Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs: Apple Co-Founder and Personal Computing Pioneer

Steve Jobs was one of the most influential figures in the history of personal computing. As a co-founder of Apple, the founder of NeXT, and a leading figure at Pixar, he played a major role in transforming computers into products designed for a mass audience. His influence did not primarily come from electronic engineering or programming. Instead, it lay in his ability to bring teams together, define a coherent product vision, and combine technology with ease of use and design.

Under his leadership, Apple introduced several landmark products, including the Macintosh, iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. His career was also marked by his departure from Apple in 1985 and his return to the company twelve years later.

Quick Facts

• Full name: Steven Paul Jobs
• Born: February 24, 1955, in San Francisco, California
• Died: October 5, 2011, in Palo Alto, California
• Fields: personal computing, product design, entrepreneurship, computer animation
• Major contributions: co-founding Apple, development of the Macintosh, founding NeXT, development of Pixar, and Apple’s revival after his return

Growing Up in Silicon Valley

Steve Jobs was adopted shortly after birth by Paul and Clara Jobs. He grew up in California, in a region that was gradually becoming known as Silicon Valley. He developed an interest in electronics at an early age and became friends with Steve Wozniak, a highly talented engineer with a remarkable ability to design electronic circuits.

In 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Oregon. He officially dropped out after six months but continued attending some classes informally. He later explained that the calligraphy classes he followed at Reed influenced his interest in typography and, indirectly, the range of typefaces later offered on the Macintosh.

The Founding of Apple

In 1976, Steve Jobs founded the Apple Computer Company with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. Wayne left the company only a few days later.

The roles played by Apple’s two main founders are important to distinguish. Steve Wozniak designed the electronic architecture and circuitry of the Apple I and later the Apple II. Jobs, meanwhile, recognized the commercial potential of these machines. He found suppliers, secured orders, and pushed the project toward the production of a computer that could be sold beyond the relatively small community of electronics enthusiasts.

Introduced in 1976, the Apple I was essentially an assembled circuit board. The Apple II, introduced in 1977, was a much more complete computer, with an integrated keyboard and case and the ability to display color graphics on a television. It became one of the first major commercial successes of the microcomputer era.

The Macintosh and the Graphical User Interface

In the early 1980s, Steve Jobs became deeply involved in the Macintosh project, which had originally been started by Jef Raskin. Jobs gradually took control of the team and steered the machine toward an approach based on a graphical user interface, windows, icons, and a mouse.

Apple did not invent these concepts. They had previously been explored at Xerox PARC and were also used on the Apple Lisa. The Macintosh, however, helped make graphical interfaces more accessible and introduced them to a much broader audience.

On January 24, 1984, Steve Jobs officially unveiled the Macintosh. During the demonstration, the computer displayed images, played music, and even spoke a few words. The presentation became one of the most famous product demonstrations in computing history.

The Macintosh was not an immediate commercial success. Its high price, limited memory, and relatively small software library initially restricted sales. Nevertheless, it helped establish a new way of interacting with personal computers.

Leaving Apple and Founding NeXT

The Macintosh’s commercial difficulties and growing disagreements between Steve Jobs and Apple CEO John Sculley led to a serious internal conflict. In 1985, Apple’s board removed most of Jobs’s operational responsibilities. He resigned from Apple in September of that year.

Jobs then founded NeXT, a company created to build powerful workstations for higher education and research. NeXT computers were technically advanced, but their high prices severely limited their commercial success.

The company nevertheless developed an advanced operating system called NeXTSTEP, based on UNIX and built around object-oriented programming. This technology later became crucial to Apple’s future: it provided the technological foundation for Mac OS X, from which Apple’s modern operating systems ultimately evolved.

Steve Jobs and the Development of Pixar

In 1986, Steve Jobs purchased the computer division of Lucasfilm from George Lucas. The division became an independent company called Pixar.

Jobs did not invent computer animation, nor did he direct Pixar’s films. Many of the company’s technical and artistic innovations came from Ed Catmull, John Lasseter, and their teams. Jobs did, however, provide essential financial backing during the company’s difficult early years and helped support its development as a business.

In 1995, Pixar released Toy Story, the first feature-length film produced entirely using computer-generated imagery. Its success transformed Pixar into one of the world’s leading animation studios.

In 2006, The Walt Disney Company acquired Pixar. As a result of the transaction, Jobs became a member of Disney’s board of directors and its largest individual shareholder.

Returning to Apple

In December 1996, Apple announced that it would acquire NeXT in order to obtain its software technologies. The acquisition was completed in 1997, bringing Steve Jobs back to the company he had co-founded.

Apple was then experiencing serious difficulties. Its product range had become overly complex, the company was losing money, and its operating system needed major modernization. Jobs became interim CEO in September 1997 and permanently assumed the CEO position in 2000.

He drastically reduced Apple’s product range and focused the company on a small number of major projects. Under his leadership, Apple introduced:

• the iMac in 1998, which helped reinvent the image of the personal computer;
• Mac OS X in 2001, built from technologies inherited from NeXT;
• the iPod and the first Apple Stores in 2001;
• the iPhone in 2007;
• the iPad in 2010.

These products were created by large teams of engineers, programmers, and designers. Jobs’s role was primarily one of leadership: setting priorities, selecting projects, and insisting on close integration between hardware, software, and services.

A Major Figure, but Not a Lone Inventor

Steve Jobs’s public image sometimes leads to the mistaken impression that he personally invented Apple’s products. This interpretation is too simplistic. The Apple I and Apple II were primarily designed by Steve Wozniak. The Macintosh project was initiated by Jef Raskin before Jobs took control of it, and the computer itself was developed by a team of engineers, programmers, and user-interface specialists.

Likewise, the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad were the products of extensive teamwork. Designer Jony Ive, together with numerous hardware and software teams, played a major role in their development.

Jobs’s distinctive contribution was his ability to transform technologies, some of which already existed, into coherent products that could be presented simply and used by a broad audience. His management style was extremely demanding and could also be harsh, generating numerous conflicts throughout his career.

Why Steve Jobs Matters in Computing History

• Personal computing: he helped transform the microcomputer into a product intended for a mass audience.
• Graphical interfaces: the Macintosh contributed to the widespread adoption of windows, icons, and the mouse.
• Integration: he championed an approach in which hardware, operating systems, software, and services were designed as a unified whole.
• Apple’s revival: his return in 1997 accompanied Apple’s transformation from a struggling computer company into a major consumer technology business.
• Computer animation: his financial backing and leadership at Pixar contributed to the growth of computer-generated feature animation.
• Product communication: his product presentations became influential models throughout the technology industry.

Timeline

• 1955: Steve Jobs is born in San Francisco
• 1976: Apple is founded with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne
• 1977: Apple II is introduced
• 1984: Macintosh is unveiled
• 1985: Jobs leaves Apple and founds NeXT
• 1986: Jobs acquires Lucasfilm’s computer division, which becomes the independent company Pixar
• 1995: Toy Story is released
• 1996–1997: Apple acquires NeXT and Steve Jobs returns to Apple
• 1998: iMac is introduced
• 2001: Mac OS X and the iPod are launched
• 2006: Disney acquires Pixar
• 2007: iPhone is unveiled
• 2010: iPad is unveiled
• 2011: Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO and dies later that year

Cover image: Steve Jobs in 1972, aged 17. Illustration based on his portrait published in the Pegasus yearbook of Homestead High School. Original image: public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.