TIMELINE
24 Feb 1955:
Steve Jobs was born to Abdulfattah Jandali, an emigrant from Syria and Joanne
Schieble, a Swiss-American. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs when Joanne’s
parents refused to acknowledge her relationship and offspring with Abdulfattah.
Summer 1968: 13
year old Steve calls Bill Hewlett who promptly offers him a summer position at
the HP factory.
1969: Steve Jobs
meets future Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, through a mutual friend and they
begin to experiment with different electronic ideas.
1972: Steve J and
Steve W build and illegally sell ‘blue boxes’ that allow phone calls to be made
for free.
1973: Steve J
spends one semester at Reed College, Oregon and then drops out after six
months. He spends the next 18 months dropping in on creative classes like
calligraphy, which would later help in the design of the Macintosh’s fonts.
Late 1973: Steve
Jobs gets a job as a technician in Atari Inc.
1974: Whilst an
employee at Atari, Steve Jobs is given the challenging task of creating a
circuit board with as little chips as possible for the arcade game, ‘Breakout’.
Recognizing his limited technical ability for the task, he hands it over to
Steve W with the promise of splitting the payout sum two-way. Steve W succeeds
in creating the circuit but Steve J tells him the payout sum is $700 when it
was actually $5,000. Steve W will not find out until 10 years later.
1976: Apple
Computer Inc is formed by Steve J, Steve W and Ron Wayne.
1976: Steve and
Woz start assembling Apple I computers in the Jobses' garage, and sell them to
computer hobbyists, including 50 for the Byte Shop.
1977: Former
Intel executive turned business angel Mike Markkula invests in Apple and hires
former colleague Mike Scott as CEO. Steve W is forced to leave HP to join Apple
full time.
1978: The Apple II becomes the first
mass-market personal computer, with impressive sales around the US. Apple
becomes a symbol of the personal computing revolution.
1979: Sales of
Apple II skyrocket after pioneer spreadsheet software Visicalc is introduced.
1980: Apple goes
public, increasing Steve Jobs' net worth from dozens of millions of dollars to
over $200 million.
1983: PepsiCo CEO
John Sculley becomes Apple's CEO after having been wooed by Steve Jobs for
several months.
1984: Macintosh
is launched in great fanfare at Apple’s annual shareholder meeting.
May 1985: Apple's
board sides with John Sculley and strips Steve off all executive duties.
1985: Alan Kay
first introduces the Pixar team to Steve Jobs.
Sep 1985: Steve
Jobs resigns from Apple and starts NeXT with five other refugees from Apple.
Apple announces it will sue NeXT.
Jan 1986: Jobs
buys the computer division of George Lucas' ILM for $10 million and
incorporates it as Pixar
Aug 1986: Steve's
mother Clara dies. A couple months later, Steve discovers his biological mother
Joanne and his sister, novelist Mona Simpson. They will become close friends.
1987: Steve W
resigns from Apple.
1988: NeXT and
IBM form a partnership to have NeXT’s system run on IBM machines.
Dec 1988: At
SIGGRAPH, Pixar releases its new short Tin Toy. It will
win 1988's Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
1989: Steve shuts
down all of Pixar’s hardware operations.
Mar 1991: Steve
Jobs fires almost half of Pixar’s staff and takes back all of the employees'
stock in an effort to cut costs, as the company is still in the red 5 years
after its launch.
1992: NeXT COO
Peter Van Cuylenburg betrays Steve Jobs by trying to have the company bought by
its giant competitor Sun. Sun CEO Scott McNealy warns Steve Jobs instead.
Feb 1993: NeXT
fires 300 employees as it discontinues all its hardware operations and becomes
NeXT Software Inc. This is the lowest point of Steve's career.
Mar 1993: Steve's
father, Paul Jobs, dies.
Feb 1995: Steve
starts focusing less on NeXT and more on Pixar before Toy Story is released. He becomes
President & CEO of Pixar Animation Studios.
Nov 1995: One
week after Toy Story is out, Pixar goes
public. Steve Jobs's worth rises to $1.5 billion, more than it ever was during
his first tenure at Apple.
1996: Apple,
which was desperately looking for a modern operating system to buy, eventually
buys NeXT for $400 million. Steve Jobs is named "informal
adviser" to Apple CEO Gil Amelio.
Jul 1997: Gil
Amelio is ousted by the Apple Board of directors after a disastrous quarter.
Steve Jobs is named interim CEO in his place and installs his NeXT executive
team at the top of Apple.
1997: Apple
starts its 'Think Different' campaign to restore its damaged brand image. The
new slogan will quickly enter popular culture and define the company for the
next five years.
1998: Steve Jobs
introduces Apple's revolutionary iMac at the Flint Center auditorium in
Cupertino, 14 years after he had introduced the Macintosh at that same place.
Jan 2001: Steve
Jobs unveils Apple’s Digital Hub Strategy
at Macworld: the Mac is to become the center of consumers' emerging digital
lifestyles.
May 2001: Apple
opens its first Retail Stores in Tysons Corner, Virginia and Glendale,
California.
Oct 2001: After
an 8-month crash development program, Steve Jobs unveils iPod at a small media
event on the company's campus. He has no idea how it will tranform Apple.
2002: Apple
starts its popular 'Switch' campaign with ads picturing PC users that switched
to the Mac.
Apr 2003: Apple
opens the revolutionary online iTunes Music Store in the US, after negotiating
landmark deals with all major music labels.
30 May 2003: Opening
day of Finding Nemo, Pixar’s first Best
Animated Feature Academy Award winner.
Fall 2003: Steve
Jobs is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but stubbornly refuses any modern
medical treatment for months. He tries alternative diets instead.
Jan 2004: Steve
unveils the iPod mini and the iLife suite at Macworld. The iPod mini will soon
become the world's best-selling MP3 player and truly establish Apple as a
consumer electronics powerhouse.
Aug 2004: Steve
Jobs finally has his pancreatic tumor removed by surgery.
Jan 2005: At
Macworld San Francisco, Steve Jobs unveils Apple's productivity suite iWork,
the new Mac mini, and the iPod shuffle, the cheapest iPod ever at $49.
Jan 2006: The
Walt Disney Company acquires Pixar for $7.4 billion. Pixar's largest
shareholder Steve Jobs joins the Disney board while Ed Catmull becomes
president of the Walt Disney Animation Studios, and John Lasseter its chief
creative officer.
2006: Apple
starts its famous 'Mac vs PC' campaign, a series of TV commercials featuring
Justin Long as Mac and John Hodgman as PC. The campaign will last for three
years and mark popular culture.
Jun 2007: iPhone
is released in the US, the same day as Pixar’s 8th feature film, Ratatouille.
Jan 2008: At Macworld 2008, Steve Jobs introduces MacBook Air, with
the tagline 'the world's thinnest notebook'. Three years later, it will come to
redefine all of Apple's notebook product line.
Mar 2008: Apple
announces it will open the iPhone platform to outside developers with the App
Store. VC fund KPCB starts iFund to invest in the new mobile app economy that
they (rightly) believe will sprout from it.
2008: Apple
starts its popular 'There's an app for that'
campaign to illustrate the growing popularity of the App Store and the
thousands of iPhone apps it offers.
Apr 2009: Steve
receives a liver transplant at the Methodist University Hospital in Memphis,
Tennessee. He was weeks away from dying when he got the surgery.
Jan 2010: After
months of wild rumors, Steve Jobs unveils iPad, 'the
biggest thing Apple's ever done'. The tablet runs the same
operating system as iPhone.
Jan 2011: Jobs
surprises the world by announcing his new medical leave of absence, without any
end date.
Mar 2011: Despite
his medical leave, Steve Jobs takes the stage to unveil the new iPad 2.
Aug 2011: Steve
Jobs resigns as CEO of Apple, with the words 'I
have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties
and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know.
Unfortunately, that day has come.' Tim Cook becomes Apple CEO.
5 Oct 2011: Steve
Jobs dies at home, surrounded by his family.
24 Oct 2011: After
two years of work, and forty interviews with Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson
publishes his authorized biography of the Apple and Pixar co-founder, simply
named Steve Jobs.
