
NeXT finally turned profitable in 1994, reporting a modest profit of $1.03 million. The following year, NeXT Software, Inc. launched WebObjects, a pioneering framework for web application development. This technology played a pivotal role in subsequent Apple ventures, powering the Apple Store, MobileMe services, and the iTunes Store after Apple acquired NeXT in 1997.
Steve Jobs’s tenure at NeXT was marked by bold innovation, technological foresight, and a relentless pursuit of excellence, laying the groundwork for future developments that would shape the digital landscape for years to come.
In 1986, Steve Jobs orchestrated the spinout of The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm’s computer graphics division. This deal, valued at $10 million, included $5 million in capital and an additional $5 million paid to Lucasfilm for technology rights.
Under Jobs’s leadership, Pixar entered into a landmark partnership with Disney that yielded its first feature film, Toy Story, in 1995. Jobs was credited as executive producer for this groundbreaking film, which not only achieved significant commercial success but also earned critical acclaim, marking Pixar’s emergence as a major player in animation.
Throughout Jobs’s tenure, Pixar, under the creative guidance of John Lasseter, produced a string of box-office hits including 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), Toy Story 3 (2010), and Cars 2 (2011). Each of these films contributed to Pixar’s reputation for innovative storytelling and technological prowess in animation.
In the early 2000s, as Pixar’s contract with Disney approached its end, negotiations for a new partnership faltered under Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Jobs publicly expressed his frustration, declaring in January 2004 that he would no longer engage with Disney. Subsequently, Pixar sought alternative distribution arrangements.
The relationship between Pixar and Disney took a pivotal turn when Bob Iger succeeded Eisner as Disney’s CEO in October 2005. Recognizing the value of Pixar’s creative prowess, Iger moved swiftly to mend relations with Jobs. This effort culminated in Disney’s acquisition of Pixar in January 2006, in an all-stock transaction valued at $7.4 billion. As a result, Jobs became Disney’s largest individual shareholder with approximately 7% of the company’s stock.
Steve Jobs’s influence extended beyond his financial stake in Disney. As a board member, he played a pivotal role in shaping the company’s strategic direction, although he was known for rarely causing disruptions. His impact on Disney was profound enough that Iger reflected positively on their collaboration, noting Jobs’s measured influence and describing him as a mature and mellow individual who respected the creative autonomy of filmmakers at Pixar and Disney.
Jobs’s legacy at Pixar and Disney was celebrated posthumously, particularly with the release of Brave in 2012, the first Pixar film following his death, which honored his contributions to the studio. His shares in Disney were later transferred to the Steven P. Jobs Trust, continuing to influence the company’s direction and echoing his enduring impact on the worlds of technology and entertainment.
1997–2011
Return to Apple
From 1997 to 2011, Steve Jobs orchestrated one of the most remarkable corporate turnarounds in history during his tenure at Apple Inc. After the company acquired NeXT for $400 million in December 1996, Jobs returned to the company he had co-founded, marking a pivotal moment for both Apple and his career.
Following the ousting of then-CEO Gil Amelio in July 1997, Jobs assumed the de facto leadership of Apple and was formally appointed interim CEO on September 16 of that year. His immediate focus was on streamlining operations to restore profitability, which led to the termination of several projects deemed non-essential, including Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. Jobs’s management style, characterized by decisive actions and a relentless pursuit of excellence, earned him a reputation that instilled both admiration and fear among employees, who sometimes dreaded encounters in elevators fearing job terminations, though such incidents were infrequent.
Under Jobs’s visionary leadership, Apple experienced a dramatic resurgence fueled by innovative products and strategic decisions. The integration of NeXT’s technologies, notably NeXTSTEP, formed the foundation for Mac OS X, which revitalized Apple’s operating system lineup. The iMac, introduced in 1998 with its iconic design and bold colors, symbolized Apple’s renewed focus on appealing aesthetics and user-friendly technology, marking the beginning of a series of successful product launches.
In 2000, at the Macworld Expo, Jobs shed the “interim” label and officially became Apple’s permanent CEO, a position from which he would steer the company through its most transformative years. Apple expanded its product portfolio beyond computers, venturing into consumer electronics with the iPod, iTunes digital music software, and the revolutionary iTunes Store. The launch of the iPod in 2001 not only revolutionized the music industry but also laid the groundwork for Apple’s dominance in portable media players.
The pinnacle of Jobs’s legacy at Apple came with the introduction of the iPhone on June 29, 2007. Combining a touchscreen interface, iPod functionality, and mobile browsing capabilities, the iPhone set a new standard for smartphones and cemented Apple’s position at the forefront of technological innovation. Jobs famously declared that “real artists ship,” emphasizing the importance of delivering products to market—a philosophy that drove Apple’s relentless pursuit of excellence.
Throughout his career, Jobs engaged in public disputes, notably with Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell Computer, whom Jobs criticized for producing uninspiring products. Jobs’s ability to captivate audiences during his keynote presentations, known as “Steve Notes,” earned him a reputation for employing a “reality distortion field,” a term coined to describe his persuasive charisma.
Outside of Apple, Jobs served as a board member at Gap Inc. from 1999 to 2002, demonstrating his influence and versatility beyond the technology sector. His style, characterized by a consistent wardrobe of a black turtleneck, blue jeans, and sneakers, became iconic—a deliberate choice that reflected both practicality and his penchant for minimalist design.
Steve Jobs’s impact on Apple and the technology industry at large was profound and enduring. His visionary leadership, commitment to innovation, and uncompromising standards for excellence transformed Apple into one of the world’s most valuable and influential companies, leaving an indelible legacy that continues to shape the way we interact with technology today.
In 2001, Steve Jobs was granted stock options totaling 7.5 million shares of Apple, with an exercise price set at $18.30 per share. Allegations soon arose that these options had been backdated, suggesting they should have been priced at $21.10 instead. It was further claimed that Jobs failed to report taxable income amounting to $20,000,000, potentially resulting in Apple overstating its earnings by the same amount. This controversy triggered both criminal and civil investigations by government authorities.
However, an independent internal investigation conducted by Apple and completed on December 29, 2006, concluded that Jobs did not know the issues surrounding the backdated options. Furthermore, it was found that the options granted to him were returned without being exercised in 2003, dispelling the accusations of deliberate wrongdoing on Jobs’s part.
In response to criticisms about Apple’s e-waste recycling programs in the US in 2005, Jobs initially defended the company’s stance at Apple’s annual meeting in Cupertino. Following public pressure, Apple announced a free iPod take-back program at its retail stores a few weeks later. This move was prompted by advocacy campaigns such as the Computer TakeBack Campaign, which flew a banner over Stanford University’s graduation where Jobs was a commencement speaker, urging him to improve Apple’s recycling efforts.
Subsequently, in 2006, Jobs expanded Apple’s recycling initiatives to include all US customers purchasing new Macs, offering convenient shipping and environmentally friendly disposal of their old systems.
Under Jobs’s leadership, Apple experienced unprecedented success driven by its innovative products and services. This success propelled Apple to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company by 2011, a testament to Jobs’s vision and strategic acumen.
Throughout his career, Jobs was known for his demanding perfectionism and his commitment to positioning Apple at the forefront of the technology industry through innovation and style. He encapsulated this ethos in his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007, quoting hockey legend Wayne Gretzky: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” This philosophy underscored Apple’s relentless pursuit of anticipating and leading trends in the market.
In July 2008, Apple faced a significant legal challenge when a $7 billion class-action lawsuit was filed against several members of its board of directors, alleging revenue losses due to securities fraud.
In a revealing 2011 interview with biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs discussed his meeting with President Barack Obama, where he expressed concerns about the shortage of software engineers in the US. Jobs candidly remarked that he believed Obama was “headed for a one-term presidency,” frustrated by what he perceived as bureaucratic barriers to progress. He advocated for a policy where foreign students earning engineering degrees in the US would automatically receive green cards, emphasizing the need for proactive solutions to national challenges.
Steve Jobs’s legacy at Apple continues to be defined by his uncompromising vision, innovative spirit, and enduring impact on both technology and business. His tenure marked a transformative era for Apple, shaping its trajectory into one of the most influential companies in the world.
[Stay tuned as we continue this journey together in the next blog. We appreciate your patience and can’t wait to share more with you soon!]
