Text 4. FOUNDER OF APPLE

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 1271.

Steven Paul Jobs was born in California, USA, on 24 February, 1955. In 1974 he dropped out of college to work as a video game designer. His aim was to save enough money to go to India and experience Buddhism.

Back in the US in the autumn of 1974, Jobs went into business with his high-school friend Stephen Wozniak. Jobs understood that computers would appeal to a broad audience. Although he had long, unkempt hair and dressed casually, he managed to obtain finance for his first marketable computer, the Apple II, in 1977. Apple Inc. was formed and met with immediate success.

Seven years later, Jobs introduced the Macintosh computer in a brilliantly choreographed demonstration that he gave himself. However, the sales of the first Macs were disappointing. This led to tensions in the company, and in 1985 he resigned.

In 1986, Jobs bought Pixar Animation Studios. Over the following decade he built Pixar into a large corporation that, among other achievements, produced the first full-length film to be completely computer-animated, Toy Story, in 1995.

In late 1996, Apple, saddled by huge financial losses and on the verge of collapse, asked Jobs to come back. He accepted, and quickly engineered an award-winning advertising campaign that urged customers to "think different" and buy Macintoshes. In 1998, he introduced the iMac, an egg-shaped computer that offered high-speed processing at a reasonable price. It was an instant success. Steve Jobs had saved his company and, in the process, re-established himself as a master high-technology marketer.