स्टीव जॉब्स Steve Jobs

Life and career

  1. 1955 · Born and adopted. Born on 24 February 1955 in San Francisco. His birth mother Joanne Schieble placed him for adoption. Paul and Clara Jobs adopted him after promising to pay for his college. He grew up in the Bay Area and later started Apple from the family home in Los Altos. (Wikipedia: Steve Jobs · Stanford News: ‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ Jobs says (12 June 2005))
  2. 1972 · Reed College and calligraphy. He enrolled at Reed College in Portland in September 1972. He dropped out after one semester without telling his parents. He stayed on to audit classes including calligraphy under Robert Palladino. He later said it came back to him when designing the Mac, the first computer with beautiful typography. (Wikipedia: Steve Jobs · Stanford News: ‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ Jobs says (12 June 2005))
  3. 1974 · Atari. In February 1974 Atari hired him as a technician in Los Gatos. He used the job to save for a trip east. He returned to Atari in early 1975. (Wikipedia: Steve Jobs · Britannica: Steve Jobs)
  4. 1974 · Seven months in India. In mid-1974 he travelled to India with his friend Daniel Kottke. He hoped to meet Neem Karoli Baba at his Kainchi ashram. The guru had died in September 1973 so they trekked on to an ashram of Haidakhan Babaji. He stayed seven months. A letter he wrote to a friend that year says he wished to go to the Kumbh Mela. It sold at Bonhams for $500,312. (Wikipedia: Steve Jobs · Business Today: Steve Jobs’s 1974 letter on India (15 January 2025))
  5. 1976 · Apple in a Los Altos garage. He founded Apple Computer Company with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne on 1 April 1976. The work began in a bedroom of his parents’ Crist Drive home and moved to the garage. (Wikipedia: Steve Jobs)
  6. 1977 · The Apple II. Apple was incorporated in 1977. The Apple II was introduced in April at the West Coast Computer Faire and went on sale in June. By 1983 Apple had made the quickest entry into the Fortune 500 of any company to that time. (Wikipedia: Steve Jobs · Britannica: Steve Jobs)
  7. 1984 · The Macintosh. In 1979 he led Apple engineers to Xerox PARC to see the graphical user interface. In 1983 he recruited John Sculley as CEO. He launched the Macintosh on 24 January 1984. (Britannica: Steve Jobs · Wikipedia: Steve Jobs)
  8. 1985 · Forced out. NeXT begins. After a power struggle with Sculley and the board he resigned on 17 September 1985. He founded NeXT with $7 million. Its workstation went on sale in 1990 at $9,999. He later called getting fired “the best thing” that could have happened to him. (Wikipedia: Steve Jobs · Britannica: Steve Jobs · Stanford News: ‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ Jobs says (12 June 2005))
  9. 1986 · Pixar and Toy Story. He paid $10 million to spin Lucasfilm’s computer graphics division out as Pixar. Toy Story came out in 1995 and Pixar’s stock offering made him a billionaire. Disney bought Pixar in 2006 in an all-stock deal worth $7.4 billion. He became Disney’s largest individual shareholder. (Wikipedia: Steve Jobs · Britannica: Steve Jobs)
  10. 1997 · Return to Apple. Apple bought NeXT in a deal announced in December 1996. He became interim CEO on 16 September 1997 and dropped “interim” in 2000. At the 1997 developer conference he told the audience that focus means saying no. (Wikipedia: Steve Jobs · Kottke: Focus means saying no (WWDC 1997))
  11. 2001 · iMac, iPod and the iTunes Store. The iMac arrived in 1998. The iPod followed on 23 October 2001. On 28 April 2003 Apple opened the iTunes Music Store with over 200,000 songs at 99 cents each. He said “Consumers don’t want to be treated like criminals.” (Wikipedia: Steve Jobs · Apple Newsroom: Apple launches the iTunes Music Store (28 April 2003))
  12. 2005 · Stanford commencement. On 12 June 2005 he gave the Stanford commencement address. He told three stories about connecting the dots, love and loss, and death. He closed with “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” (Stanford News: ‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ Jobs says (12 June 2005))
  13. 2007 · iPhone and iPad. He unveiled the iPhone at Macworld San Francisco on 9 January 2007. Apple described it as a phone, a widescreen iPod and an internet device in one. It went on sale on 29 June. The iPad followed in April 2010. (Apple Newsroom: Apple reinvents the phone with iPhone (9 January 2007) · Wikipedia: Steve Jobs)
  14. 2011 · Resignation and death. On 24 August 2011 he resigned as CEO and recommended Tim Cook. He died at home in Palo Alto on 5 October 2011 aged 56. His death certificate gave respiratory arrest as the cause with a metastatic pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour as the underlying condition. He had been diagnosed in 2003. Each guest at his memorial received a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi. (Apple Newsroom: Letter from Steve Jobs (24 August 2011) · Scoop: Apple CEO Tim Cook on the death of Steve Jobs (5 October 2011) · CBS News: Death certificate (10 October 2011) · Wikipedia: Steve Jobs · CNN Money: Steve Jobs’s last gift (September 2013))
  15. 2022 · Medal of Freedom, the Archive and his own words. In July 2022 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously. In September Laurene Powell Jobs, Tim Cook and Jony Ive launched the Steve Jobs Archive. In April 2023 it published Make Something Wonderful, a free book of his speeches, interviews and emails. (MacRumors: Presidential Medal of Freedom (7 July 2022) · 9to5Mac: Steve Jobs Archive launches (7 September 2022) · Steve Jobs Archive: Time to make something wonderful)

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