Steve Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955 in San Fransisco, to a young graduate student, who put him up to adoption because she could not take care of him. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. Paul Jobs was a Coast Guard Veteran that repaired machinery. Clara Jobs was a payroll clerk. Steve was a loner and troublemaker. He did not like schoolwork or sports, but was very curious with machines. His father encouraged this, even giving Steve a part of his workbench and teaching him basic skills. At school, it was clear he was smart, but he did not like school. His fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Hill gave him an advanced math workbook instead, and it pushed him up because he could not stop. Middle school was harder though, and after one year he refused to go. So the family moved, now also with Steve's adopted sister, Patty, to the heart of the transforming Silicon Valley. New technical people were coming there, and they answered Steve's questions. Then, in 1968 he met Steve Wozniak, who shared many of his traits. Woz had technical knowledge, and together they took on challenges. Jobs learned to wheel and deal for spare parts at his weekend job, and got the supplies they needed. Later, he graduated and went to college at Reed College, but got terrible grades and dropped out within the first semester to not waste any more money. He still stayed as an unregistered student, to learn the subjects he was interested in. Then he became a hippie and became interested in eastern religions. He took a walking tour of India before returning with a renewed interest. Woz had plans for a computer, and Steve thought after they built it they could sell it and a few more.

Main Accomplishments

Steve Jobs accomplished much in his life. A creative thinker and charismatic person, its no wonder he was a co founder of the world's largest company. In April 1976, Jobs and Woz founded Apple Computer, with an idea of selling printed circuit boards that quickly changed to building computers. They built a few first Apple computers, then moved on to the Apple II design, which had all the basic things they lacked, like sound, was more powerful, and even looked better. It was a huge success, with sales skyrocketing. By 1980, Apple Computer became a huge company with roughly one thousand people. Steve Wozniak then decided to leave Apple, get married and finish college in 1981. However, Apple's next three models, the Apple III, the Lisa, and the Macintosh, were all complete failures, and the company was in trouble. Steve tried to play for total control of Apple, taking a risk as he always had, but this time he lost, and was demoted to a non critical position. He decided to leave in September 1985, and start over. Sales of the Macintosh rose while he was gone, becoming huge and successful. However, this halted innovation, which lead to the company's decline. Jobs founded NeXT, built a computer for educational purposes, which he introduced in 1988, and bought Pixar from George Lucas, selling the Pixar Image Computers and keeping an animation team to promote them. Both sides were complete flops, and both were financially struggling. But, even when times looked darkest, Jobs did not give up, constantly trying to create new computers or look for buyers. He held out with both companies, and finally Disney asked Pixar to make a fully animated film. They made an agreement, and Pixar was working on Toy Story and stopped selling computers. The problems at NeXT deepened, as its new computers were failing, but Jobs saw a new opportunity, in software. Jobs made a new operating system, NEXTSTEP, and it was the best in Silicon Valley. Other companies asked him for installing it on their machines, but Jobs still thought NeXT could be in hardware, and took a little longer before realizing his mistakes. They changed from NeXT Computer to NeXT Software, and in 1994, they had their first profit in history. On the Pixar side, on Thanksgiving 1995 Toy Story was released, and was a huge success. He went to renegotiate a contract and got five films with Disney, A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters Inc. (2001), and Finding Nemo (2003). When the Disney Pixar contract ended Disney got in trouble, fired their CEO, and then Jobs got a deal for Disney to buy Pixar. On the other side, he got back into Apple after they were desperate and in need of a savior and gave them the operating system they needed in 1996, as well as talented programmers. He managed to get Microsoft to invest one hundred fifty million dollars into Apple, who had been longtime enemies, and both companies benefited. Then the next product was the iMac, which he introduced in 1998, and was a huge success. He went on to design the iPod and iTunes, which saved the music world from re posts without permission on the web, and then the iPhone and Apple TV, which all succeeded. He introduced the iPad in January 2010, which turned out to be even bigger than the iPhone's launch, and he started refining and perfecting both devices. In summary, Steve Jobs founded Apple, was kicked out but founded NeXT and Pixar, which he both had to save and got them to do well, and then rejoined and saved Apple.

Personal Life

Steve Jobs had a personal life that was different from most people. In 1978, Jobs's longtime girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan, was pregnant. Jobs did everything he could to deny that the child was his, and it led to fierce arguments. Finally, Brennan left Apple and moved to Oregon, where she had a baby girl, Lisa. Jobs soon traveled there to make amends and pay child support, but then cut them off, only resuming under legal duress. He only made amends and initiated a relationship with Lisa when she was seven, and when she was a teenager in high school she even came to live with him. Jobs was always curious about his birth parents and sent people to find them, who succeeded in the 1980s when they found his biological mother, Joanne Simpson, who had one daughter, Mona Simpson, who was a writer. She and Steve became close, and she wrote a book called Regular guy in 1996, which did not paint a very good picture of Steve, but publicly they still remained close. In the fall of 1989, he fell in love with Laurene Powell, a graduate student in business at Stanford University. She was nine years younger, but shared many of his interests. Their relationship was for more than a year, and then Laurene said she was pregnant. This time Jobs agreed to marry, and their wedding was on March 18, 1991, at Yosemite National Park. Their first son was named Reed. In 1995 they had their second child, a daughter named Erin Siena. In 1998 they had their third child, a daughter named Eve. It seemed as though all was going well with his family, but in 2003 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The doctors said it was almost certainly incurable, but after looking closer into it, they found it was a rare type, around five precent of all pancreatic cancer, that could be treated with surgery. However, Jobs did not want surgery, and looked for other ways. After nine months, he finally agreed to have it removed surgically, and Jobs thought he was cured. But in 2008 his cancer was back, in his liver. Doctors could not say if the nine month delay enabled the cancer to come to his liver, but Jobs needed a liver transplant. In 2009 he was forced to take a medical leave from Apple, and was on the waiting list for a liver transplant. Then, there was a call from Tennessee, saying they were available for one. He and his wife got on their jet and flew over, and he had the transplant. However, it only bought him some time, but did not completely kill the cancer. In 2010 his weight was a small 115 pounds, and he started to accept that he did not have much longer. He started to think about his legacy, and what he had accomplished. He decided he wanted to spend his time he had left being as helpful as possible. On August 24, 2011, Jobs went to Apple for a board meeting, where he told them about his situation, and that he had to step down as CEO. Everyone was sad, thanked him for everything he had done, and gave him their praise. He spent his last weeks with his family, biographer (Walter Isaacson), and closest friends. Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011 in Palo Alto, California (where he was living), at age fifty-six.

Influence

Steve Jobs had a huge influence on the world, both during his life and after. First, he co founded Apple, which is the world's largest company and makes products that we use every day. Next, he was a charismatic person, and was able to motivate and influence many people to do things. One example was how he convinced John Sculley to become the CEO of Apple from Pepsi. Sculley even said, "If you can pick one reason why I came to Apple, it was to have the chance to work with Steve." Finally, Jobs was one of the people that shaped Silicon Valley. It was him that revolutionized not just his company and computers, but also music and smartphones. He even created a platform for others to innovate on. In conclusion, Steve Jobs had a big influence on the world.

Opinion

I think Steve Jobs was overall a hard working and motivational, but slightly selfish and risk taking person. One example of him being selfish is that in Apple's first stock trade, he did not give any stocks to some people that helped him, like Dan Kottke, the man that had come with Jobs to India and constructed some of the original circuit boards, for unknown reasons. He also only liked things done his way, and in the early days was the Mac's harshest critic, before excepting it. Employees also on the Mac team learned to dread his arrival, because either he would say their work was exemplary or terrible and had to be done from scratch. He also took crazy risks sometimes, like betting the company's future on the Mac or trying to win the CEO position. Despite all this, he was one of the most influential people in the world. Jobs was always innovating, always looking for a way to have a successful product, always motivating others to work with him. To think, not once did he seem to want to quit, professionally, his companies, and go live quietly with his money. He was always working, thinking, doing business with others, designing new products. He was always trying to motivate others to continue working, pushing them to their limits, but himself, he never even thought about his own. That is why I think Steve Jobs is hard working and motivational.

Conclusion

Steve Jobs was a man of innovation, invention, and charisma. His life was a crazy one, one of many ups and downs, twists and turns, but in the end he saved his companies and personal life. He started today's largest company as a computer manufacturer, without even knowing that much about how to build a computer, yet all his other talents made up for that. Steve Jobs is one people that shaped the world today.