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| Birth Name(s) : Steve Jobs |
Date of Birth: N/A |
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Full Steve Jobs Biography
Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is the co-founder and CEO of Apple and was the CEO of Pixar until its acquisition by Disney. He is currently the largest Disney shareholder and a member of Disney's Board of Directors. He is considered a leading figure in both the computer and entertainment industries.
In 1986, finding himself sidelined by the company he had founded, Jobs sold all but one of his shares in Apple. The single share may have been for symbolic and sentimental reasons or to ensure that he would receive stock reports (as some biography books have stated) and attend shareholder meetings.
Around the same time, Jobs founded another computer company, NeXT Computer. Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced, but was never able to break into the mainstream mainly owing to its high cost. Among those who could afford it, however, the NeXT workstation garnered a strong following because of its technical strengths, chief among them its object-oriented software development system. Jobs marketed NeXT products to the scientific and academic fields because of the innovative, experimental new technologies it incorporated (such as the Mach kernel, the digital signal processor chip, and the built-in Ethernet port).
Jobs is both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the "reality distortion field" and is particularly evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as "Stevenotes") at Macworld Expos.
Jobs was also involved in 2007 in an attempt to persuade former Vice President of the United States Al Gore, a member of Apple's board of directors, to run for President in 2008.
In 2001, Steve Jobs was granted stock options in the amount of 7,500,000 shares of Apple with an exercise price of US$18.30, which allegedly should have been US$21.10, thereby incurring taxable income of $20,000,000 that he did not report as income. Apple overstated its earnings by that same amount. If found liable, Jobs may face a number of criminal charges and civil penalties. Apple claimed that the options were originally granted at a special board meeting that may never have taken place. Furthermore, the investigation is focusing on false dating of the options resulting in a retroactive US$20 million increase in the exercise price. The case is the subject of active criminal and civil government investigations, though an independent internal Apple investigation completed on December 29, 2006 found that Jobs was unaware of these issues and that the options granted to him were returned without being exercised in 2003.
In 1986 Steve Jobs bought The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division for the price of US$10 million, US$5 million of which was given to the company as capital.. The major cause of the low purchase price was George Lucas' need to finance his 1983 divorce without significantly reducing his stock and control of the Star Wars enterprises.
In October 2005, Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney, and Iger quickly worked to patch up relations with Jobs and Pixar. On January 24, 2006, Jobs and Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth US$7.4 billion. Once the deal closed, Jobs became The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with approximately 7% of the company's stock. Jobs' holdings in Disney far exceed those of Eisner, who holds 1.7%, and Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who holds about 1% of the company's stock and whose criticisms of Eisner included the soured Pixar relationship and accelerated his ousting. Jobs joined the company's board of directors upon completion of the merger.Wikinews has related news:Disney buys Pixar
Jobs also helps oversee Disney and Pixar's combined animation businesses with a seat on a special six-man steering committee. One of the committee's first decisions was to discontinue the production of so-called "cheapquels" (cheap direct-to-video sequels). Many also see Jobs as a valuable and influential advisor to Iger and Disney on technology matters.
Jobs married Laurene Powell, nine years his junior, on March 18, 1991 and has had three children with her. He also had a daughter named Lisa Brennan-Jobs with Chris-Ann Brennan, whom he did not marry. Lisa (born May 17, 1978) is a journalist who wrote for The Harvard Crimson.
According to an Ars Technica journal report, WWDC attendees who saw Jobs in person said he “looked fine.” Following the Keynote an Apple spokesperson said that "Steve's health is robust."
Jobs was prominently featured in three films about the history of the personal computing industry.
- Triumph of the Nerds— a 1996 three-part documentary for PBS, about the rise of the home computer/personal computer.
- Nerds 2.0.1— a 1998 three-part documentary for PBS, (and sequel to Triumph of the Nerds) which chronicles the development of the Internet.
- Pirates of Silicon Valley — a 1999 docudrama which chronicles the rise of Apple and Microsoft. He was portrayed by Noah Wyle. |
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