Introduction
This biography of Steve Jobs was written by Walter Isaacson on the demand of Steve Jobs. It covers the whole life span of the great entrepreneur who brought a revolution in the field of computer technology. Impressed by the words of Leonardo Da Vinci “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” he introduced the world with those Apple products that are simple yet have the power to take the market by storms due their unique and outstanding features.
Steve Jobs’ Childhood
Steve Jobs was born on the 24th of February in 1955 to Abdulfattah Jandali and Joanne Schieble. He was not brought up by his biological parents, they gave him to Paul and Clara Jobs. Steve settled with his adoptive parents in Silicon Valley which was epicenter of technology. Paul being a mechanical engineer, introduced Steve with engineering and technology. In school Steve met with Steve Wozniak and their friendship finally resulted in the beginning of their business partnership.
LSD and Spirituality
Steve Jobs got admission in Reeds College. He was a restless guy and was dropped out. During his college he became addicted to LSD. Another factor of Steve’s life was his relation with spirituality which he developed during his visit to India. Both these things made him a creative person and his intuition became very strong. With this intuitive brain when he entered computer industry, he brought revolution.
Foundation of ‘Apple’
Steve Jobs and Wozniak’s first product was Blue Box which was a device used for phone calls without charge. Their next product together was a game named ‘Pong’. Then they both led the foundation of Apple Company by introducing Apple I in 1977, which was designed by Wozniak and its sale was processed by Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs decided to the name ‘Apple’ when he was passing through an apple farm. This product gave them profit in just 30 days and they launched another product Apple II in 1977. This was also a success.
Macintosh
Jobs anticipated to make a different computer that would bring a change in the world. This desire led Jobs to start to build the Macintosh which would be an advanced version of Apple II. But the Macintosh was originally the design of Jef Raskin, a professional person in people-machine interfaces. Therefore, Jobs was accused of stealing the design.
The Macintosh was a massive success partially due to advertisement campaign that through TV commercials which is famous as advertisement “1984”.
Exit from Apple
Steve Jobs was basically a perfectionist. He didn’t ignored a minor mistake and he even talked to his workers in abusive language when his expectations were met. This temperament of Jobs led him out of apple.
NeXT and Pixar
After leaving Apple he designed a device that would respond to the needs of education sector, a computer named NeXT. NeXT was a failure due to its high cost. But he earned a lot of profit from his shares in Pixar which covered his loss.
Family
During his visit at Stanford business school, Jobs met Laurene Powell. They got married in 1991 and Jobs had 3 children from Laurene. At the advice of his wife, he brought his daughter Lisa who became to live with them. Lisa was his daughter from his first relationship. But Lisa and Jobs were both of same temperament. This was the reason that both were rarely at good terms.
Return
Apple gradually was in danger of bankruptcy when Gil Amelio became the CEO of Apple in 1996. In 1997 Amelio merged apple with NeXT and Jobs became an advisor to Apple. Jobs placed his favorite employees from NeXT in Apple at high places and gained power in Apple. He was offered to become the CEO but he denied this offer and preferred to remain advisor. Jobs, with his influence in Apple forced the board to resign as it failed to save the company and succeeded in partnering with Microsoft. After some time Jobs finally became CEO and he started to focus on making fewer products. Jobs terminated the licensing agreements with other manufacturers and decided to focus on making a desktop computer and a laptop. Company was again in profit in 1998 the year when Jobs rejoined the company.
IMac and Apple Stores
Jobs really appreciated talented people and this was the reason he made Jony Ive a part of Apple. Collaboration of Jobs and Ive resulted in the creation of iMac, a desktop computer which was designed for everyone. It was released in May 1998 and became the best-selling Apple product.
On the suggestion of Jobs Apple opened its first store in 2001. It was a success though many disparaged this idea.
IPod, I Phone and IPad
In 2001, Apple released a music player, IPod. Jobs was criticized for this in the beginning that no one would by a music player worth $399 but by 2007 IPods were half of the sale of whole Apple products sales.
In 2007, Apple released cell phones named IPhones. IPhone was a revolution in cell phone industry with touch screen and Gorilla glass, glass cover. IPhone was another huge success of Apple.
Finally apple introduced IPad in 2010. These three contributed a great deal in the success Apple.
Death
This iconic person who faced many challenges in his life with success couldn’t defeat cancer. The reason was his negligence towards his health. He tried to treat cancer with fruits and acupuncture. His negligence towards this fatal disease took his life in 2011.
What Steve Jobs Taught Us?
I would end the summary by quoting here Walter Isaacson’s words. This is in fact a message we get from the life of Steve Jobs.
“If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away. The more the outside world tries to reinforce an image of you, the harder it is to continue to be an artist, which is why a lot of times, artists have to say, “Bye. I have to go. I’m going crazy and I’m getting out of here.” And they go and hibernate somewhere. Maybe later they re-emerge a little differently.”