A year ago, on October 5, 2011, at the age of 56, an American engineer and entrepreneur, co-founder of Apple Inc. Steven (Steve) Paul Jobs died.
Steven (Steve) Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955 in San Francisco (USA).
Steve's parents, American Joanne Schieble and Syrian Abdulfattah John Jandali, abandoned the child a week after his birth. The boy's adoptive parents were Paul and Clara Jobs (Paul Jobs, Clara Jobs). Clara worked as an accountant and Paul Jobs was a mechanic.
Steven Jobs spent his childhood and youth in Mountain View, California, where the family moved when he was five years old.
While studying at school, Jobs became interested in electronics, attended the Hewlett-Packard Research Club (Hewlett-Packard Explorers Club).
The young man caught the attention of the president of Hewlett-Packard and was invited to work during the summer holidays. At the same time, he met with his future colleague at Apple, Steve Wozniak (Stephen Wozniak).
In 1972, Jobs entered Reed College in Portland, Oregon, but dropped out after the first semester, but stayed in a friend's dorm room for about a year and a half. I took courses in calligraphy.
In 1974, he returned to California and took a job as a technician at Atari, a computer game company. After working for several months, Jobs left his job and went to India.
In early 1975, he returned to the US and was again hired by Atari. Together with Steve Wozniak, who worked at Hewlett-Packard, Jobs began to attend The Homebrew Computer Club, where he made a presentation of the computer board assembled by Wozniak, the prototype of the Apple I computer.
On April 1, 1976, Jobs and Wozniak founded Apple Computer Co., which was officially registered in 1977. The roles of the participants were distributed in the following way: Steve Wozniak was engaged in the development of a new computer, and Jobs was looking for customers, selected employees and materials necessary for work.
The first product of the new company was the Apple I computer, which cost $666.66. A total of 600 of these machines were sold. The advent of the Apple II made Apple a key player in the personal computer market. The company began to grow and in 1980 became a joint-stock company. Steve Jobs became chairman of the board of directors of the company.
In 1985 internal problems led to the reorganization of the company and the resignation of Jobs.
Together with five former employees of the firm, Jobs founded a new hardware and software company, NeXT.
In 1986, Steven Jobs acquired a computer animation research company. The company later became known as Pixar Animation Studios (Pixar animation studio). Under Jobs, Pixar produced films such as Toy Story and Monsters, Inc.
At the end of 1996, Apple, having fallen on hard times and needed a new strategy, acquired NeXT. Jobs became an adviser to the chairman of the board of directors of Apple, and in 1997 - an interim chief executive of Apple.
To help Apple recover, Steven Jobs shut down several unprofitable company projects such as Apple Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. In 1998, the iMac personal computer saw the light of day, with the advent of which the growth in sales of Apple computers began to increase.
Under his leadership, the company developed and launched hit products such as the iPod portable player (2001), the iPhone smartphone (2007) and the iPad tablet computer (2010).
In 2006, Steve Jobs sold Pixar to Walt Disney Studios, while he himself remained on the board of directors of Pixar and at the same time became the largest individual- a shareholder of Disney, having received a 7% stake in the studio.
In 2003, Jobs became seriously ill - he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In 2004, he underwent surgery, during which liver metastases were found. Jobs underwent chemotherapy. By 2008, the disease began to progress. In January 2009, Jobs went on a six-month sick leave. He underwent a liver transplant operation. After surgery and a rehabilitation period in September 2009, Jobs returned to work, but by the end of 2010 his health deteriorated. In January 2011, he went on indefinite leave.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
Steven Paul Jobs (Steven Paul Jobs, 1955-2011) - American engineer and entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc. He is considered one of the key figures in the computer industry, a man who largely determined its development.
Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco on February 24, 1955. It cannot be said that he was a desired child. Just a week after his birth, his unmarried mother, graduate student Joanna Shible, gave up the baby for adoption. The adoptive parents of the child were Paul and Clara Jobs (Paul Jobs, Clara Jobs) from Mountain View, California. They named him Steven Paul Jobs. Clara worked for an accounting firm, and Paul Jobs was a mechanic for a company that made laser machines.
Childhood
When Steve Jobs was 12 years old, on a whim of a child and not without an early display of teenage impudence, he called William Hewlett, then president of Hewlett-Packard, on his home phone number. Then Jobs was assembling some kind of electrical appliance, and he needed some parts. Hewlett chatted with Jobs for 20 minutes, agreed to send the necessary parts, and offered him a summer job at Hewlett-Packard, the company within whose walls the entire Silicon Valley industry was born. It was at work at Hewlett-Packard that Steve Jobs met a man whose acquaintance largely determined his future fate - Stephen Wozniak. He got a job at Hewlett-Packard, leaving the boring classes at the University of California, Berkeley. Work in the company was much more interesting to him due to his passion for radio engineering.
Studies
In 1972, Steve Jobs graduated from high school and entered Reed College in Portland, Oregon, but dropped out after his first semester. Steve Jobs explains his decision to drop out this way: “I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my parents' savings went to college tuition. Six months later, I didn't see the point. I didn't know at all what I was going to do with my life, and I didn't understand how college would help me figure it out. I was pretty scared at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.”
Dropping out of school, Jobs focused on what was really interesting to him. However, it was not easy to remain a free student at the university now. “It wasn't all romantic,” Jobs recalls. – I didn’t have a dorm room, so I had to sleep on the floor in my friends’ rooms. I used Coke bottles for five cents each to buy my own food and every Sunday night I walked seven miles across town to have a proper meal once a week at a Hare Krishna temple.”
The adventures of Steve Jobs on the college campus after the expulsion continued for another 18 months, after which in the fall of 1974 he returned to California. There he met up with an old friend and technical genius, Stephen Wozniak. On the advice of a friend, Jobs got a job as a technician at Atari, a popular video game company. Steve Jobs did not have any ambitious plans then. He just wanted to earn money for a trip to India.
But in addition to the then fashionable interest in India and the hippie subculture, Steve Jobs had an interest in electronics, which grew stronger every day. Together with Wozniak, Jobs came to the Homebrew computer club in Palo Alto, which at that time united many young people who were keenly interested in computers and electronics. The club gave a lot to the future founders of Apple. In particular, thanks to the club, they began their "collaboration" with the telephone giant AT & T (T), however, not in the way that this company would like. Steve Jobs read about an interesting discovery by American radio amateurs, which made it possible to illegally connect to the AT&T telephone network and make free calls over long distances, and caught fire with a new and promising business. Meeting with John Draper, who was then actively popularizing this discovery, Jobs and Wozniak decided to start making the so-called “blue boxes”, special devices that made it possible to make free calls over long distances. So Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started tinkering with electronics together in Jobs' parent garage.
First business
However, they did not deal with the “blue boxes” for long. Jobs was already packing for a philosophy tour of India, as planned. From India, Jobs returned with rich impressions, a shaved head and in traditional Indian clothes. At this time, an interesting incident occurred with the founders of Apple, which especially vividly describes the technical talent of Steven Wozniak and the business acumen of Steve Jobs. At Atari, Jobs was given the task of designing the circuitry for the Breakout video game. According to Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, the company asked Jobs to minimize the number of chips on the board and pay $100 for each chip he could remove from the circuit. Steve Jobs was not very well versed in the construction of electronic circuits, so he offered Wozniak to split the bonus in half if he took up this business. Atari was quite surprised when Jobs presented them with a board that had 50 chips removed. Wozniak created a scheme so dense that it was impossible to recreate it in mass production. Jobs then told Wozniak that Atari had only paid $700 (not $5,000 as it actually was), and Wozniak got his cut, $350.
However, from the very first meeting, Jobs admired Steven Wozniak. “He was the only person who understood computers better than me,” Steve Jobs admits a few years later. There is no doubt that Wozniak played an important role in the life of his friend, without his engineering genius there would be neither Apple nor the triumph of Steve Jobs, solemnly presenting New Product companies.
Apple
Steve Jobs was only 20 years old when he saw the computer that Wozniak had built for his own use. The idea of having a personal—personal—computer struck Jobs, and he persuaded Wozniak to start building computers to sell. Initially, both planned to deal only with the manufacture of printed circuits - the basis of a computer, but in the end they came to assembling finished computers.
In early 1976, Jobs asked draftsman Ronald Wayne, with whom he had once worked at Atari, to join their business. Jobs, Wozniak and Wayne founded Apple Computer Co. April 1, 1976 in the form of a partnership. It must be said that only young people who had not yet left the rebellious age could come up with the idea of naming a computer company “Apple” (Apple means “apple” in English).
The start-up company needed start-up capital, and Steve Jobs sold his van and Wozniak sold his beloved Hewlett Packard programmable calculator. As a result, they helped out about $1300. Jobs convinced Wozniak to leave Hewlett Packard to become vice president and head of product development at the new company.
Soon they also received the first large order from a local electronics store - 50 pieces. However, the young company did not then have the money to buy parts to assemble such a large number of computers. Then Steve Jobs convinced component suppliers to provide materials on credit for 30 days. After receiving the parts, Jobs, Wozniak and Wayne assembled the cars in the evenings, and within 10 days they delivered the entire batch to the store. The company's first computer was called the Apple I. The store that ordered the machines sold it for $666.66 because Wozniak liked numbers with the same digits. But despite this large order, Wayne lost faith in the success of the undertaking and left the company, taking $800.
Already in the fall of the same year, Wozniak completed work on the Apple II prototype, which became the first mass-produced personal computer in the world. It had a plastic case, a floppy disk reader, and support for color graphics. To ensure successful sales of the computer, Jobs ordered the launch of an advertising campaign and the development of a beautiful and standard packaging for the computer, which clearly showed the company's new logo - a rainbow bitten apple. According to Jobs, the colors of the rainbow should emphasize the fact that the Apple II is capable of supporting color graphics. Since the release of the Apple II lineup, more than 5 million computers have been sold, for which programmers have created about 16,000 applications. At the end of 1980, Apple held a successful initial public offering that resulted in Steve Jobs becoming a millionaire at 25.
In December 1979, Steve Jobs and several other Apple employees gained access to the Xerox Research Center (XRX) in Palo Alto. There, Jobs first saw the company's prototype, the Alto computer, which used a graphical interface that allowed the user to issue commands by hovering over a graphic object on the monitor. As colleagues recall, this invention struck Jobs, and he immediately began to confidently say that all future computers would use this innovation. And no wonder, because it contained three things through which the path to the heart of the consumer lies. Steve Jobs already then understood that it was simplicity, ease of use and aesthetics. He immediately got excited about the idea of creating such a computer.
Then the company spent several months developing a new Lisa computer, named after Jobs' daughter. In 1980, Steve tried to lead this project, in which he hoped to embody the revolutionary innovation that he saw in Xerox Laboratories. However, Apple President Michael Scott (Michael Scott) refused Jobs. The project was led by another person. A few months later, Jobs begged Scott to put him in charge of another project on a less powerful mainstream computer, the Macintosh. Largely at the instigation of Jobs, a competition unleashed between the Lisa and Macintosh development teams.
In the end, Jobs lost the race when the Lisa came out in 1983, becoming the first mainstream computer with a graphical interface. However, the commercial failure of this project followed, mainly due to the high price ($9995) and the limited set of software applications for this computer. Therefore, the second round was for Jobs and his Macintosh. Like the Lisa, the Macintosh used an innovation peeped from the Xerox labs - a graphical interface and a mouse. But unlike the Lisa, the Macintosh was a commercially successful computer that revolutionized the industry. The Macintosh operating system interface became the standard, and its principle was used in all operating systems that were created from that moment on.
When Jobs urged John Scully to leave Pepsi-Cola to become Apple's CEO in 1983, he was emphasizing that Apple employees were writing new pages of history: “Do you really want to sell sugary water for the rest of your life or you want to try to change the world?” This time, Jobs' ability to convince him did not fail, and Sculley became the director of Apple. However, over time it turned out that his vision of the computer business is very different from the vision of Jobs, who was then too impatient for a different point of view. The conflict between Sculley and Jobs grew, and eventually led to the fact that Jobs was forced to leave Apple, being removed from project management.
In 1985, against the backdrop of the release of a number of unsuccessful computer models (the commercial failure of the Apple III), the loss of a significant market share and ongoing conflicts in the leadership, Wozniak left Apple, and after some time Steve Jobs also left the company. Also in 1985, Jobs founded NeXT, a hardware and workstation company.
In 1986, Steve Jobs co-founded the Pixar animation studio. Under Jobs, Pixar produced films such as Toy Story and Monsters, Inc. In 2006, Jobs sold Pixar to Walt Disney Studios for $7.4 million in company stock. Jobs remained on the board of directors of Pixar and at the same time became the largest individual shareholder of Disney, having received at his disposal 7 percent of the shares of the studio.
The return of Steve Jobs to Apple took place in 1996, when the company founded by Jobs decided to acquire NeXT. Jobs joined the board of directors of the company and became the interim manager of Apple, which was going through a serious crisis at that moment.
In 2000, the word “temporary” disappeared from the title of Jobs’ position, and the founder of Apple himself entered the Guinness Book of Records as the CEO with the most modest salary in the world (according to official documents, Jobs’s salary at that time was $ 1 a year; subsequently, a similar the salary scheme used by other corporate executives).
In 2001, Steve Jobs introduced the first iPod player. Within a few years, iPod sales became the company's main source of income.
In 2006, the company introduced the Apple TV network media player.
In 2007, sales of the iPhone mobile phone began.
In 2008, Steve showed off the thinnest laptop in the world, called the MacBook Air.
Being engaged in a business that completely captured his life, he barely noticed that his daughter was born. As Jobs himself admits, since 1977, when Lisa was born (that was the name of his daughter), he gave work “150%” of his time and effort. Lisa lived with her mother, who never married Steve Jobs. He began to recognize his daughter, communicate with her only years later.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates
Jobs's relationship with competitors in his market has always been ambiguous. He stole ideas from someone without a twinge of conscience, maliciously mocked someone. One of them is .
These two legendary people have a lot in common, but they are completely different. Born in the same year, with similar life histories, they worked hard to succeed and break through to the top of the computer industry. But, if Jobs was not afraid to take risks and relied on innovation, then Gates moved to the top according to the standard business multiplication scheme. Having taken a monopoly in software, licensing Microsoft, he almost simply began to receive money from sales, developing very slowly and not making any revolutionary innovations.
But despite its different attitude Steve Jobs and Bill Gates will go down in history forever modern development personal computers and software.
Lost interview:
Ever since the birth of Apple, Steven Jobs knew for sure that he had a special mission on Earth, and he could change the world. “He always believed,” recalls Stephen Wozniak, “that he would lead all of humanity.” The attitude towards the “messiah in jeans” is by no means unambiguous and, as a rule, is very far from colorless indifference. In addition to friends and fans who call him the best manager, there are those who openly dislike him, finding him overly self-confident and self-centered. The sharp nature of Jobs is legendary. Entering into a business or personal relationship with Jobs, intelligent and well-mannered businessmen, accustomed to conduct polite business dialogue, find themselves in an extremely uncomfortable environment. I must say, the public loves scandals, and people like Jobs have the unique ability to generate them around them with regular frequency, bringing sharpness and novelty to life.
Death of Steve Jobs
Undoubtedly, he was a man of genius in his field. His death was a great loss not only for his family, friends and employees. The world has lost this enterprising man who changed society's perceptions of the personal computer. The cause of Steve Jobs' death was pancreatic cancer. He struggled with the disease for eight long years, remaining active to the last. Steve Jobs' date of death is October 5, 2011.
Stephen Paul Jobs is an American inventor and entrepreneur. One of the founders of Apple Corporation and Pixar film studio. He went down in history as a man who revolutionized mobile gadgets.Childhood
Steve was born in 1955 in San Francisco. His parents are unregistered Syrian Abdulfattah (John) Jandali and German Joan Schible, who met at the University of Wisconsin. Joan's relatives were against this union and threatened to disinherit the girl, so she decided to give the child up for adoption. 
The boy ended up in the family of Paul and Clara Jobs from California's Mountain View, who named the newborn Steven Paul Jobs. The foster mother worked in an accounting firm, and the father worked as a mechanic in a company that produced laser machines.
At school, Steve was a restless bully, but thanks to the efforts of the teacher Mrs. Hill, little Jobs began to show amazing academic performance. So, from the fourth grade, he went straight to the sixth in high school Crittenden. Due to the high level of crime in the new area, Steve's parents were forced to buy a house in the more prosperous Los Altos at the last expense.
At 13, Jobs called Hewlett-Packard President William Hewlett at home. The boy was assembling an electrical appliance, and he needed some details. Hewlett spoke with the boy for 20 minutes, agreed to send everything he needed, and offered to work in his company for the summer.
As a result, Stephen left the University of California, Berkeley, where he went to classes, and began working at Hewlett-Packard. There, Jobs met a man whose meeting determined the future fate of the boy - Stephen Wozniak.
Education and first job
In 1972, Jobs entered Reed College in Portland, but dropped out after the first semester, because the university was too expensive, and his parents spent all their savings on studying. With the permission of the dean's office talented student for another year he attended creative classes for free. During this time, Steve managed to get acquainted with Daniel Kottke, who became his best friend along with Wozniak. 
In February 1974, Steve returned to California, where his friend and technical genius Wozniak called Jobs to work as a technician at Atari, which produced games such as the famous Pong arcade.
Since the university, Stephen has been interested in the hippie subculture, so after six months of work, he went to India. The journey was not easy: Jobs had been ill with dysentery, lost 15 kilograms. Kottke joined him later on the trip, and together they went in search of a guru and spiritual enlightenment. Years later, Steve admitted that he went to India to resolve the inner feelings caused by the fact that his biological parents abandoned him.
Steve Jobs' legendary speech to the graduates of Stanford University
In 1975, Jobs returned to Los Altos and rejoined Atari, volunteering for as soon as possible create a wiring diagram for the Breakout video game. Steve had to keep the number of chips on the board to a minimum, each with a $100 reward. Jobs convinced Wozniak that he could complete the job in 4 days, when such work usually took several months. In the end, the friend managed, and Wozniak gave him a check for $350, lying that Atari paid him $700 instead of the real $5,000. a large sum, Jobs quit his job.
Inventor career
Steve was 20 years old when Wozniak showed him a computer he made and convinced a friend to build a PC to sell. It all started with the production of printed circuits, but in the end, young people came to assembling computers. 
Draftsman Ronald Wayne was hired in 1976 and Apple Computer Co. was formed on April 1. For start-up capital, Steve sold his van and Wozniak sold his programmable calculator. In total, it turned out 1300 dollars.
A little later, the first order was received from a local electronics store, but the team did not have the money to buy parts for 50 computers. They asked suppliers for a 30-day loan, and ten days later the store received the first batch of computers, dubbed the Apple I, each costing $666.66.
The world's first mass-produced computer from IBM appeared the same year that Wozniak completed work on the Apple II, so Jobs ordered an advertising campaign and a beautiful packaging with a logo to beat the competition. New Apple computers scattered around the world with a circulation of 5 million copies. As a result, already at the age of 25, Steve Jobs became a millionaire.
In late 1979, Steve and other Apple employees got to the Xerox (XRX) research center, where Jobs saw the Alto computer. He was immediately on fire with the idea of creating a PC with an interface that would allow commands to be given with a cursor.
At that time, the Lisa computer, named after the daughter of Steve Jobs, was being developed. The inventor was going to introduce all the developments of Xerox and lead the project of an innovative computer, but his colleagues Mark Markulla, who invested more than 250 thousand dollars in Apple, and Scott Forstall reorganized the company and removed Jobs.
In 1980, computer interface specialist Jeff Raskin and Jobs began work on a new project - a portable machine that was supposed to fold into a miniature suitcase. Raskin named the Macintosh project after his favorite variety of apple.
Even then, Stephen was a demanding and tough boss, it was not easy to work under his leadership. Numerous conflicts with Jeff led to the fact that the latter was sent on vacation and later fired. A little later, disagreements forced John Scully to leave the corporation, and in 1985 Wozniak. At the same time, Steve founded the company NeXT, which worked in the field of hardware.
In 1986, Jobs took over the helm of the Pixar animation studio, which released many world-famous cartoons, such as Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story. In 2006, Steve sold his brainchild to Walt Disney, but remained on the board of directors and became a Disney shareholder with 7 percent of the shares.
In 1996, Apple wanted to buy NeXT. So Steve returned to work after a years-long suspension and became the manager of the company, entering the board of directors. In 2000, Jobs entered the Guinness Book of Records as the most modest CEO. salary- $1 a year.
Presentation of the first iPhone. When the world has changed forever
In 2001, Steve introduced his first player called the iPod. Later, the sale of this product brought the company the main income, since the MP3 player became the fastest and most spacious player of that time. Five years later, Apple introduced the network multimedia player Apple TV. And in 2007, a touchscreen appeared on sale. mobile phone iPhone. A year later, the thinnest laptop on the planet, the MacBook Air, was already demonstrated.
Stephen skillfully used all the old knowledge: his passion for calligraphy during his university years allowed him to create unique fonts for Apple products, his interest in graphic design made the iPhone and iPod interface recognizable around the world.
Jobs had a keen sense of what the customer needed, so he sought to create a miniature machine that could satisfy any whim of the modern user. Stephen's ideas were not always innovative, he skillfully used already existing foreign developments, but brought them to perfection and "packed them in a beautiful wrapper."
Steve Jobs and his 10 rules for success
In 2010, Jobs introduced the iPad Internet tablet, which caused bewilderment among the public. However, Stephen's ability to convince the buyer that he needs this product, raised the sales of the tablet to 15 million copies a year.
Personal life of Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs called Chris Ann Brennan his first love. He met a hippie girl in 1972, having run away from his parents together. Together they studied Zen Buddhism, took LSD and hitchhiked. 
In 1978, Chris gave birth to a daughter, Lisa, but Stephen stubbornly denied his paternity. A year later, a genetic test proved Jobs' relationship with his daughter, which obliged him to pay child support. The inventor rented a house in Palo Alto for Chris and Lisa and paid for the girl's studies, but Steve began to communicate with her only years later.
Steve Jobs has long been elevated to the rank of god. But he had many quite earthly shortcomings: intemperance, pettiness, greed and irresponsibility. The documentary "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine" was released today in the United States, which examines his personality from a critical point of view. The Atlantic magazine wrote an article about the importance of rethinking the figure of Jobs, and The Secret chose the most interesting episodes from it.
Like any technical device, the iPhone has a motherboard, a modem, a microphone, microchips, a battery, gold and silver conductors. The indium tin oxide screen coating conducts electricity and thus brings the iPhone back to life with a single touch. Of course, the iPhone is much more than just a smartphone. Thought, memory, empathy - these things are usually called the soul. The iPhone's metal, coils, parts, and chips are designed to keep grocery lists, photos, games, jokes, news, music, secrets, voices of loved ones, and messages from close friends all at the same time.
It doesn't matter how many years have passed since 2007, and the generations of iPhones that go and come to replace the generation of iPhones mean nothing. There is some kind of anthropological alchemy in this device, something magical and mystical at the same time. They say about Apple technology that these are the first devices that began to arouse affection and love in the consumer. Apparently, that is why the person who gave life to the iPhone is already included in the pantheon of inventors who have changed the world beyond recognition. Gutenberg, Einstein, Edison - and Steve Jobs.
But what did Jobs actually do, and what were his methods? These questions have become the subject of new documentary film Alexa Gibney's "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine" is about a man who insisted that technology has its own "I". The film does not question the merit of Jobs and his place in history. The director claims that Jobs and we deserve more than a banal and convenient biography for everyone. Gibney's work reimagines the legacy of Jobs, debunks myths and complicates already known facts with circumstances. The film begins with a scene at a makeshift monument erected in honor of Jobs after his death in 2011. "It's not often that the entire planet mourns a loss," Gibney notes. And in one of the many enthusiastic obituaries for Jobs on YouTube, a ten-year-old schoolboy says: “The head of Apple invented the iPhone, iPad, iPod. He created everything for us."
It's fair to say that the kid is right about one thing - the iPhone and many other Apple products only exist because of Jobs. "He's still not an inventor, but a visionary who was able to sell his vision to the world," Gibney insists.
Jobs' vision was shaped by Buddhism, Bauhaus design, calligraphy, poetry, humanism - a willful fusion of art and technology. All this was transferred to his products. Jobs hired people into the company who, under other circumstances, might have been both artists and poets - but in the digital age, they chose to express themselves through computers. He focused on artistry and spirituality.
We are used to Steve Jobs being characterized in this way. What everyone usually ignores is that he was still a real asshole, Gibney says. Not just a harmless jerk, but a tyrant who prefers threats. Jobs parked his unregistered Mercedes in disabled spaces. He abandoned the mother of his unborn child and only acknowledged paternity in court. He abandoned colleagues who were no longer useful to him. And useful brought to tears. And on top of all this is a demonstrative contempt for charity, stock exchange fraud and the horrors of Foxconn (Foxconn is a Taiwanese company that manufactures components for Apple, Amazon, Sony and others. Human rights activists believe that employees work in the company's factories in inhuman conditions, child labor is used, overtime hours are not paid, and industrial accidents happen almost every day.- Ed.).
These and other shortcomings of Steve Jobs, which, to put it mildly, were many, are documented in blogs written before and after his death, in biographies and in feature film"Jobs: Empire of temptation". Some biographers consider his shortcomings insignificant: they say, they are inherent in any genius. Others stubbornly try to minimize them so as not to denigrate the appearance of their hero. There are those who do perhaps the worst of all - they assure us that Jobs's negative personal qualities not only do not make him less important, but also strengthen him on a pedestal. His uncompromising attitude, his irreconcilable bullying, his tendency to put the needs of computers above human needs - all this was necessary, according to supporters of this version. Jobs' wacky personality, like his black turtleneck with New Balance sneakers, made him who he was, which means they gave the world Apple the way it is. Jobs could afford to be an asshole, because his successes justify his shortcomings.
The documentary "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine" does not try to justify Jobs. His shortcomings are not just mentioned, they are in the spotlight. Alex Gibney in his film offers the viewer the views of all sides: both like-minded Jobs and his critics, including former bosses, former friends, ex girls and former employees. "He wasn't a nice guy," says MIT professor Sherry Turkle. "He had only one speed - full speed ahead!" says Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, under whose leadership Jobs once worked. “Steve was ruled by chaos: first he seduces you, then he ignores you, and then he denigrates you,” complains engineer Bob Belleville, a former subordinate of Jobs. “He didn’t know what a real connection was, so he created a completely different form of connection,” says the mother of his daughter, Chrisann Brennan.
Every conclusion in the film, every person, reminds us of the sacrifice Jobs made those around him make. “What kind of asshole do you have to be to be successful?” - asks the director.
But the most compromising statements in the film come from Jobs himself. Gibney gets a video of him testifying to the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) in 2008 in connection with the "options scandal". On it, Jobs is frankly annoyed, fidgeting nervously in his chair, grimacing and throwing malicious glances. When asked why he decided to ask for an options premium, Jobs replies: “It wasn't really about the money. Everyone just wants to be recognized colleagues. And it seemed to me that I did not receive anything like this from the board of directors. The viewer sees the head of one of the most influential companies in the world puffed up with resentment. And this allows you to look at all the actions of Jobs - betrayal, mockery, an absolutely self-centered view of the world - from a human point of view. Jobs may have been a great man, but he was also a little kid: self-centered and desperate to please.
But does it all have any meaning? Wasn't Einstein the same child inside? And if Edison's actions were questioned and challenged, wouldn't the great inventor begin to sulk? We will never know the answers to these questions, because in their lives there was no social networks or blogs. They lived in blissful times that allowed them to be remembered by the world for what they did, and not for who they really were. Steve Jobs was less fortunate. He lived in our time - when the attitude towards our heroes is made up not only of their achievements, but also of their personality. We live in an age of sophisticated idolatry. And the irony is that this century came about largely thanks to Steve Jobs.
Cover photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
October 5, 2011 - Steve Jobs dies from respiratory arrest caused by pancreatic cancer.
Conclusion
Steve Jobs is undeniably an outstanding person by all standards. He has made significant contributions to five industries: personal computers with the Apple II and Macintosh, music with the iPod and iTunes, iPhones, and animation with Pixar. middle class hippie boy 
graduate built a computer empire, became a multi-millionaire in a few years, was fired from his company and returned to it a decade later, and turned it into one of the most powerful corporations in the world. He also contributed to the creation of the company that would lead the animated film industry for decades to come. For years he was called an upstart, but now he is deservedly recognized as one of the most prominent business managers and an unrivaled visionary. He has changed millions of lives by making technology easy to use, fun and aesthetic.