استيو جابز

مقدمه:
استيو جابز (STEVE JOBS) درسال 1955 در لس‌آنجلس متولد شد. پدرش مكانيك و مادرش حسابدار بود. به‌دليل نقل مكان خانواده و حضور در منطقه «دره سيليكون» به شركت هيولت – پكارد (HP) رفت و آمـــد مي كرد و از حضور در سخنرانيهايي كه در آنجا انجام مي‌شد، لذت مي‌برد. هيولت و پكارد قهرمانان او محسوب مي شدند. در آنجا با استيو وزناك آشنا شد و سپس به استخدام HP درآمد.
در سال 1972 به دانشگاه رفت اما به‌زودي آنجا را ترك گفت و براي پاكسازي روح به هند رفت. در سال 1974 با طراحي بازيهاي رايانه‌اي براي شركت آتاري پول خوبي به‌دست آورد. در اين مدت چند پروژه رايانه‌اي با استيو وزناك انجام داد و سرانجام در سال 1976 با همكاري او رايانه شخصي به نام اپل توليد و شركت اپل را تاسيس كردند. مدتي بعد با عرضه اپل -2 سود بسياري نصيب شركت شد و همه نگاهها را به دره سيليكون و جابز و اپل متوجه كرد. اين در حقيقت اولين رايانه شخصي معروف بود كه در آن از موس و كارهاي گرافيكي استفاده مي شد. رايانه‌اي كه امروزه ميليونها نفر از آن استفاده مي كنند يعني اپل مكينتاش. او رايانه خود را دوچرخه هوشمند قرن 21 ناميد همانگونه كه اين دوچرخه توانايي انسان را چندبرابر كرده است. او رايانه خود را به فولكس واگن در مقابل قطار (منظور رايانه‌هاي شخصي در مقابل رايانه‌هاي بزرگ) تشبيه مي كرد كه مي تواند به هرجا برود و شخص روي ماشين خود كنترل دارد. اندازه و قيمت اين رايانه كوچكتر و ارزانتر بود. جابز در سال 1983 براي حرفه‌اي كردن تيم مديريت خود، جان اسكالي مدير فروش شركت پپسي را به‌عنوان مديرعامل به اپل آورد و به او گفت مي‌خواهي تا آخر عمر آب شيرين! بفروشي يا شانس تغيير جهان را داشته باشي. اما به‌زودي اختلاف روي داد و جنگ قدرت درگرفت و جابز با فروش سهام خود شركت را ترك كرد. جابز بلافاصله يك شركت رايانه‌اي ديگر به نام نكست(NEXT) با هدف توليد رايانه‌هاي نسل جديد و عرضه ويرايشهاي جديد مكينتاش تاسيس كرد كه رقيب اپل محسوب مي شد اما موفق نبود و بعدها اپل آن را خريد. جابز به عرصه ديگري از صنعت رايانه وارد شد و با تاسيس شركت پيكسار (PIXAR) به خلق تصاوير متحرك با رايانه روي آورد و در ساخت اولين فيلم سينمايي پويانمائي با همكاري شركت والت ديسني به نام «داستان اسباب‌بازي» شركت جست. در سال 1995 جابز مجدداً به اپل برگشت و در سال 1999 مديريت اپل را پذيرفت در حالي كه مديريت شركت پيكسار را نيز برعهده داشت. او اخيراً پس از دو سال كار پياپي مدل رايانه شخصي به نام آي‌مك (IMAC) را به دنياي صنعت رايانه معرفي و عرضه كرده است: رايانه‌اي با طراحي بديع متشكل از يك صفحه نمايشگر تخت و دستگـــــاه مركزي گنبدي شكل با قابليت چند رسانه‌اي عالي. آيا اين مدل نيز مانند اپل به تعبير خود جابز «شانس تغيير دنيا» را خواهد داشت. اين سوالي است كه آينده نزديك به آن پاسخ خواهد داد.
در اين مقاله، بخشي از افكار و انديشه‌هاي جابز در قالب مصاحبه تنظيم وتدوين شده است. انديشه‌هاي شخصيتي كه در جواني، رميده از دانشگاه به قصد صفاي باطن به هند مي رود و پس از بازگشت با تاسيس شركت اپل تيم ماهر و مستعدي را فراهم مي‌آورد و با عرضه رايانه شخصي منحصر به فرد مكينتاش به تعبير خود «رايانه را دوست داشتني» مي كند و جهان را تغيير مي‌دهد.
نام شما با نام اپل گره خورده است. اپل همه چيز شماست. چطور شد به فكر ساخت و عرضه رايانه اپل افتاديد؟
– استيو جابز: من در سال 1955 در آمريكا متولد شدم. 5 ساله بودم كه از سانفرانسيسكو به MOUNTAIN VIEW نقل مكان كرديم و به مهد دره سيليكون آمديم. اطرافمان همه مهندس بودند. اينجا واقعاً جذاب‌ترين نقطه در جهان براي رشد بود. مهندسي از شركت هيولت – پكارد همسايه ما بود و روي راديويي كار مي‌كرد كه مي‌توانست با ميكروفون صحبت كند و صدا پخش شود. او به من الكترونيك ياد مي‌داد. ارائه اپل مكينتاش حاصل تشكيل يك هسته بود با كمتر از 100 نفر. هنوز هم شركت اپل ميليونها دستگاه از آن را مي‌فروشند و با كپي‌برداريهايي كه از آن شده اين عدد به صدها ميليون مي رسد.
اما چرا اپل شكست خورد و شما از آن جدا شديد؟
– دليل شكست اپل تغيير ارزشها بود. اين بود كه به‌جاي ديدگاه ساخت بهترين رايانه‌ها در دنيا به ديدگاه كسب درآمد صرف روي آورد و بنابراين، افراد خوب شركت را ترك كردند. به نظر من بزرگترين اشتباه اپل اين نبود كه امتياز فناوري خود را در انتهاي دهه 80 فروخت يا نفروخت، بلكه طمع‌ورزي بود. يعني از زماني كه ارزش اين شد كه «دليل اينكه ما رايانه مي‌سازيم به دست آوردن پول سرشار است» همه چيز شروع به تغيير كرد. باتغيير ارزش، افرادي كه پايبند ارزش پيشين بودند شركت را ترك كردند و آنها افراد متوسط را يكي پس از ديگري جايگزين كردند. اين چيزي بود كه در اپل اتفاق افتاد و مقصر آن جان اسكالي بود.
شما در جايي اشاره داشته‌ايد كه سيستم توزيع مستقيم براي فروش رايانه را اول بار شما به‌كار گرفته‌ايد. چگونه؟
– اولين بار سيستم «كانال فروشندگان» (DEALER CHANNEL) را ما در سراسر كشور ايجاد كرديم. هدف ما آن بود كه فروشندگان اپل انبار نداشته باشند و با قراردادي با شركت پس فدرال، 48 ساعته رايانــــــه را تحويل مي داديم. اين اساس كاري شد كه بعدها با پست الكترونيكي از سوي شركت DELL دنبال شد.
آينده صنعت رايانه و اينترنت را چگونه مي‌بينيد؟
– صادقانه بگويم نمي دانم، اما روند آن است كه رايانه از حالت وسيله محاسباتي به وسيله ارتباطي تغيير كرده و بيشتر نيز تغيير خواهد كرد. اينترنت بيش از آنكه افراد تصور مي كنند كار انجام خواهد داد. آينده شبكه جهاني در اختيار شركتهاي بزرگ است. قلب اينترنت تجارت است و قلب تجارت شركتهايي كه به مشتريان خدمات ارائه مي دهند. به نظر من سوخت انفجار بعدي شبكه جهاني عبارتست از رشدنمايي(EXPONENTIAL) حضور آن در كالاهاي خانگي. البته جاي كار بسياري وجود دارد وتغييرات بسيار سريع خواهد بود. اما مشكل است بتوانيم بگوييم چگونه خواهد شد.
شما در شركت چه كاري انجام داده‌ايد؟
– انسانهاي برتر را گرد آورده‌ام و به كار تيمي پرداختيم. اين كاري است كه من انجام داده‌ام.
انسان برتر يعني چه
– در تجهيزات و دستگاهها فاصله بين بهترين و متوسط 20 و مثلاً 30 درصد است، يعني مثلاً سرعت بهترين تاكسي 20 درصد از تاكسي متوسط بيشتر است و يا رايانه 30 درصد. به‌ندرت اختلاف و نسبت دو به يك را مي‌توانيد پيدا كنيد. اما در مورد انسانها چنين نيست. اختلاف بين يك انسان برتر و يك انسان متوسط 50 يا 100 به يك است.
بنابراين فكر مي كنيد استعداد شما در استخدام افراد برتر نهفته است؟
– نه فقط استخدام، بعد از استخدام نيز پديدآوردن محيطي لازم است كه افراد احساس كنند توسط افراد مستعد ديگر احاطه شده‌اند و كار آنها بزرگتر از خود آنهاست. بايد احساس كنند كار تاثير زيادي بر آنها دارد و بخشي از ديدگاه روشن و قوي آنهاست. اما اين كار خيلي وقت‌گير است و گاه مدير – بويژه در تاسيس شركتهاي جديد – وقت چنين كاري را ندارد؟ – موافق نيستم. من معتقدم اين مهمترين وظيفه مدير است. شما اگر بخواهيد شركتي تاسيس كنيد آيا دقت لازم و كافي را براي يافتن شريك به خرج نمي دهيد؟ چرا. پس چگونه اين وقت را براي سومين و چهارمين و… شريك شركت يعني كاركنان انجام نمي دهيد. وقتي شركتي تاسيس مي شود ده نفر اول هستند كه موفقيت يا عدم موفقيت شركت را رقم مي زنند. زيرا هركدام 10 درصد شركت هستند. پس چرا وقت صرف نمي كنيد كه همه افراد برتر را جذب كنيد. اين مسئله براي شركتهاي كوچكتر حياتي‌تر است.
به هرحال عرضه محصول جديد به بازار نياز به سرعت دارد و اين امر وقت گير است.
– كيفيت را افراد مي سازند. كيفيت از افراد شروع مي شود. ممكن است راه ميانبري هم باشد اما من نيافته‌ام، لذا به افراد تكيه مي كنم. من هنوز 20 درصد وقتم به اين امر اختصاص دارد. يك روز در هفته را براي اين مسئله گذاشته‌ام. اين يكي از مهمترين كارهايي است كه مي توان انجام داد.
چگونــه افراد برتر را براي استخدام انتخاب مي كنيد؟
– سوال بسيار مشكلي است. دو راه وجود دارد. اگر افراد سابقه داشته باشند نتايج كار قبلي آنها مهم است. تاكيد مي كنم نتايج نه فقط اينكه روي كاغذ خوب باشند يا خوب حرف بزنند اما هيچ خروجي نداشته باشند. پس نتايج كار آنها ما را به تصميم‌گيري راهنمايي مي كند. اما در مورد جوانترها كه در معرض فرصتي براي ارايه نتايج نبوده‌اند، شما بايد استعداد و ظرفيت را ارزيابي كنيد. اين حقيقتاً بسيار دشوار است، اما نشانه‌هاي ابتدايي عبارتست از هوش و ذكاوت و توانايي يادگيري سريع. سرعت تطبيق افراد و توانايي براي رشد مهم است زيرا در هر شركت جوان، نگاهها همزمان با يادگيري موارد جديد تغيير مي‌كند. بنابراين، افراد بايد قادر به تغيير و تطبيق باشند و بتوانند مسائل را از زاويه جديد ببينند. اگر آنها به عقايد و افكار قبلي خود بچسبند، كار بسيار مشكل خواهد شد.
! اصولاً شركت چه كارهايي بايد انجام دهد تا محيط و فرهنگ مناسب كار براي منابع انساني پديد آيد؟
– سرمايه اوليه شركت، سرمايه انساني است نه سرمايه مالي. افراد بايد به اطلاعات شركت دسترسي داشته باشند. بنابراين، اتخاذ يك سياست باز اطلاع‌رساني و ارتباطي لازم است به گونه‌اي كه افراد راجع به همه چيز بدانند. در اين صورت تصميمهاي مهم را براساس اطلاعات صحيح مي گيرند. توجه به مديران مياني نيز اهميت زيادي دارد زيرا بسياري كاركنان را آنان تربيت مي كنند.
نقاط قوت شما به عنوان يك انسان چيست؟
– انسانها مجموعه‌اي از نقاط قوت و ضعف هستند. قوت و ضعف دو روي يك سكه است. شايد نقطه قوت من آن است كه هميشه به فناوري از دريچه و منظر فرهنگ انساني نگريسته‌ام. عرضه مك (MACINTOSH=MAC) نمونه آن است. ديگر اينكه من راجع به افراد، خوب قضاوت مي كنم و توانايي آن را دارم كه افراد را حول يك فكر مشترك گرد آورم.
نكته منفي چطور؟ نقطه ضعف شما كجاست؟
– در حالات خاص نقطه ضعف من اين است كه بسيار خيال پرداز و آرمانگرا هستم. برخي اوقات من به دنبال «بهترين» هستم در حالي كه بايد به دنبال «بهتر» باشم. تشخيص اينكه چه موقع بايد دنبال بهترين و كي دنبال بهتر باشيم مهم است. گاهي من نمي توانم بين اينكه «چه مي‌توان بود» و «چه امكان دارد» تشخيص دهم. برقراري موازنه بين ايده‌ال و عمل نكته اي است كه من بيشتر بايد به آن توجه كنم.
براي افرادي كه مي خواهند شركت جديدي تاسيس كنند و كسب و كار تازه‌اي راه بيندازند چه توصيه‌هايي داريد؟
– راه انداختن يك شركت سخت‌ترين كارهاست. بايد بدانيد چه مي خواهيد و نسبت به ايده‌تان علاقه و اشتياق وافر داشته باشيد. براي هدفتان سخت كاركنيد و خطرپذير باشيد. اگرمي خواهيد فقط يك شركت داشته باشيد شروع نكنيد. بايد نسبت به آنچه مي خواهيد انجام دهيد احساس كامل داشته باشيد. مهم نيست چه كاري باشد.
حتي اگر پخت نان باشد!
– بله، نانوايان موفق زيادي وجود دارند. شما – بخصوص در مراحل اوليه – بايد احساس كاملاً قوي نسبت به كار داشتـــــه باشيد و بدانيد مي توانيد آن را بهتر از هركس ديگر انجام دهيد.
زندگي خانوادگي تاچه حد مهم است و نسبت آن با زندگي كاري چگونه بايد باشد؟
– سعي من آن است كه يك زندگي متوازن و متعادل داشته باشم. از آنجا كه سه فرزند دارم بيشتر كار مي كنم و مسافرتهايم را كم كرده‌ام. اگر شما اين موازنه را برقرار نكنيد
خانواده را از دست مي دهيد. برقراري موازنه بين امور همواره يك چالش است.
منابع:

1 – P. KRASS, “THE BOOK OF ENTREPRENEUR’S WISDOM”, 1999.
2 – G. WOLF, “STEVE JOBS: THE NEXT INSANELY GREAT THING”, 1996.
3 – D. MORROW, “INTERVIEW WITH STEVE JOBS”, 1995.
4 – WWW. APPLE. COM.

* تدبير

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs
Jobs holding a MacBook Air at Macworld Conference & Expo 2008
Born	Steven P. Jobs February 24, 1955 (age 54)[1] San Francisco, California,U.S.A.[1]
Occupation	Chairman and CEO, Apple Inc.[2] Board of Directors, Walt Disney Company[3]
Salary	US$1[4][5][6][7]
Net worth	▼$5.1 billion (2009)[8][9]
Religious beliefs	Buddhism[10]
Spouse(s)	Laurene Powell
Children	4

Steven Paul “Steve” Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American businessman, and the co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Jobs previously served as CEO of Pixar Animation Studios.
In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, created one of the first commercially successful personal computers. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven graphical user interface.[11] After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets. NeXT’s subsequent 1997 buyout by Apple Computer Inc. brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he has served as its CEO since then. Steve Jobs was listed as Fortune Magazine’s Most Powerful Businessman of 2007.[12] In 2009 he is ranked #57 on Forbes:The World’s Most Powerful People.[13]
In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios.[14] He remained CEO and majority shareholder until its acquisition by the Walt Disney Company in 2006.[2] Jobs is currently a member of Walt Disney Company’s Board of Directors.[15][16]
Jobs’ history in business has contributed greatly to the myths of the idiosyncratic, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design and understanding the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal. His work driving forward the development of products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted following.[17]
In mid-January 2009, Jobs took a 5 month leave of absence from Apple to undergo a liver transplant.[18]

Biography
Early years
Steve Jobs at the WWDC 07
Jobs was born in San Francisco[1] and was adopted by Paul and Clara (née Hagopian) Jobs of Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California who named him Steven Paul. Paul and Clara also had a daughter, Patty. His biological parents, Joanne Carole Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali[10] — a graduate student from Syria who became a political science professor[10] — later married and gave birth to Jobs’ sister, the novelist Mona Simpson.
Jobs attended Cupertino Junior High School and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California,[17] and frequented after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California. He was soon hired there and worked with Steve Wozniak as a summer employee.[19] In 1972, Jobs graduated from high school and enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester,[20] he continued auditing classes at Reed, such as one in calligraphy. “If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts”, he said.[21]
In the autumn of 1974, Jobs returned to California and began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Steve Wozniak. He took a job as a technician at Atari, a manufacturer of popular video games, with the primary intent of saving money for a spiritual retreat to India.
Jobs then traveled to India with a Reed College friend (and, later, the first Apple employee), Daniel Kottke, in search of spiritual enlightenment. He came back a Buddhist with his head shaved and wearing traditional Indian clothing.[22][23] During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, calling his LSD experiences “one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life.”[24] He has stated that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not fully relate to his thinking.[24]
He returned to his previous job at Atari and was given the task of creating a circuit board for the game Breakout. According to Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari had offered US$100 for each chip that was reduced in the machine. Jobs had little interest or knowledge in circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the bonus evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line. At the time, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari had only given them $600 (instead of the actual $5000) and that Wozniak’s share was thus $300.[25][26][27][28][29][30]
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at D5.
Beginnings of Apple Computer
See also: History of Apple
In 1976, Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, with funding from multimillionaire A.C. “Mike” Markkula, founded Apple. Prior to co-founding Apple, Wozniak was an electronics hacker. Jobs and Wozniak had been friends for several years, having met in 1971, when their mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, introduced 21-year-old Wozniak to 16-year-old Jobs. Steve Jobs managed to interest Wozniak in assembling a computer and selling it. As Apple continued to expand, the company began looking for an experienced executive to help manage its expansion. In 1983, Steve Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple’s CEO, asking, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water to children, or do you want a chance to change the world?”[31][32] The following year, Apple set out to do just that, starting with a Super Bowl television commercial titled, “1984.” At Apple’s annual shareholders meeting on January 24, 1984, an emotional Jobs introduced the Macintosh to a wildly enthusiastic audience; Andy Hertzfeld described the scene as “pandemonium.”[33] The Macintosh became the first commercially successful small computer with a graphical user interface. The development of the Mac was started by Jef Raskin, and eventually taken over by Jobs.
While Jobs was a persuasive and charismatic director for Apple, some of his employees from that time had described him as an erratic and temperamental manager. An industry-wide sales slump towards the end of 1984 caused a deterioration in Jobs’s working relationship with Sculley, and at the end of May 1985 – following an internal power struggle and an announcement of significant layoffs – Sculley relieved Jobs of his duties as head of the Macintosh division.[34]
NeXT Computer
See also: NeXT
Around the same time, Jobs founded another computer company, NeXT Computer. Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced; however, it was largely dismissed by industry as cost-prohibitive. 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 Ethernetport).
The NeXTcube was described by Jobs as an “interpersonal” computer, which he believed was the next step after “personal” computing. That is, if computers could allow people to communicate and collaborate together in an easy way, it would solve a lot of the problems that “personal” computing had come up against. During a time when e-mail for most people was plain text, Jobs loved to demo the NeXT’s e-mail system, NeXTMail, as an example of his “interpersonal” philosophy. NeXTMail was one of the first to support universally visible, clickable embedded graphics and audio within e-mail.
Jobs ran NeXT with an obsession for aesthetic perfection, as evidenced by such things as the NeXTcube’s magnesium case. This put considerable strain on NeXT’s hardware division, and in 1993, after having sold only 50,000 machines, NeXT transitioned fully to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel.
Pixar and Disney
In 1986, Jobs bought The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm’s computer graphics division for the price of $10 million, $5 million of which was given to the company as capital.[35]
The new company, which was originally based in San Rafael, California, but has since relocated to Emeryville, California, was initially intended to be a high-end graphics hardware developer. After years of unprofitability selling the Pixar Image Computer, it contracted with Disney to produce a number of computer-animated feature films, which Disney would co-finance and distribute.
The first film produced by the partnership, Toy Story, brought fame and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released in 1995. Over the next ten plus years, under Pixar’s creative chief John Lasseter, the company would produce the box-office hits A Bug’s Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Cars (2006), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008) and Up (2009). Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and WALL-E each received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, an award introduced in 2001.
In the years 2003 and 2004, as Pixar’s contract with Disney was running out, Jobs and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner tried but failed to negotiate a new partnership, and in early 2004 Jobs announced that Pixar would seek a new partner to distribute its films once its contract with Disney expired.
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 $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.[15] Jobs’s holdings in Disney far exceed those of Eisner, who holds 1.7%, and Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who held 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.
Search Wikinews     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.
Return to Apple
Steve Jobs on stage at Macworld Conference & Expo, San Francisco, January 11, 2005.
See also: “1998 to 2005: New beginnings” in Aple Inc.
In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $429 million. The deal was finalized in late 1996,[36] bringing Jobs back to the company he co-founded. He soon became Apple’s interim CEO after the directors lost confidence in and ousted then-CEO Gil Amelio in a boardroom coup. In March 1998, in order to concentrate Apple’s efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs immediately terminated a number of projects such as Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, “afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened. The reality was that Jobs’ summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company.”[37]
With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company’s technology found its way into Apple products, most notably NeXTSTEP, which evolved into Mac OS X. Under Jobs’s guidance the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac and other new products; since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs officially dropped the “interim” modifier from his title at Apple and became permanent CEO. Jobs quipped at the time that he would be using the title ‘iCEO.’ [38]
In recent years, the company has branched out, introducing and improving upon other digital appliances. With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company made forays into consumer electronics and music distribution. In 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell phone, iPod, and internet device. While stimulating innovation, Jobs also reminds his employees that “real artists ship,”[39] by which he means that delivering working products on time is as important as innovation and attractive design.
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 and at Apple’s own World Wide Developers Conferences.
In 2005, Jobs responded to criticism of Apple’s poor recycling programs for e-waste in the U.S. by lashing out at environmental and other advocates at Apple’s Annual Meeting in Cupertino in April. However, a few weeks later, Apple announced it would take back iPods for free at its retail stores. The Computer TakeBack Campaign responded by flying a banner from a plane over the Stanford University graduation at which Jobs was the commencement speaker. The banner read “Steve — Don’t be a mini-player recycle all e-waste”. In 2006, he further expanded Apple’s recycling programs to any U.S. customer who buys a new Mac. This program includes shipping and “environmentally friendly disposal” of their old systems.[40]
Stock options backdating issue
In 2001, Steve Jobs was granted stock options in the amount of 7.5 million shares of Apple with an exercise price of $18.30, which allegedly should have been $21.10, thereby incurring taxable income of $20,000,000 that he did not report as income. This indicated backdating, which was a fairly common accounting trick at the time. Apple overstated its earnings by that same amount. If found liable, Jobs might have faced 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 $20 million increase in the exercise price. The case is the subject of active criminal and civil government investigations,[41] 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.[42] On July 1, 2008 a $7 billion class action suit was filed against several members of the Apple Board of Directors for revenue lost due to the alleged securities fraud.[43][44]
Management style
Much has been made of Jobs’ aggressive and demanding personality. Fortune noted that he “is considered one of Silicon Valley’s leading egomaniacs.”[45] Commentaries on his temperamental style can be found in Mike Moritz’s The Little Kingdom, one of the few authorized biographies of Jobs; Jeffrey S. Young’s unauthorized Steve Jobs: The Journey Is the Reward; The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, by Alan Deutschman; and iCon: Steve Jobs, by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon.
Jef Raskin, a former colleague, once said that Jobs “would have made an excellent king of France,” alluding to Jobs’ compelling and larger-than-life persona.[46]
Jobs has always aspired to position Apple and its products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting trends, at least in terms of innovation and style. He summed up that self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007 by quoting ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky:[47]
“     There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.’ And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will.”     ”

—Steve Jobs
Floyd Norman said that at Pixar, Jobs was a “mature, mellow individual” and never interfered with the creative process of the filmmakers.[48]
Personal life
Jobs married Laurene Powell, on March 18, 1991. Presiding over the wedding was the Zen Buddhist monk Kobun Chino Otogowa.[49] The couple have a son, Reed Paul Jobs[50] and two other children. Jobs also has a daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs (born 1978), from his relationship with Bay Area painter Chrisann Brennan.[51] She briefly raised their daughter on welfare when Jobs denied paternity, claiming that he was sterile; he later acknowledged paternity.[51]
In the unauthorized biography The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, author Alan Deutschman reports that Jobs once dated Joan Baez. Deutschman quotes Elizabeth Holmes, a friend of Jobs from his time at Reed College, as saying she “believed that Steve became the lover of Joan Baez in large measure because Baez had been the lover of Bob Dylan.” In another unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon, the authors suggest that Jobs might have married Baez, but her age at the time (41) meant it was unlikely the couple could have children. Baez included a mention of Jobs in the acknowledgments of her 1987 memoir And A Voice To Sing With.
Steve Jobs is also a devoted Beatles fan.[citation needed] He has referenced them on more than one occasion at Keynotes and also was interviewed on a showing of a Paul McCartney concert. When asked about his business model on 60 Minutes, he replied:[52]
“     My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other’s negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are not done by one person, they are done by a team of people.     ”
In 1982, Jobs bought an apartment in The San Remo, an apartment building in New York City with a politically progressive reputation, where Demi Moore, Steven Spielberg, Steve Martin, and Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, daughter of Rita Hayworth, also had apartments. With the help of I.M. Pei, Jobs spent years renovating his apartment in the top two floors of the building’s north tower, only to sell it almost two decades later to U2 frontman Bono. Jobs had never moved in.[53][54]
In 1984, Jobs purchased a 17,000-square-foot (1,600 m2), 14 bedroom Spanish Colonial mansion, designed by George Washington Smith in Woodside, California, also known as Jackling House. Although it reportedly remained in an almost unfurnished state, Jobs lived in the mansion for ten years. According to reports, he kept an old BMW motorcycle in the living room, and let Bill Clinton use it in 1998. He allowed the mansion to fall into a state of disrepair, planning to demolish the house and build a smaller home on the property; but he met with complaints from local preservationists over his plans. In June 2004, the Woodside Town Council gave Jobs approval to demolish the mansion, on the condition that he advertise the property for a year to see if someone would move it to another location and restore it. A number of people expressed interest, including several with experience in restoring old property, but no agreements to that effect were reached. Later that same year, a local preservationist group began seeking legal action to prevent demolition. In January 2007 Jobs was denied the right to demolish the property, by a court decision.[55]
He usually wears a black long-sleeved mock turtleneck made by St. Croix, Levi’s 501 blue jeans, and New Balance 991 sneakers.[56] He is a vegetarian.[10]
Jobs had a public war of words with Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, starting when Jobs first criticized Dell for making “un-innovative beige boxes.”[57] On October 6, 1997, in a Gartner Symposium, when Michael Dell was asked what he would do if he owned then-troubled Apple Computer, he said “I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”[58] In 2006, Steve Jobs sent an email to all employees when Apple’s market capitalization rose above Dell’s. The email read:[59]
“     Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn’t perfect at predicting the future. Based on today’s stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.     ”
In 2005, Steve Jobs banned all books published by John Wiley & Sons from Apple Stores in response to their publishing an unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs.[60]
Health concerns
In mid-2004, Jobs announced to his employees that he had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his pancreas.[61] The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very grim; Jobs, however, stated that he had a rare, far less aggressive type known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor.[61] After initially resisting the idea of conventional medical intervention and embarking on a special diet to thwart the disease, Jobs underwent a pancreaticoduodenectomy (or “Whipple procedure”) in July 2004 that appeared to successfully remove the tumor.[62][63] Jobs apparently did not require nor receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy.[61][64] During Jobs’ absence, Timothy D. Cook, head of worldwide sales and operations at Apple, ran the company.[61]
In early August 2006, Jobs delivered the keynote for Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. His “thin, almost gaunt” appearance and unusually “listless” delivery,[65][66] together with his choice to delegate significant portions of his keynote to other presenters, inspired a flurry of media and internet speculation about his health.[67] In contrast, according to an Ars Technica journal report, WWDC attendees who saw Jobs in person said he “looked fine”;[68] following the keynote, an Apple spokesperson said that “Steve’s health is robust.”[69]
Two years later, similar concerns followed Jobs’ 2008 WWDC keynote address;[70] Apple officials stated Jobs was victim to a “common bug” and that he was taking antibiotics,[71] while others surmised his cachectic appearance was due to the aforementioned Whipple procedure.[72] During a July conference call discussing Apple earnings, participants responded to repeated questions about Steve Jobs’ health by insisting that it was a “private matter.” Others, however, opined that shareholders had a right to know more, given Jobs’ hands-on approach to running his company.[73] The New York Times published an article based on an off-the-record phone conversation with Jobs, noting that “while his health issues have amounted to a good deal more than ‘a common bug,’ they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer”[74]
On August 28, 2008, Bloomberg mistakenly published a 2500-word obituary of Jobs in its corporate news service, containing blank spaces for his age and cause of death. (News carriers customarily stockpile up-to-date obituaries to facilitate news delivery in the event of a well-known figure’s untimely death.) Although the error was promptly rectified, many news carriers and blogs reported on it,[75][76][77] intensifying rumors concerning Jobs’ health.[78] Jobs responded at Apple’s September 2008 Let’s Rock keynote by quoting Mark Twain: “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”;[79] at a subsequent media event, Jobs concluded his presentation with a slide reading “110 / 70”, referring to his blood pressure, stating he would not address further questions about his health.[80]
On December 16, 2008, Apple announced that marketing vice-president Phil Schiller would deliver the company’s final keynote address at the Macworld Conference and Expo 2009, again reviving questions about Jobs’ health.[81][82][83] In a statement given on January 5, 2009 on Apple.com,[84] Jobs said that he had been suffering from a “hormone imbalance” for several months.[85] On January 14, 2009, in an internal Apple memo, Jobs wrote that in the previous week he had “learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought” and announced a six-month leave of absence until the end of June 2009 to allow him to better focus on his health. Tim Cook, who had previously acted as CEO in Jobs’ 2004 absence, became acting CEO of Apple,[18] with Jobs still involved with “major strategic decisions.”[18]
In April 2009, Jobs underwent a liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, Tennessee.[86][87] Jobs’ prognosis was “excellent”.[87]
In popular culture
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.

Jobs has also been frequently parodied:
* Mad Magazine — a feature called Calvin and Jobs, a parody of Calvin and Hobbes, starring Steve in the role of Hobbes and his attempts to explain to Calvin his job.
* Jobs was also parodied in “Mypods and Boomsticks”, a 2008 The Simpsons episode which features an adventure into the ‘world’ of Mapple, MyPods, and “Steve Mobbs”.
* 30 Rock parodied Jobs’s keynote presentation style, turtleneck and all in the episode “Cutbacks”.
* The Onion featured a parody article titled “Apple Unveils New Product-Unveiling Product,” which contained a picture showing Jobs introducing what appears to be another Steve Jobs.[88]
* Daniel Lyons writes a popular blog called The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, and a book, Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs.
Honors
He was awarded the National Medal of Technology from President Ronald Reagan in 1985 with Steve Wozniak (the first people to ever receive the honor),[89] and a Jefferson Award for Public Service in the category “Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under” (aka the Samuel S. Beard Award) in 1987.[90]
On November 27, 2007, Jobs was named the most powerful person in business by Fortune Magazine.[91]
On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Jobs into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.[92]
In August 2009, Jobs was selected the most admired entrepreneur among teenagers on a survey by Junior Achievement. [93]
On November 5, 2009, Jobs was named the CEO of the decade by Fortune Magazine.[94]