Steve Jobbs Main

Born 1955 Los Altos CA; Evangelic bad boy who, with Steve Wozniak, co-founded Apple

Computer Corporation and became a multimillionaire before the age of 30. Subsequently
started the NeXT Corporation to provide an educational system at a reasonable price, but
found that software was a better seller than hardware.

Education: Ungraduated, Physics, literature, and poetry, Reed College, OR; Prof. Exp: Atari

Corporation; Apple Corporation; NeXT Corporation.

Going to work for Atari after leaving Reed College, Jobs renewed his friendship with Steve

Wozniak. The two designed computer games for Atari and a telephone "blue box", getting
much of their impetus from the Homebrew Computer Club. Beginning work in the Job's
family garage they managed to make their first "killing" when the Byte Shop in Mountain
View bought their first fifty fully assembled computers. On this basis the Apple Corporation
was founded, the name based on Job's favorite fruit and the logo (initially used as the
unregistered logo of the ACM APL Conference in San Francisco) chosen to play on both the
company name and the word byte. Through the early 1980's Jobs controlled the business
side of the corporation, successively hiring presidents who would take the organization to a
higher level. With the layoffs of 1985 Jobs lost a power struggle with John Sculley, and
after a short hiatus reappeared with new funding to create the NeXT corporation.

Steve Jobs innovative idea of a personel computer led him into revolutionizing the computer

hardware and software industry. When Jobs was twenty one, he and a friend, Wozniak, built
a personel computer called the Apple. The Apple changed people's idea of a computer from a
gigantic and inscrutable mass of vacuum tubes only used by big business and the
government to a small box used by ordinary people. No company has done more to
democratize the computer and make it user-friendly than Apple Computer Inc. Jobs
software development for the Macintosh re-introduced windows interface and mouse
technology which set a standard for all applications interface in software.

Two years after building the Apple I, Jobs introduced the Apple II. The Apple II was the best

buy in personal computers for home and small business throughout the following five years.
When the Macintosh was introduced in 1984, it was marketed towards medium and large
businesses. The Macintosh took the first major step in adapting the personal computer to
the needs of the corporate work force. Workers lacking computer knowledge accomplished
daily office activities through the Macintosh's user-friendly windows interface. [Halliday,
1983, p. 204] Steve Jobs was considered a brilliant young man in Silicon Valley, because
he saw the future demands of the computer industry. He was able to build a personal
computer and market the product. "The personal computer was created by the hardware
revolution of the 1970's and the next dramatic change will come from a software
revolution," said Jobs. [Halliday, 1983, p. 204] His innovative ideas of user-friendly
software for the Macintosh changed the design and functionality of software interfaces
created for computers. The Macintosh's interface allowed people to interact easier with
computers, because they used a mouse to click on objects displayed on the screen to perform
some function. The Macintosh got ride of the computer command lines that intemidated
people from using computers. After resigning from Apple Inc., Jobs would continue
challenging himself to develop computers and software for education and research by
starting a new company that would eventually develop the NextStep computer.

Steven Paul, was an orphan adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs of Mountain View, California in

February 1955. Jobs was not happy at school in Mountain View so the family moved to Los
Altos, California, where Steven attended Homestead High School. His electronics teacher at
Homestead High, Hohn McCollum, recalled he was "something of a loner" and "always had a
different way of looking at things." [Halliday, 1983, p. 205]

After school, Jobs attended lectures at the Hewlett-Packard electronics firm in Palo Alto,

California. There he was hired as a summer employee. Another employee at
Hewlett-Packard was Stephen Wozniak a recent dropout from the University of California at
Berkeley. An engineering whiz with a passion for inventing electronic gadgets, Wozniak at
that time was perfecting his "blue box," an illegal pocket-size telephone attachment that
would allow the user to make free long-distance calls. Jobs helped Wozniak sell a number of
the devices to customers. [Halliday, 1983, p. 205]

In 1972 Jobs graduated from high school and register at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

After dropping out of Reed after one semester, he hung around campus for a year, taking
classes in philosophy and immersing himself in the counterculture. [Halliday, 1983, p.
205]

Early in 1974 Jobs took a job as a video game designer at Atari, Inc., a pioneer in electronic

arcade recreation. After several months working, he saved enough money to adventure on a
trip to India where he traveled in search of spiritual enlightenment in the company of Dan
Kottke, a friend from Reed College. In autumn of 1974, Jobs returned to California and
began attending meetings of Wozniak's "Homebrew Computer Club." Wozniak, like most of
the club's members, was content with the joy of electronics creation. Jobs was not
interested in creating electronics and was nowhere near as good an engineer as Woz. He had
his eye on marketability of electronic products and persuaded Wozniak to work with him
toward building a personal computer. [Halliday, 1983, p. 205]

Wozniak and Jobs designed the Apple I computer in Jobs's bedroom and they built the

prototype in the Jobs' garage. Jobs showed the machine to a local electronics equipment
retailer, who ordered twenty-five. Jobs received marketing advice from a friend, who was a
retired CEO from Intel, and he helped them with marketing strategies for selling their new
product. Jobs and Wozniak had great inspiration in starting a computer company that would
produce and sell computers. To start this company they sold their most valuable possessions.
Jobs sold his Volkswagen micro-bus and Wozniak sold his Hewlett-Packard scientific
calculator, which raised $1,300 to start their new company. With that capital base and
credit begged from local electronics suppliers, they set up their first production line. Jobs
encouraged Wozniak quit his job at Hewlett-Packard to become the vice president in charge
of research and development of the new enterprise. And he did quit his job to become vice
president. Jobs came up with the name of their new company Apple in memory of a happy
summer he had spent as an orchard worker in Oregon. [Halliday, 1983, p. 205]