Steve Jobs: 1955-2011

Steve Jobs, Apple’s founder and former CEO, and the personality behind each iteration of the iPhone, iPod and iPad, died Oct. 5, 2011. He was 56.

Jobs was one of a very small group of entrepreneurs who made it big despite not having finished college. In 1979, he founded Apple together with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. Five years later, Jobs, as what he would be doing time and again from thereon, introduced to an audience the Macintosh, which became the first commercially successful small computer with a graphical user interface.

Steve Jobs (photo courtesy of Apple.com)

A power struggle with Apple’s board of directors in 1985 ensued, which led to Jobs' resignation from the company. Thereafter he founded NeXT, a computer platform development company that specialized in higher-education and business markets. But, as fate would have it, a decade later, in 1996, Apple bought out NeXT, bringing Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and making him its CEO in 1997 until his resignation in August of this year.

In 1986, Jobs acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd, which eventually became the Pixar Animation Studios that produced several blockbuster computer-animated full-length movies, such as “Toy Story” and its two sequels, as well as the award-winning “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille” and “Up” among others. He served as Pixar’s CEO and majority shareholder until the Walt Disney company acquired the studio in 2006. Up until his death, Jobs remained Disney’s largest shareholder at seven percent and a member of Disney’s board of directors.

Jobs was both admired and maligned during his leadership at Apple. His aggressive and demanding personality rubbed some people the wrong way. But most everyone agreed that his vision to develop products that are both functional and elegant made him a legend in the consumer electronics industry, and which powered Apple to its lofty position now.

On August 24, 2011, Jobs resigned as Apple’s CEO, and named Tim Cook as his successor. He requested however that he be appointed as chairman of the company’s board of directors, which Apple granted.

With Jobs gone, a lot of speculation has risen as to the direction Apple would be taking. His death came barely 24 hours after Cook presented to an audience the iPhone 4S, which was met with mixed reactions.

One thing is certain though, Steve Jobs’ passing has left a void that will be difficult to fill not only at Apple but in the whole consumer electronics industry.