Steve Jobs has been the most influential inventor and manager in the technology industry. On August 24, 2011, he announced his resignation from his role as Apple’s CEO. Time to look back at the most important marks in his life:
1955: Jobs is born on Feb. 24, in San Francisco and was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs (née Hagopian) of Mountain View, California, who named him Steven Paul.
1972: Jobs graduated from Homestead High School in Cupertino, California, and enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester, he continued auditing classes at Reed, such as one in calligraphy.
1974: Jobs returned to California and began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Steve Wozniak, a high school friend who was a few years older. He works for video game maker Atari.
1976: Apple Computer is formed on April Fools’ Day, shortly after Wozniak and Jobs create a new computer circuit board in a Silicon Valley garage. The third founder, Ronald Wayne, was serving as the venture’s “adult supervision”. He drew the first Apple logo, wrote the three men’s original partnership agreement, and wrote the Apple I manual. He soon gave up his share of the new company for a total of $2,300 becaus he was afraid of the financial risk. The Apple I computer went on sale by the summer for $666.66.
1977: Apple is incorporated January 3, 1977 by its founders and a group of venture capitalists (Mike Markkula et al.). The company unveils Apple II, the first personal computer to generate color graphics. Sales soar to the rate of $1 million a year.
1978: Jobs’ daughter Lisa is born to girlfriend Chrisann Brennan. She briefly raised their daughter on welfare when Jobs denied paternity, claiming that he was sterile; he later acknowledged paternity. In 1983 he named the “Apple Lisa” after his first daughter.
1979: Jobs and several Apple employees including Jef Raskin visited Xerox PARC in December 1979 to see the Xerox Alto. Xerox granted Apple engineers three days of access to the PARC facilities in return for the option to buy 100,000 shares (800,000 split-adjusted shares) of Apple at the pre-IPO price of $10 a share. Jobs was immediately convinced that all future computers would use a graphical user interface (GUI), and development of a GUI began for the Apple Lisa.
