Steve Paul Jobs | Famous Entrepreneur
Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) is an American famous entrepreneur and inventor known as a pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Jobs was co-founder and formerly served as CEO of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a part of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, after the purchase of Pixar by Disney.
In the late 1970s, Apple co-owner Steve Wozniak designed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, which is the Apple II series. Jobs directed its visual plan and marketing together with A.C. “Mike” Markkula, Jr. and some others.
In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to perceive the commercial prospective of Xerox PARC’s mouse-driven GUI, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa which was engineered by Ken Rothmuller and John Couch and, after one year, of Apple employee Jef Raskin’s Macintosh. After losing a power struggle with the BOD’s in the year 1985, Jobs abandoned Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets.
In 1986, he purchased the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd, which became the Pixar Animation Studios. He was recognized in Toy Story (1995) as an executive producer. He remained Chief Executive Officer and majority investor having 50.1 percent until its acquisition by The Walt Disney Company in the year 2006, making Steve Jobs Disney’s largest individual shareholder at 7% and a member of Board of Directors of Disney.
In 1996, NeXT was acquired by Apple. The deal bring Jobs back to the company he co-founded. Jobs provided Apple with the NeXTSTEP codebase, from which the Mac OS X was developed. Jobs was named Apple advisor in 1996, interim CEO in 1997, and Chief Executive Officer from the year 2000 until his resignation. He oversees the development of the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad and the Apple Retail Stores.
In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with uncommon form of pancreatic cancer. Though it was initially treated, Jobs reported of a hormone inequity, underwent a liver transplant in 2009, and appeared gradually thinner as his health declined. In August 2011, during his third medical leave, Jobs resigned as CEO, but he continued to work for Apple as Chairman of the Board until his death.
On October 5, 2011, he died in his Palo Alto home, at the age of 56. His death certificate listed respiratory arrest as the direct cause of his death, with “metastatic pancreas neuroendocrine tumor” as the core cause. His occupation was listed as “famous entrepreneur” in the “high tech” business.
Jobs earned only one dollar per year as CEO of Apple, but held 5.426 million Apple shares, as well as 138 million shares in Disney which Jobs received in exchange for Disney’s acquisition of Pixar. Jobs quipped that the one dollar per annum he was paid by Apple was based on his attendance in one meeting for 50 cents while the other 50 cents was based on his performance. Forbes estimated his net wealth at $8.3 billion in 2010, which made him the 42nd wealthiest person in America.