It
is almost impossible to understand, let alone describe, the creative genius of Steve Jobs. With little college education, he was
neither an engineer nor a computer scientist. But he was a legend with an intellectual curiosity that no one in the contemporary world
could match.
Jobs
was not an not inventor in the conventional sense of the term, but he was the force behind the invention of several revolutionary devices that have changed the
world. He had the vision and the drive that is unparalleled.
In
mid-seventies, Jobs nudged Steve Wozniak, six years his senior, to
work with him to build a computer, and the two successfully built
Apple I, a bare bones computer consisting of little more
than a circuit board.
The
next computer, Apple II, was much more than that. It was, as Jonathan
Zittrain puts it, the first “generative" computer. Apple II
became the first mass produced computer, and represented the dawn of
an age where computers could be programmed, and could use third-party
software.
In
developing these computers, Wozniak came with technical skills ,
but Jobs brought ideas and vision. The partnership
between the two, unfortunately, could not last very long. In 1981,
Wozniak was injured in an air crash and developed amnesia. (He
eventually recovered but has had little involvement in Apple.)
Jobs
went on to develop the Macintosh
line of computers that represented a leap in terms of technical
capabilities, and were a far cry from text-based machines such as the
IBM PCs. The Macintosh computers employed highly complex software,
but reduced complexity for the end-user.
Apple
went public in December 1980, and two years later it became the first
PC company to reach $1 billion in annual sales. Jobs was forced to
leave Apple in 1985 after an internal power struggle with CEO Sculley
who was enticed into the company by Jobs himself.
During
his absence from Apple, Jobs not only formed NeXT (the developer of
the NeXTSTEP object-oriented, multitasking operating system), but
bought the computer-graphics division of Lucasfilm, and renamed it
Pixar. In 1995, Pixar released its first feature film, Toy Story,
which was a box-office hit. (Other hits, such as Finding Nemo, followed in the years to come.)
Microsoft,
a smaller and younger company than Apple, went public in 1986. On
December 19, 1989, Microsoft decisively overtook Apple in terms of
market capitalization. This was the beginning of a slide for Apple that would
take the company to the brink of bankruptcy.
In February 1997, in
a dramatic development, Apple purchased NeXT for $400 million, and
with it - after a lapse of almost 12 years - Jobs returned to the
company he had founded. In August 1997, Microsoft gave Apple $150
million to keep it afloat, and pledged to develop the Office software suite for the Macintosh platform.
Formally
appointed CEO of Apple in 2000, Jobs went on a roll, producing one
incredible product after another.
In
October 2001, Apple introduced iPod, a digital media player with a
1.8-inch hard drive that initially stored 1,000 songs. (Its
capacity has continued to multiply, and several enhanced versions of
the product have followed – Mini, Nano, Shuffle, and Touch)
In
April 2003, Apple introduced the iTunes store with the capacity to
store 200,000 songs. Becoming the biggest music store, iTunes has
revolutionized how music is accessed. Over 16 billion songs have been
downloaded from the iTunes store.
At
a time when no one thought that mobile devices could be made any
better, Apple made a dent in the smartphone market by rolling out iPhone. The device introduced in January 2007 has become the standard
by which smartphone capabilities are judged. (Since then, the smartphone market has exploded.)
Apple's
introduction of iPad in January 2010 was another epoch-making event.
This device has changed the way computing will be done from now on.
Apple's
string of successful product launches has had an impact on its market value. On May 26, 2010, Apple overtook Microsoft in market capitalization, becoming the biggest technology company in the U.S.
In October 2001, the company's stock hovered around $10. In July 2011, the stock price climbed above $400. By his own admission, Steve Jobs was not motivated by money, but by a desire to excel. In the process, however, he made himself and those working for him more wealthy than they could have ever imagined.
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