Steve Jobs: The Man Behind The Macs
October 7, 2011 at 5:06 pm
On Wednesday 5th October 2011, the world lost one of its most iconic figures as the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died of pancreatic cancer at the age of only 56 years old. Steve Jobs’ death leaves a massive void in the technology landscape and his entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation will be sorely missed.
In 1976, along with school friends Robert Wayne and Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs founded Apple, a small technology company. When the first Macintosh computer was unveiled in 1984, it became the first successful personal computer with a graphical user interface, setting the template for future PCs across the industry. Jobs quickly earned plaudits as a company director due to his enthusiastic presentation style and on-stage charisma.
Outside of Apple, Steve Jobs was not short of other ventures, purchasing The Graphics Group for $10m in 1986, a company that would later become Pixar: one of the biggest and most successful animation studios on the planet. In 2006, long-time Pixar partners Disney bought the company for $7.4bn, becoming Disney’s largest single shareholder with a 7% share of the business.
When he returned to Apple in 1996, Jobs axed several of the company’s less profitable technologies and gained a reputation as a feared CEO. However, under his leadership, Apple revolutionised the way people consume music with the iPod in 2001 and the iTunes Music Store in 2003. As of September 2011, Apple had sold 275 million iPods and 16 billion songs had been downloaded via iTunes, showing a sheer dominance of the digital music industry. It is due to Steve Jobs’ innovation and strong business decisions that Apple has developed from a tiny firm to the technological behemoth it has become.
In his famous keynote speeches (or “Stevenotes” as they are referred to by fans), Steve Jobs has introduced some of the most iconic gadgets of our time, including the iPhone, which helped bring smartphones to the mass market and the iPad, which was one of the first examples of tablet computing as marketed to the mainstream.
Despite rumours of Steve Jobs’ illness and multiple rumours about his imminent departure, when he finally resigned as Apple CEO in August of this year, the company’s shares dipped by 5%. His impact on the technology industry cannot be understated and no other technology entrepreneur can boast as strong an affinity with a crowd as him. Steve Jobs had the ability to hold an audience in the palm of his hand at every keynote speech he performed, showing oratory skills that would incite jealousy in some of the world’s most influential political leaders.
There is no doubt that Steve Jobs will be sorely missed. He has left an indelible mark on the world and his influence will continue to shape the technology industry for years to come.
Steve Jobs’ death is not the end; his genius lives on.
