Apple Revolution and Steve Jobs
Here is the story of how Steve Jobs created the world's largest manufacturing company - Apple.inc
Steve’s Adoption
Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco, California on 24th February 1955.
His birth mother, Joanne Carole Schieble was a graduate student, who decided to give her child up for adoption as her parents opposed the relationship between her and Abdulfattah "John" Jandali because of Jandali’s Muslim faith.
Schieble wanted her child to be adopted by college graduates. A lawyer family was selected, but later they refused to adopt Steve as they wanted a girl.
Steve was then adopted by Paul Reinhold and Clara Jobs. Schieble refused to give her child to Job’s family as they were not college graduates. But later she changed her mind as Paul and Clara promised her that they would pay her son’s college tuition fee.
A Prankster
Jobs went to Cupertino Junior High and Homestead High School in California.
He was a bright and smart student in school but also a prankster. Steve and his friends nearly blew their teacher’s chair, changed the bike lock combinations, and organized fake “bring your pet at school”.
When he was a child, Steve spent a lot of time with his father, a mechanist and a skilled person in electronics. Steve used to break down electronic products and then rebuild them with his father.
Dropping Out of College
Steve attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He was not sure about what he wanted to become in the future and thought that the classes he was taking were not fulfilling for him. He wanted to explore things that fascinated him.
He also thought that his parents were wasting their money by spending all their life’s savings on a course that was not helping him out in any way and wanted to free them from financial burdens.
For these reasons, Steve dropped out of college after attending one semester in 1972.
After dropping out of college, he could stop taking classes that didn’t interest him and begin dropping in the ones that were genuinely interesting to him.
In his college, every poster and every label on the drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. According to Steve, it was beautiful, historical, and artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture and he found it fascinating.
He took calligraphy classes and learned to do it from a Trappist monk, Robert Palladino. (Later Steve used the calligraphy fonts in the Macintosh computer, which was the world’s first computer with beautiful typography!)
In those days, Steve didn’t have a dorm so he used to sleep on the floor and friend’s room. He returned Coke bottles for 5 cents deposits to buy food and walked 7 miles across the town every Sunday night to get one good meal in a week at Hare Krishna temple.
The Most Iconic Duo
After some time, Steve went back to his parents in California and took a job in Atari, as a technician. Atari was an American video game and computer company, which became popular by creating the first arcade video game - Pong.
In high school, Steve’s friend Bill Fernandace introduced him to Steve Wozniak. Bill thought that they would get along because of their shared interest in electronics and doing pranks. Wozniak and Jobs used to sit on the sidewalk beside Bill’s garage and talk about the pranks they would do and devices for hours. Soon they understood each other and became best friends.
Steve Wozniak and Jobs were both members of the Homebrew Computer Club.
In 1975, there was a demonstration of the first commercially successful computer, Altair 8800 in the Homebrew Computer Club. After watching the demonstration, Wozniak realized the importance and potential of microprocessors in personal computing.
In his spare time, Wozniak started working on a microprocessor that could be incorporated into a computer and it would allow one to see text on the computer screen when something was typed on a keyboard.
Initial Plan
Wozniak’s initial idea was to give the design to Hewlett-Packard (HP) Company where he worked. But when Jobs saw the device he immediately realized the commercial potential of the design. Steve soon convinced Wozniak that instead of giving away the design to HP for free, they should sell pre-printed circuit boards for computers.
Job’s idea was to sell the device to Hobbyists for $50 each. (They are the people who are engaged in particular activities for the motive of self-enjoyment and satisfaction, rather than gaining money from it)
First Order
Steve Jobs went to Paul Terell, the owner of the Byte Shop in April 1976. Steve wanted to sell the circuit boards designed by Wozniak to Paul.
When Jobs told him about the design, Terell told him that he would only place an order if they provided him with fully assembled computers and not just the bare circuit boards.
Steve agreed to do so and Paul placed an order of 50 fully assembled computers with a price of $500 on delivery of each computer.
Jobs sold his Volkswagen van and Wozniak sold his HP 65 calculator to pay for the production of the computers.
Creation of Apple Computers
After selling their personal belongings, Steve and Wozniak founded Apple Computer Inc. on 1st April 1976 in Job’s garage and named the computer Apple I computer.
Jobs, Wozniak, and a small team including Job’s sister assembled the computers and successfully delivered 50 Apple I computers to The Byte Shop. This created Apple’s reputation as a big player in the personal computer market.
The funding that Apple got from selling computers to the Byte Shop gave Steve and Wozniak the confidence that encouraged them to build their next, more innovative product, the Apple II computer which was a fully assembled, ready-to-use personal computer.
The Name and The Logo
Steve visited an Apple farm in Oregon and this was when Steve was following a fruitarian diet. influenced by this, Steve suggested the name “Apple”. Jobs and Wozniak wanted the name to be simple and less intimidating compared to other computer companies’ names. They both found “Apple” as an approachable name and also it would keep them ahead of Atari in the phonebook, which would be advantageous for their new business.
Ronald Wayne, who was one of the co-founders of Apple, for a short time, designed Apple’s first-ever logo which depicted Newton sitting under an Apple tree. But this logo was soon changed because of its complexity and it didn’t portray the company’s motive.
In 1977, Steve hired a graphic designer Rob Janoff, who designed the now-iconic bitten Apple logo. The logo had rainbow color stripes and the bite was created intentionally to differentiate apple from other fruits like cherry.
And this is how the world’s largest technology company by revenue, Apple was built by two friends, Steve Jobs, and Steve Wozniak who are known by the world as the “Founding Fathers” of one of the most innovative companies.
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