Steve Jobs, Apple, Inc.’s co-founder and chairman, and former CEO, has died, at the age of 56, after a long bout with pancreatic cancer. Jobs had also been CEO of Pixar Animation, and creator of the NeXT computer platform, which he sold to Apple upon his return in 1996.
Ars Technica writes,
But the legend of Steve Jobs goes much further—and will live much longer—than any single piece of technology that Apple has produced. From stories of Jobs firing people in elevators to recollections of him going to a neighborhood pool party with his son, Jobs somehow managed to maintain a personal reputation as chilled out Buddhist with a type A personality. His high standards, combined with his eye for simplicity, will certainly live on in Apple’s future creations. But for now, we must say goodbye to the man who worked tirelessly to make it all possible: Steve Jobs.
His bio, via Wikipedia:
In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula, and others, designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. In the early 1980s, 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 Macintosh. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets. Apple’s subsequent 1996 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he served as its CEO from 1997 until 2011. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios. He remained CEO and majority shareholder at 50.1% until its acquisition by The Walt Disney company in 2006. Consequently Jobs became Disney’s largest individual shareholder at 7% and a member of Disney’s Board of Directors.
His aim to develop products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted following.
On August 24, 2011, Jobs announced his resignation from his role as Apple’s CEO. In his letter of resignation, Jobs strongly recommended that the Apple executive succession plan be followed and Tim Cook be named as his successor. Per his request, Jobs was appointed chairman of Apple’s board of directors.
(Image: Apple website today.)