Do you have an iPhone? A Mac computer? A Pixar DVD?  If so, you have Steve Jobs to thank for it. Jobs has provided UT students with their favorite pieces of technology. On October 5, 2011, Jobs died, at age 56, from pancreatic cancer.
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Jobs’ was born in San Francisco and was raised by his adoptive parents. Jobs attended Reed College but dropped out after only one semester. He continued to attend some classes. He slept on the floors of friends’ rooms and turned in Coke bottles for food money.
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Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded Apple in 1976. Then in 1985, Jobs was let go from Macintosh. In an August 2011 interview Jobs told Francine Kopun, reporter for The Toronto Star, “The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
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Jobs moved on to found NeXT Computer. Then in 1986 he bought The Graphics Group that was later renamed Pixar.
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In 1996 Apple bought NeXT for $429 million welcoming Jobs back into the company. From then on Jobs played a major role in the products students have come to know and love. In August 2011, Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple, which saw Apple Inc. shares drop 5% in after-hour trading.
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Jobs role in development and representation of Apple products elevated him to a Campus Celebrity and made his death a sad day for many. The West Towne Mall Apple store in Knoxville posted a picture of Jobs in remembrance, and shoppers added post-it notes to the display for their own personal goodbye.
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Visit Jobs’ website for more on his personal story.
Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Tennessee chapter.