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Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5,
2011) was an American entrepreneur. He is best known as the
co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Through Apple,
he was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer
revolution and for his influential career in the computer and consumer
electronics fields. Jobs also co-founded and served as chief executive of Pixar
Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of
directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, when Disney
acquired Pixar.
In the late 1970s, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak engineered
one of the first commercially successful lines of
personal computers, the Apple II series. Jobs was among the
first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical
user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and, one year
later, the Macintosh. He also played a role in introducing the
LaserWriter, one of the first widely available laser printers, to the market. After a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985,
Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company
specializing in the higher-education and business markets. In 1986, he acquired
the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, which was spun off as Pixar. He
was credited in Toy Story (1995) as an executive
producer. He served as CEO and majority shareholder until
Disney's purchase of Pixar in 2006. In 1996, after Apple had failed to deliver
its operating system, Copland, Gil Amelio turned to NeXT Computer, and the
NeXTSTEP platform became the foundation for the Mac OS X. Jobs returned to
Apple as an advisor, and took control of the company as an interim CEO. Jobs
brought Apple from near bankruptcy to profitability by 1998.
As the new CEO of the company, Jobs oversaw the development
of the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, and on the services side, the
company's Apple Retail Stores, iTunes Store and the App Store. The success of
these products and services provided several years of stable financial returns,
and propelled Apple to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company
in 2011. The reinvigoration of the company is regarded by many commentators as
one of the greatest turnarounds in business history.
In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreas neuroendocrine
tumor. Though it was initially treated, he reported a hormone imbalance,
underwent a liver transplant in 2009, and appeared progressively thinner as his
health
declined. On medical leave for most of 2011, Jobs resigned
in August that year, and was elected Chairman of the Board. He died of
respiratory arrest related to his metastatic tumor on October 5, 2011.
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