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Face of a Generation

SwitzerlandAlex Choi, International School of Berne
November 24, 2011

NEWS

Every product we buy bears the face of its creator, in its unique brand mark or logo. Although Steve Jobs passed away due to pancreatic cancer at age 56, his face lives on with us. The co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs is the protagonist of an exciting rags-to-riches story that changed the global electronic market for good. October 16th was officially declared Steve Jobs Day, a day to commemorate one man whose vision truly changed the world.
Steve Jobs, born in San Francisco on February 24, 1955, was given up for adoption soon after his birth. Adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, he was first introduced to the world of electronics by his father, a machinist. While attending High School, Jobs frequented the Hewlett-Packard Company and later worked there as a summer employee. He furthered his experience with electronics as a technician at Atari Inc. These ventures would later bring about the greatest modern entrepreneur of electronic products.
Apple was born in 1976, founded by Steve Jobs with two co-founders. It was an open-minded company, looking to find and make the next new “thing.” Though the company always showed promise, it was not an overnight success story. Jobs, a dictatorial, erratic executive, pushed for new, striking, and fresh ideas, such as mouse-driven graphical user interfaces and smooth, colorful designs. His influence seared through every Apple product that would be released. Though the initial Macintosh had commercial success, the company soon faced losses along with the rest of the electronics market during a slump. Jobs was forced to resign from Apple due to internal conflicts.
In the interim between Jobs’ resignation and return, he made computers in a new company, NeXT. NeXT proved to be unsuccessful despite its liberal and groundbreaking ideas. These were the first computers which could send multimedia emails, develop software to the extent that it did, and look as nice as they did, yet Jobs had difficulty selling many of his NeXT computers. Curiously, during this period, Jobs became more famous for his work in producing animations (as executive producer of Toy Story and owner of Pixar) than his work with electronic products. It took Jobs 11 years to return to Apple, with a vision to make Apple a true market force once more.
The first major victory for Jobs upon his return to Apple was an astounding one; one that would change the company and the market forever. After a total clean out of Apple product lines, employees, and sales methods, the iPod and the iTunes store were released in 2001 and 2003 respectively, and made Apple the hegemon of the digital music player and music distribution industries. With these, Apple pushed towards a consistent growth path that was only strengthened by the Macbook, iPhone, and later iPad product lines. Since the turn of the millennia, Apple was an undisputed force in the market, becoming the most valuable company in the world in late 2011.
Apple’s rise to stardom has to be at least partly attributed to Jobs’ management and salesmanship. Jobs is described by many as a hard-driving, aggressive perfectionist, with an unparalleled ability to make deals in his favor. He was also a vicious man of micromanagement who looked at both the big picture and the tiniest details. He placed a particular importance on being on the forefront of trends and patterns. He would become the face of Apple through his “Stevenote” presentations, wherein he represented Apple, sometimes presenting new product lines. With Apple on a growth path, Steve Jobs was recognizable as an executive whose products changed the market.
Health issues plagued Jobs, however. He was forced to miss Stevenotes and take medical leaves due to his developing pancreatic cancer before he finally resigned from the CEO position. Despite the retirement of its hero and founder, Apple lived on. Even still, Steve Jobs has left such an imprint in the modern technology market that it’s difficult to imagine what it would be without him. The world mourned his death, as the death of a great innovator and artist. Steve Jobs will remain just that, as long as his legacy lives through his Apple.

Steve Jobs image from Wikipedia Commons

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Tags: steve jobs, apple, obituary

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