February 24, 2024 marks what would have been the 69th birthday of Steve Jobs, one of the greatest visionaries and innovators in modern history.
To honor this icon, we bring you a special article that will explore the main chapters of Jobs' life, correlating them with his acts of innovation, administration, marketing and his immortal legacy.
It's important to remember the beginning of your journey. Born Steven Paul Jobs in San Francisco, the son of Joanne Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali faced challenges from the beginning. Due to the families' disapproval of her biological parents' relationship and unplanned pregnancy, Joanne decided to put Steve up for adoption.
Determined to ensure a bright future for her son, she demanded that the adoptive couple be postgraduates and able to provide him with a university education. Joanne's desire reflected the importance she attached to education and intellectual development, values that Steve Jobs carried with him throughout his life and career.
Although Steve Jobs entered university, he did not complete his course. His trajectory highlights the importance of persistence, innovation and entrepreneurial vision, even in the face of challenges and unconventional choices.
In the summer of 1972, at the age of seventeen, Steve leaves home, against his parents' wishes, to live in a cabin with his first girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan. During this same period he began drinking, smoking, attending Buddhist meditation spaces and taking LSD, a drug. At the end of the same year he entered Reed College in Portland, Oregon, which he would only formally attend for six months.
“Quitting was the best thing I did. I was able to dedicate myself to the things I really wanted to do,” Steve said years later.
He still attended campus for another 18 months, with permission to attend classes as an observer. Among them, the calligraphy course, which influenced him in the creation of the Macintosh typography.
The garage and the birth of Apple:
The technological atmosphere acquired by Palo Alto from the 60s onwards inspired young Steve to delve deeper into the field of electronics, discovered during hours spent in the garage at home. During the ninth year of elementary school, Jobs begins visiting the garage of engineer Larry Lang, who introduces him to the Hewlett-Packard Explorer's Club, a group of students who met weekly in the company's cafeteria.
Before long, Jobs got a job at the HP company and began to delve into cultural activities such as literature and music. In electronics, they started attending classes taught by John McCollum during their last year of high school. On this course he met Stephen “Steve” Wozniak, whose younger brother was Jobs's swim teammate. The friendship between the two Steves proved fruitful from the beginning. Both were passionate about electronics and “playing pranks”.
“During his academic period, Jobs began reading books on spirituality and enlightenment and became a fan of compulsive diets. Jobs walked around the university barefoot, didn't shower, and returned soda bottles for pocket change. On Sundays he would take walks to the Hare Krishna center to get a hot meal. When he needed money, he would do small electronic repairs on the equipment in the Psychology lab.”
Apple Founding
The story of Apple began in 1976, when Steve Jobs, then 21, and his friend Steve Wozniak, began selling personal computers they created in a garage in Palo Alto, California. At the time, Jobs was already demonstrating his vision of simplifying the experience with computers, previously restricted to companies and technology enthusiasts.
After months of working on the project, on June 29, 1975, the first characters appeared on the screen, in response to keystrokes.
“I typed a few keys on the keyboard and was shocked! The letters appeared on the screen. It was the first time in history that someone typed a letter on a keyboard and saw it appear on their computer screen, right in front of them,” said Wozniak.
Fascinated by the device's functionality, Steve Jobs convinced Wozniak to sell the equipment. To this end, they decided to open a company, bringing together an older and more experienced member called Ronald Wayne, Wosniak's colleague at the Atari company.
Among the first name suggestions were computing terms like Matrix, neologisms like Executek and “uninteresting” names like Personal Computer Inc. Finally, Jobs proposes the name “Apple Computers”.
“I was on one of my frugivorous diets. I had just returned from the apple farm. The name sounded fun, witty, and non-intimidating. Apple took the pressure off the word computer. Plus, it would put us ahead of Atari in the phone book,” Steve explained to his friend Wozniak.
The soul of the business
The share-to-profit ratio was divided into 45% for Jobs, 45% for Wozniak, and 10% for Wayne. The latter, who was the creator of the first Apple logo and the Apple I manual, would end up selling his share to the other partners for eight hundred dollars a few weeks later.
At first, Wozniak was the brains behind the circuits and hardware design. Jobs, in turn, was the soul of the business, envisioning the potential of bringing technology to the common consumer in a revolutionary way. From this peculiar partnership, the Apple I emerged, the first personal computer in history to come assembled and ready to use with a monitor and keyboard included.
The Apple II arrived in 1977, bringing important advances. In addition to popularizing the use of keyboard and mouse, he introduced key concepts defended by Jobs, such as attractive design, simplicity and ease of use. Designed for everyday users, not just technicians, the Apple II powered the personal computer revolution that would forever transform society in the decades to come.
Rise and fall
After the initial success of the Apple II, the 80s brought turbulence to the relationship between Steve Jobs and the company he co-founded. Driven by the Apple II and later by the Macintosh, launched in 1984, Apple was experiencing rapid growth. However, internal disputes over the company's leadership led to Jobs' departure in 1985.
The Macintosh, with its innovative design and popularization of the mouse and graphical interface, was developed by a team led by Jobs since 1981. When it aired on television in 1984, the Macintosh established itself as a symbol of Apple's ability to make revolutionary products. and “outside the box”. However, its sales were lower than initially expected.
This gave ammunition to those who advocated bringing in experienced managers to manage Apple's accelerated growth. In 1985, then-CEO John Sculley announced Steve Jobs' departure from command of the company he founded. Jobs then sold most of his Apple shares and founded NeXT, focused on computers for the educational market.
The troubled departure of its creator was a blow to the innovative culture that had driven Apple until then. In the words of Jobs himself, “Apple lost its soul” in the following years, until its triumphant return years later.
Fame for “difficult” and eccentricities
Steve Jobs was known for his meticulous perfectionism and intense personality, which influenced the way he ran Apple and his relationships with colleagues and subordinates. Many episodes demonstrate these eccentricities.
In terms of management, Jobs was extremely demanding and controlling. Accustomed to excellence and precision in every minute detail, meetings with his team were fierce, with Jobs relentlessly questioning every aspect of the products, such as buttons, fonts and colors. This extended to Apple's culture, where the fear of Jobs' fury was known as the “Distorted Reality Effect.”
In interpersonal relationships, his rudeness and brutal honesty were also striking. Jobs once fired an employee in an elevator with the simple and effective phrase: “You're fired. Why? Because I don’t like you.” Another well-known episode was Jobs denying actions to important employees, considering that they “failed” in one aspect or another.
Steve Jobs' perfectionism also manifested itself in trivial situations, demonstrating his eccentricities. During meetings, he even turned plastic bottles over so that the labels were not visible, as he considered the bottle designs to be extremely “ugly” by Apple's aesthetic standards.
Thus, Steve Jobs built intense relationships and left his peculiar mark on the culture of perfectionism and search for excellence at Apple in a very unique and, at times, exaggerated way.
Apple Lisa: “I didn’t want to be a father”
Apple engineers ended up creating the acronym Local Integrated Software Architecture to explain the name. Even though it was obvious, it took years for Jobs to admit that the equipment was named after his first daughter, Lisa Nicole Brennan-Jobs. Jobs disowned his daughter in the early years of her life.
“I didn’t want to be a father,” he once explained. The relationship between father and daughter only became closer when the girl turned eight.
Lisa was born in 1978, as a result of Jobs' relationship with Chrisann Brennan. For years Jobs denied his paternity, even swearing to the court that he was sterile to avoid providing assistance. Only later did he reconcile and include Lisa in his life.
With Steve Wozniak, who shared with Jobs the authorship of the creation of Apple, there was friction from the beginning due to personality differences. These conflicts deepened after an episode in the development of the game Breakout for the Atari.
In the official version released by Jobs at the time, a large part of the payment received from Atari was passed on to the development carried out by Wozniak. However, years later it was discovered that Jobs had kept the largest share for himself, generating great resentment in Wozniak as he felt deceived by his friend.
These and other controversial episodes show that, despite his brilliance, Steve Jobs also had questionable attitudes in his career, especially in personal relationships. His stubbornness and selfishness sometimes hurt those around him.
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Founding of NeXT and the triumphant return to Apple
After leaving Apple in 1985, Steve Jobs founded NeXT Inc., focused on computers for the educational and research market. The new company allowed Jobs to put his bold ideas about design and cutting-edge technology into practice.
The NeXT computer, launched in 1988, brought significant innovations in software and architecture. However, its high cost — US$6.5 thousand — made most educational institutions unviable as a consumer market. NeXT never achieved commercial success commensurate with its technical ingenuity.
Meanwhile, Apple suffered from internal disputes and mismanagement after Jobs' departure. In 1996, with the company on the verge of bankruptcy, then-CEO Gilbert Amelio decided to repurchase NeXT for US$429 million and reinstate Steve Jobs to Apple.
The maneuver was extremely successful. Jobs took over as Interim Advisor in 1997 and shortly thereafter became Permanent CEO. In a short time, with his visionary leadership style, he revolutionized Apple once again through products such as the iMac and then the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Steve Jobs' triumphant return ushered in Apple's golden age. From an almost bankrupt company, he made the brand become one of the most valuable on the planet, as well as a cultural icon. Once again, Jobs' obsession with perfection and user experience proved to be an unbeatable recipe.
“Think Different”: a marketing genius, too!
One of Steve Jobs' main qualities as an entrepreneur and CEO was his rare ability to unite cutting-edge technology, compelling design and impactful marketing strategies to create innovative products that change markets. This creative fusion is at the heart of Apple's greatest achievements.
An emblematic case is the launch of the original iMac in 1998, shortly after Jobs' triumphant return to Apple. Developed by Jonathan Ive, a design icon, the iMac was completely at odds with the square and dull PCs of the time. Its rounded shape, bright colors and transparency signaled its intention to revolutionize the industry once again.
For publicity, Jobs introduced the famous slogan “Think Different”, praising creative thinkers who challenged the status quo, in clear parallel with Apple's spirit of revolt. This advertising campaign is remembered and studied globally to this day as a masterpiece of modern marketing.
Thus, the perfect triad of attractive design, innovative hardware and software, and disruptive marketing approach catalyzed the iMac's resounding success. This formula would be used by Jobs and his team many times over the next 20 years, launching worldwide cult products such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Revolutionizing product launches
In addition to revolutionary products, Steve Jobs structured equally disruptive marketing campaigns over the years at Apple. His obsession with controlling every nuance transformed simple gadget launches into cultural events televised around the world.
The ultimate example is the 1997 Think Different slogan, with the iconic advertisement highlighting thinkers such as Einstein, Gandhi and Picasso as models of Apple's revolutionary proposal. Another milestone is Jobs' legendary talks at events like the Macworld Conference & Expo.
In these televised keynotes, Jobs, with his unique charisma in the corporate world, revealed products as if they were works of art. Catchphrases like “today, Apple reinvents the telephone” marked generations at the debut of the iPhone in 2007. The audience was thrilled with every detail of the devices, which seemed more like magic.
Thus, Jobs was at the forefront not only of creating innovative hardware and software, but also of building Apple as a cult brand desired by legions of fans around the world. He understood like few others the need to delight people, generating emotional engagement with customers. His marketing legacy still reverberates in Apple today.
Steve Jobs' illness
In 2003, at the age of 48, Steve Jobs received a worrying diagnosis of a neuroendocrine tumor in the pancreas, a rare and potentially lethal form of cancer. Initially, he refused to perform risky surgery, relying on alternative treatments to cure himself.
His denial of the seriousness of the disease and obsession with control made Jobs postpone the procedures that could save him for months. Only in 2004 did he undergo a major operation to remove the cancerous tumor. However, his health remained fragile in the following years.
Even weakened, Jobs continued working without slowing down at his crazy pace and leading Apple in the creation of revolutionary products such as the iPhone and iPad. However, in August 2011, at the age of 56, his already weakened body could not resist. Cancer spread and led Steve Jobs to an early death.
The illness sealed the abrupt end of a brilliant mind that still had much to offer. On the other hand, Jobs lived with the prospect of the end for almost the entire last decade of his life dedicated to elevating Apple to the status of one of the most successful and admired companies in the world.
An immortal legacy and an inspiration for all generations
Even after his untimely death in 2011, Steve Jobs' legacy remains strongly present in the world of technology, business and culture. Entrepreneurs around the planet seek to learn and be inspired by the iconic personality behind Apple.
His relentless pursuit of perfection, meticulous attention to the smallest details and ability to identify latent consumer needs before anyone else are qualities that founded globally beloved products and one of the greatest business success stories of recent decades.
It is equally important to analyze your mistakes, such as the commercial failure of the NeXT computer or serious disagreements with colleagues and partners. No one is immune to failure. However, his resilience and conviction in his own goals allowed his heroic return to Apple even after being fired from the company he founded.
In this way, the study of Steve Jobs' personality, with his brilliant and questionable facets, offers valuable learning about creativity, leadership, marketing and building brands admired worldwide. His legacy is immortal and will continue to inspire new generations of visionaries around the world.
The future of technology and the immortal legacy of Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs' innovations continue to shape the world of technology, even after his death in 2011. His vision of a future where technology is intuitive, elegant, and accessible to everyone profoundly influenced the companies and products we use today.
Jobs' influence on computing:
- Jobs' obsession with simplicity and user experience drove the creation of intuitive, easy-to-use interfaces like macOS and iOS.
- The integration of hardware and software in its products, such as the iPhone and iPad, has set a new standard for the computer industry.
- Jobs' passion for design resulted in aesthetically beautiful and functional products that became objects of desire for millions of people.
Jobs' impact on artificial intelligence:
- Jobs recognized the potential of artificial intelligence and integrated it into several Apple products, such as Siri and Face ID.
- Apple invests heavily in AI research and development, with the aim of creating even more intelligent and intuitive products.
Jobs' vision for virtual reality:
- Jobs believed that virtual reality was the next big computing platform and invested in creating a VR headset.
- Apple continues to work on its VR project, which has the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with the digital world.
Steve Jobs' legacy:
- Jobs inspired a generation of entrepreneurs and innovators to think differently and challenge the status quo.
- His vision of a future with humanized and accessible technology continues to influence the development of new technologies.
- Apple, under the leadership of Tim Cook, follows Jobs' principles and continues to be one of the most innovative companies in the world.
Conclusion:
Steve Jobs' innovations left an indelible mark on the world of technology. His vision and legacy will continue to inspire the companies and products of the future.
Even after his death almost 15 years ago, Steve Jobs' innovative spirit remains strongly present in the technology industry and in the development of new frontiers, such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality. His achievements continue to inspire generations seeking to transform the future.
Apple's recent major milestones like the iPhone and iPad have defined previously non-existent product categories. Today, the company dominates markets and sets trends with a focus on simplicity and a premium experience for users, guidelines founded by its iconic co-founder.
Looking ahead, Apple remains a leader in mega trends such as foldable smartphones, augmented reality and always-on computing, with devices integrating into people's daily lives. All of this bears the signature of Steve Jobs' visionary DNA, who believed in the power of technology to improve lives.
Therefore, whether at Apple or any startup that dreams of transforming the world, the bold mentality and obsessive focus on delighting people defined by Jobs will continue to inspire generations of creators and innovators. His legacy of elevating technology to the level of perennial arts is assured.
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