Why He's No. 2

Jobs is seen as a maverick and somewhat of an eccentric in the world of big business. Part of his personal and professional philosophy was influenced by his experiences before the creation of Apple: He spent much of his time backpacking around India, living in ashrams or communes in search of enlightenment, and would sport traditional Indian garb upon his return to the States. He has also stated that taking acid has been one of the most important experiences in his life. In Apple's early years, he used to ask job applicants how many times they dropped LSD, as well as details about their sexual experiences. Though Jobs has invited Bill Clinton to dinner and offered to be John Kerry's advisor during the 2004 Presidential Campaign, he has not come forward to announce his political stance. It does seem plausible that he leans toward the left, especially with the people he aligned with during the Think Different campaign.

Back Stage

Following Disney's acquisition of Pixar in 2006, Jobs was offered a spot on Disney's Board of Directors. The deal also makes him the largest single shareholder in The Walt Disney Company, with approximately 7% ownership of company stock. With the runaway success of the Apple iPod and iTunes Store, Apple's next big enterprise will be the introduction of a video streaming device currently being referred to as iTV.



The apparatus will enable customers to purchase top movies from the iTunes store, and will be launched in 2007. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets. NeXT's subsequent 1997 buyout by Apple Computer Inc. brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he has served as its CEO since then. Steve Jobs was listed as Fortune Magazine's Most Powerful Businessman of 2007. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios. He remained CEO and majority shareholder until its acquisition by the Walt Disney Company in 2006. obs was born in San Francisco and was adopted by Paul and Clara (née Hagopian) Jobs of Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California who named him Steven Paul. His biological parents, Joanne Carole Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali — a graduate student from Syria who became a political science professor — later married and gave birth to Jobs' sister, the novelist Mona Simpson.



In 1976, Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, with funding from multimillionaire A.C. "Mike" Markkula, founded Apple. Before Wozniak co-founded Apple with Jobs, he was an electronics hacker. Jobs and Wozniak had been friends for some time, having met in 1971, when their mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, introduced 21-year-old Wozniak to 16-year-old Jobs. Steve Jobs managed to interest Wozniak in assembling a computer and selling it.

Forcaste

Steve Jobs, along with partner Steve Wozniak, cofounded Apple Computer Inc. in 1976. The duo's revolutionary and often unorthodox business approach was instrumental in increasing the popularity of personal computers in the ?80s, and Jobs was one of the first visionaries to realize the possibilities of marketing the mouse-driven graphical user interface.

He founded NeXT in the mid-?80s, after a power struggle at Apple pushed him out of the company he helped create; however, he returned after NeXT was purchased by Apple for $402 million a dozen years later. In 2000, he was named permanent CEO of Apple. Despite some lucrative "gifts" and receiving 30 million shares of restricted stock, his annual salary was officially $1 for many years. In 1986, Jobs purchased Pixar, a computer animation studio, from Lucasfilm and served as chairman and CEO of the company until it was bought out by Disney in January 2006.