The Man of Apple: Steve Jobs

The Man of Apple: Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs, an American mogul and inventor, and Steve Wozniak (who met Steve working at Hewitt Packard) co-founded Apple Inc. Steve Jobs named the company after an apple orchid he visited in Oregon. In 1975, they began working on their first computer in Job's bedroom that, the Apple 1. It was the first single circuit board computer. They sold more than 600 computers, making about $774,000 (encyclopedia2005). On their next computer they wanted to build a computer that was easy to use. Making technology easier to use would become the basics for Jobs view on building his computer. The Apple II was debuted in 1977 at a computer fair. It was completely redesigned, it included graphics and color. The Apple II became the first successful mass-market computer (encyclopedia2005). In December of 1980, Apple allowed stock to be accessible to the public (applemuseum.bott.org2010). At this time Apple valued 1.2 billion dollars. Steven Jobs owned 15% of the stock, making him the leading share holder.

In 1981, the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) introduced its own personal computer. This became great competition for Apple. IBM made its machine open so outsiders could write programs for it, but Apple did the opposite and didn't allow anyone to license their technology. This decision made Apple suffer great losses in buyers. Stevens soon hired John Sculley to become CEO of Apple to help Apple stay competitive. In 1983, Jobs obsessively work on the project called the LISA computer. This was Apple first computer that had GUI (Graphical User Interface), an idea Jobs got from Xerox .He demanded that the computer have feature after feature, it made the cost of the computer more expensive and it failed do to the price resulting in Jobs being kick off the Lisa project. During a Superbowl commercial in 1984, Apple unveiled the first Macintosh. It was small and had graphical interface that would set world standards. Job's was great at recruited talented people, but he treated them poorly and was not well liked. The CEO was unhappy with Steve's attitude towards employees and had the board strip him of his authority. In 1985, an upset Jobs quit Apple and sold all but 1of his shares (encyclopedia2005).

After leaving Apple, Steve started another computer company named NeXT a computer platform development company in 1986. (Wikipedia2011) He invested millions of his own money. He also brought a computer animation studio from George Lucas, saving it from going under. The company was named Pixar Animation Studios that would go on to produce successful animation movies such as, Toy Story, Monsters Inc and Finding Nemo. The NeXT computer was unveiled in 1989 (encyclopedia2005). It was cased in magnesium to meet FCC standards. The cost of the computer was too expensive for mass-market, causing it to do poorly in the market. In 1996, Apple