Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs (/ˈdʒɒbz/; February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)[5][6] was an American entrepreneur[7] and inventor,[8] best known as the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Through Apple, hewas widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution[9][10] and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields, transforming "one industryafter another, from computers and smartphones to music and movies..."[11] Jobs also co-founded and served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors ofThe Walt Disney Company in 2006, when Disney acquired Pixar.
In the late 1970s, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak engineered one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, theApple II series. Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and, one year later, theMacintosh. He also played a role in introducing the LaserWriter, one of the first widely available laser printers, to the market.[12]
After a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs leftApple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, which wasspun off as Pixar.[13] He was credited in Toy Story (1995) as an executive producer. He served as CEO and majority shareholder until Disney's purchase of Pixar in 2006.[14] In 1996, after Apple hadfailed to deliver its operating system, Copland, Gil Amelio turned to NeXT Computer, and the NeXTSTEP platform became the foundation for the Mac OS X.[15] Jobs returned to Apple as an advisor, and tookcontrol of the company as an interim CEO. Jobs brought Apple from near bankruptcy to profitability by 1998.[16][17]
As the new CEO of the company, Jobs oversaw the development of the iMac, iTunes,...