Essay about Steve Jobs

Words: 1420
Pages: 6

Title:
Steven P. Jobs

Steve Jobs has accomplished more in his life than any one of us could ever dream of accomplishing. With his expert people skills and advanced decision making, he has completely revolutionized the realm of computer commerce. He is a great businessman and a great leader, and it is obvious that the world of technology would not be the same without this familiar name in its history book. So let us look at this noteworthy character and see what he has done to become a necessary leader in the technological industry. Steven P. Jobs, more commonly known as Steve Jobs, was born on February 24, 1955, to Joanne Carole Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali. He was put up for adoption and was adopted by Justin and Clara Jobs of California. He was always interested in electronics as a kid and kept that interest throughout high school. Steve graduated from Homestead High School in 1972, and around this time, he met and formed a friendship with Steve Wozniak, not knowing that, in just a few years, he and his friend would begin a company that would soon set the standards for all computer industries .
Steve Jobs enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and he attended the college for six months. He dropped out after that short time, and in 1974, he took a job at the Atari Corporation as a video game designer at age nineteen . While working at the Atari Corporation, Steve decided to save up enough money to take a spiritual trip to India and experience Buddhism. However, Jobs returned to the United States disappointed instead of enlightened. Upon his return, Jobs had heard that his old high school friend, Steve Wozniak, who was working for Hewlett-Packard Company, had created a design for a personal computer which he called Apple I. After Wozniak’s design was turned down by Hewlett-Packard in 1976, Jobs suggested that he and Wozniak go into business together. Jobs’ Volkswagen minibus and Wozniak’s programmable calculator was sold in order to obtain the money they needed to build the Apple I. The construction of the computer took place in Jobs’ garage, and the completion of the Apple I marked the beginning of Apple Computer Inc.
The Apple I computer was successful, selling at five hundred dollars. With Jobs’ encouragement, Wozniak designed an improved model, the Apple II, in which he incorporated a keyboard, power supply, and the ability to generate color graphics. Steve was convinced that Apple II would be a success, and he got Mike Markkula, a retired employee of Intel, to invest in the young company. Apple’s popularity after the introduction of the Apple II placed its ads in national consumer publications, and Apple finished its first fiscal year with $774,000 in sales and $42,000 in profit . After having great results with the Apple II, Jobs began on a new project called Lisa. Its main feature was its GUI1. Lisa was all over the media and great things were expected from this new computer, however, it was slow and users could not swap information among programs. Lisa, therefore, failed in the marketplace; but this failure paved way for the Macintosh. The Macintosh (Mac) was introduced by Steve Jobs in 1984, and it had many useful features like icons, windows, pull down menus, and a mouse, all of which were meant for easy use. However, the first Macs were underpowered and expensive, so although the computers had success in some U.S. colleges, they ultimately resulted in disappointing sales. Jobs began improving the machine and eventually it became the company’s backbone in the future, however, Jobs inability to correct the problem quickly led to tension between Jobs and Apple’s CEO. Eventually, the board of directors removed Steve Jobs in 1985. Also, in 1985, Steve Wozniak resigned from Apple to start a new video electronics business. With both founders gone, Apple sales fell dramatically. In time, Apple got rid of 1,200 employees and closed three factories. Upon leaving Apple, Steve