Apple is the biggest name in the technological circuit. With many amazing and luxurious products, Apple has very few competitors. Well, the man behind the success and rise of the company is Steve Jobs. He is one of the greatest entrepreneurs and has been inspiring many people. Under his guidance, the company started to produce revolutionary technologies, some of the most famous products are the iPhone and iPad. Due to the success of the company, the products are a symbol of economical status in this present generation.
Now the question arises what made Apple becomes such a great brand? And how Steve Jobs become such a successful entrepreneur?
| Name | Steve Jobs |
|---|---|
| Born | 24 February 1955, San Francisco, California, United States |
| Died | 5 October 2011, Palo Alto, California, United States |
| Citizenship | American |
| Education | Reed College, Portland, Oregon |
| Title | Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, Industrial designer, Investor, Media proprietor |
| Board of member | The Walt Disney Company Apple Inc. |
| Net Worth | US$7 billion |
Who was Steve Jobs?
Well, he was an American inventor and entrepreneur who was the co-founder, chief executive, and chairman of Apple computers which became the biggest name in the technology sector. The company’s product has dictated the evolution of modern technology. Steve was born in 1995 to two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave him up for adoption. Since his childhood, Steve was smart but directionless. He had dropped out of college and started off experimenting with different sectors before co-founding Apple with Steve Wozniak in 1976.
After that, Jobs left the company in 1985 and launched Pixar Animation Studios. Later on, after a decade, Jobs returned to the company.
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Early days of Steve Jobs
Steve was born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco, California. He lived in Mountain View, California, this place was later renamed as the Silicon Valley. During his childhood, Jobs and his father worked on electronic equipment in the family garage. His father used to showcase him how to take apart and reconstruct electronics. This hobby instilled confidence, tenacity, and mechanical prowess in Jobs. Therefore, the path to excellence started to off from his family’s garage.
Jobs was always an intelligent and innovative thinker since his childhood. However, his youth was struck in the quicksand of formal schooling education. Due to the boredom, he has a prankster during his days in elementary school, and hence, his fourth-grade teacher needed to bribe him to study. He tested so well that the administrators wanted him to skip him ahead of high school. However, his parents declined that offer.
Post high school, Steve enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. There too, he was frustrated and was lacking the path of the right direction. Therefore, out of frustration, he dropped out of college and spent the next one and half years dropping in on creative classes at the school. He had developed a love of typography during his struggling days.
In 1974, Jobs took over the job of a video game designer with Atari. A few months later, he left the company and found himself in India. In the subcontinent, he traveled and experimented with psychedelic drugs.
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Returning and Working with Steve Wozniak
During the days when Jobs was enrolled at Homestead High School, he was introduced to Steve Wozniak. Later on, the duo co-founded Apple. During an interview, Wozniak has stated that their partnership was successful because of their love for electronics. They used to hook up for hours with the digital chips and very few had the idea of chips during that time. Although Wozniak had designed many computers before Jobs did, both of them had a common interest.
In 1976, Jobs and Wozniak started a company named Apple Computer. The first headquarters of the company was at Jobs’s family garage. Initially, they funded their entrepreneurial venture by Jobs selling his beloved bus and Wozniak selling his scientific calculator. Later on, the duo is credited with revolutionizing the computer industry with their company by democratizing the technology and making machines smaller, cheaper, and accessible to everyday customers.
Wozniak had conceived of a series of user-friendly personal computers, and with Jobs in charge of the marketing sector of the company, they marketed the computer for$666.66 each. The Apple I earned the venture around $774,000! After three years of Apple’s second model, the Apple II, the company’s sales increased by 700 percent to $139 million.
In 1980, the product became a publicly-traded company and comprised a value of $1.2 billion by the end of the first day of trading. Alter on, Jobs asked the marketing expert John Sculley of Pepsi-Cola to accept the role of CEO of Apple. However, the next several products of the company experienced negative feedbacks due to the flaws in the products. Hence, IBM surpassed Apple in sales and Apple had to compete with an IBM/PC dominated world.
The year of 1984 experienced the release of Macintosh, it was both romantic and creative. However, despite positive sales and performance superior to IBM’s PCs, the product was still not compatible with IBM. Later on, Jobs was pushed into a marginalized position in the company and left the company in 1985.
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Apple Funding
| Announced Date | Transaction Name | Money Raised |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 6, 2017 | Post-IPO Debt - Apple | $5B |
| Jul 12, 2017 | Venture Round - Apple | N/A |
| May 16, 2016 | Post-IPO Equity - Apple | $1B |
| Aug 1, 1997 | Post-IPO Equity - Apple | $150M |
| May 4, 1978 | Seed Round - Apple | $150K |
| May 15, 1977 | Seed Round - Apple | $80K |
NeXT, Returning to Apple, and Pixar
Post his tenure in Apple, Jobs began a new hardware and software enterprise named NeXT. The brand floundered in its attempt to sell its operating system to the public and later on, was taken over by Apple in 1996 for $429 million. In 1997, Jobs returned to Apple and came back with a new management team. The team under Steve altered stock options and self-imposed an annual salary of $1 per year.
Under Jobs, the company came back in track and his products like iMac gained a positive review from the customers. In the upcoming years, Apple introduced many more revolutionary products like Macbook Air, iPod, and iPhone. The competitors struggled to produce similar technologies and hence, Apple became the face of the technology!
In 1986, Steve purchased an animation company from George Lucas. This brand was called as Pixar Animation Studious. Jobs had invested $50 million of his own money into the company. The studio became popular in the circuit by producing many iconic movies like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles. Pixar’s movies earned the company a whopping $4 billion. In 2006, it merged with Disney and in this case, Jobs was the largest shareholder of the collaboration.
Because of his strong personality and intelligence, Steve Jobs will be remembered as the most iconic entrepreneurs ever!
Author: Gorish Dua
Source : https://startuptalky.com/steve-jobs-successful-entrepreneur/
Date : 2020-09-08T15:26:29.000Z