Steve Jobs as the Greatest Innovators That Ever Lived - Research Paper Example

Steve Jobs Lives Steve Jobs Lives Steve Jobs is considered by many as one of, if not, the greatest innovators thatever lived. His father was Abdulfattah Jandali while his mother was Swiss-American (Wikipedia par.6). His father and his mother met while they were students at the University of Wisconsin when they were both still students there. He was born on February 24th in 1955 in San Francisco California. When Steve Jobs was born, Jandali was teaching in that university; He said he had to put up the baby for adoption since the family of his did not approve of their relationship. Jobs was adopted upon birth by Paul Jobs and Clara Jobs who was Armenian-American. His mother, however, wished him to be adopted by another couple that were colleagues at the graduate programme. Her mother signed the adoption papers after being reassured that the child would be supported and encouraged to go to college despite him having only attended High School (Wikipedia par. 6). When later asked about his adoptive parents, Jobs stressed that they were his parents. His real parents, however, did marry in 1955 but divorced in 1982 after they had had a second child Mona Simpson who is a novelist. When Jobs was five years of age, the Jobs moved to Mountain View California. His parents adopted a daughter, Patty, Later. Paul was a handy man and worked as a mechanic and practiced carpentry (Wikipedia par. 6). He taught his son basic skills in electronics and handy work. This later became his hobby. Jobs was taught how to read before going to school by his mother, Clara, who was an accountant. Jobs was very frustrated by formal school system. When he attended Monta Loma Elementary school, he would play pranks on others. The school authority were of the idea that Jobs skip two grades owing to his excellent scores but his parents chose that he skip just one. He schooled at Cupertino Junior High and Homestead High School, both in Cupertino California. He made friends with his neighbour Bill Fernandez while at Homestead. Fernandez acquainted Jobs with Steve Wozniac, who was very extraordinary with electronics and computers (Moisescot par. 3). Wozniac and Fernandez showed Jobs the first computer that they had built and called ‘The cream Soda Computer’ and he was very interested. Wozniac attributed the name of the computer to the fact that they drank cream soda often when they were working on the project. He said he and Jobs had attended the same High School but had not met there. After graduating from high school in 1972, Jobs joined a college in Portland Oregon called Reed College (Wikipedia par. 12). The college was very costly which his parents could barely afford. The cost of the education there was consuming a great proportion of their life savings. Because of this, Jobs dropped out after only six months. He attended creative classes since then for the next 18 months; he even did a course in calligraphy. Jobs audited for classes at Reeds College while crashing on sofas in friends’ rooms. He would return coke bottles to get money and would get free meals at a Krishna temple. Jobs attributed the elegant typefaces in the Apple Mac to his attending the calligraphy classes. Jobs let Oregon in 1974 and returned to California where he started working for an early pioneer in the manufacturer of personal computers, Atari. He got the job of technician there after taking to them a video game designed by Wozniac by thinking that it was his (Bellis, par. 6). His friend Steve Wozniac also worked for Atari at that time. The two were involved in the development and design of video games for Atari. The co-founder of Atari Nolan Bushnell described Jobs as a valuable employee but said that he was smart and he knew it and was not shy of letting people know about it which made him difficult. Jobs visited India in 1974 with his college friend and when he returned to America, he was different; he started wearing traditional Indian clothing (Silberman, par. 18). Jobs became a devout Buddhist and would take lengthy meditation retreats (Silberman, par. 20). He later went back to Atari where he was given a task of creating a circuit board for the famous arcade game Breakout. He had limited knowledge of circuit boards but cut a deal with Wozniac to split the bonus of reducing the number of chips in the circuit board to which Wozniac managed by 50. Jobs and Wozniac were also involved in the design of low-end digital ‘blue box’ that allowed making free long-distance calls. They made money selling that which may have laid ground for an electronics business. Wozniac developed the Apple I computer on his own as noted (Wikipedia par.20). Jobs was of the idea that they sell it after Wozniac showed it to him. They teamed up with Ronald Wayne to found the Apple Computer in Job’s parents’ garage. Wayne did not stay for long and left Jobs and Wozniac as primarily the founders of Apple. In the Job’s family garage, Wozniac produced fifty computers fully assembled that they sold to a local electronic store in Mountain View, Byte Shop. This encouraged the duo and together they founded Apple Incorporation in 1979 (Wikipedia par.20). The company was named so after Jobs favourite fruit. The company’s logo was a representation of a bitten apple. In the 80’s, Jobs controlled the business side of the company while Wozniac the technical side. Jobs, however, left the company in 1984 due to strife between him and the board of directors ((Wikipedia par.25). He left Apple following this and founded his own high-end computer company, NeXT, that was bought by Apple in 1996 prompting Jobs to return to Apple as the CEO from 1997 until 2011 when he retired (Wikipedia par. 2). The NeXT computer had amazing technology including the first web browser. After the take-over, NeXT’s technology was integrated into the Macintosh and the iPhone. Jobs purchased ‘The Graphics Group’ for ten million dollars from Lucasfilm that was later renamed Pixar (Entrepreneur.com, n.d.). The company was intended to become a developer of high-end graphic hardware but after this failed to achieve sufficient success, Pixar started doing animated films and was bought by Disney in 2006 from Jobs (Bellis par. 20). Apple experienced a renaissance after Jobs return. In product development, Apple developed the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad among other products. In conclusion, Steve Jobs was one of the greatest figures in the computer and electronics business during his time. Born of young parents who gave him up for adoption because of cultural parochial mentality that was against their marriage, Jobs went ahead to be brought up by a humble couple that managed to provide him with just enough education. He struggled through formal school frustration and could not finish college properly choosing to audit classes. These circumstances did not deter Jobs because had they killed his resolve to etch a mark for himself, we would not know about him like we do today and talk like we do today with great admiration. Indeed Steve Jobs was a revolutionary in the world of technology. Before his death, he was an inventor or co-inventor that transformed the computer business with cutting-edge products that are unmatched by anybody. His legacy lives on as a kid who despite facing challenges in his early life went ahead to turn his fate around and become one of the most admired CEOs of all time. Not only will he be remembered as a brilliant mind that beat odds to succeed, he will be known as the man that had the taste for sleek products and he knew just how to package them just the way we like it. The legacy of Steve Jobs will forever be remembered. Works Cited Bellis, Mary. Biography of Steve Jobs. April 4, 2014. April 4, 2014. Web. http://inventors.about.com/od/ijstartinventors/p/Steve-Jobs.htm entrepreneur.com. Steve Jobs: An Extraordinary Career Entrepreneur.com. N.d. April 4, 2014. Web. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/197538 Moisescot, Romain. Steve Jobs: Short Bio. 2012. April 4, 2014. Web. http://allaboutstevejobs.com/bio/shortbio.php Silberman, Steve. What Kind of Buddhist was Steve Jobs, Really? – NeuroTribes. 2011. April 4, 2014. Web. http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2011/10/28/what-kind-of-buddhist-was-steve-jobs-really/ Wikipedia. Steve Jobs. 2014. April 4, 2014. Web. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs Read More