Steve Jobs biography and quotes

Article by: Alexander Zeeman

Last update: March 28, 2023

Steve Jobs (1955-2011) was one of the co-founder of Apple computers, a technology organization that contributes in inventing revolutionary technologies.

Biography Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was always stubborn in his childhood but he was an intelligent and innovative thinker. His foster father learned Steve Jobs to de-construct and reconstruct electronics such as radios, television, and computers. Working with electronics became a hobby for him.

Jobs studied at Homestead high school. After his graduation, Steve Jobs went to Reed College in Portland for two years but he dropped out to visit India, and to study eastern religions.

In that time, after being a member of the Homebrew Computer Club, he met Steve Wozniak who later became his future business partner.

Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were both interested in computer chips, which were mainly unknown by others in that time. In 1976, Steve Wozniak and Jobs have sold their personal belongings such as their car and a scientific calculator to establish the Apple computer.

Their main goal was to invent smaller, cheaper, and easily accessible computers for everyday consumers. The most of the available computers were extremely large and not affordable for everyone.

Wozniak was designing user-friendly computers and Jobs was responsible for the marketing and sales effectivity. After three years, sales had increased by 700 percent and the business was transformed into a publicly owned corporation, worth of 1.2 billion US dollars.

However, despite the major success of the corporation, the next version of Apple computers resulted in unsatisfied customers because of the high price in the consumer market. Because of this, Steve Jobs pitched the computers in the business market.

Even though the system was user-friendly, it lacked features that other competitors had such as a large storage and network capabilities. Apple could not compete with IBM computers that were invented in 1980. This major setback triggered Steve Jobs to leave the company.

In 1985, Steve jobs established the hardware and software organization Next, Inc. Followed by purchasing an animation company that later has changed to Pixar, an animation studio that has produced popular movies such as Toy Story, and Finding Nemo. Pixar later merged with Walt Disney in 2006 with Steve Jobs as the largest shareholder.

After Pixar’s success, Jobs sold Net, Inc. to Apple and had taken back his position at Apple as a CEO. He re-designed Apple with a stylish design and an effective brand marketing strategy. By using online marketing channels, computers were sold immediately to customers.

Later in 2003, Steve Jobs was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer, but nine months later, surgery has successfully removed the tumour.

After his illness, Steve Jobs innovated other products such as the MacBook Air, the iPhone, and the iPod. Due to these inventions, in 2007, Apple’s stocks have increased to a record-breaking number.

In 2008, Apple’s iTunes music library developed its position to the second largest music retailer in the United States. Apple was also ranked by Fortune Magazines to the number one most admirable company in the United States.

However, in 2009 speculations on health problems were made by the public because it seemed that Steve Jobs had lost weight. He usually never shared private information to the public but on 5 October 2011, Apple announced that Steve Jobs had passed away.

Steve Jobs lived from 1955 to 2011 and was 56 years. Today, the company Apple is still operating and innovating revolutionary technologies for future generations.

Steve Jobs quotes

“Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.”
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”
“My favourite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”
“Everyone here has the sense that right now is one of those moments when we are influencing the future.”
“Stay hungry, stay foolish.”
“It’s not a faith in technology. It’s faith in people.”
“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”
“To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines.”
“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”
“Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
“Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.”
“My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each others’ negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts.”
“That’s been one of my mantras—focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex; you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.”
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

How to cite this article:
Zeeman, A. (2017). Steve Jobs. Retrieved [insert date] from Toolshero: https://www.toolshero.com/toolsheroes/steve-jobs/

Published on: 04/06/2017 | Last update: 03/28/2023

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Article by:

Alexander Zeeman

Alexander Zeeman is Content Manager at ToolsHero where he focuses on Content production, Content management and marketing. He is also an International Business student at Rotterdam Business school. Currently, in his study, working on the development of various management competencies and improving operational business processes.