How well do you know Steve Jobs?
Steve Jobs shaped the way people use technology today. Six questions, from easy to hard, about his remarkable career.
Did you know?
- Pixar's 'Toy Story', released in 1995, was the first entirely computer-animated feature film. Jobs's investment in Pixar, which many considered risky, eventually made him one of the largest shareholders of Disney after it bought the studio in 2006.
- The first Apple computer, the Apple I, was sold as a circuit board without a case, keyboard or screen. Buyers had to add those themselves, and today surviving units sell at auction for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
- Jobs's 2005 speech at Stanford University, in which he told three stories from his life, is one of the most watched graduation speeches ever. It is often shared for its reflections on curiosity, failure and following one's interests.
Design, technology and storytelling
Steve Jobs was not an engineer like his co-founder Steve Wozniak. His talent lay in seeing how technology could be made simple, beautiful and desirable for ordinary people. Under his leadership Apple introduced the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad, products that changed computing, music and communication.
A love of design
Jobs paid attention to details most customers would never see, such as the layout of circuit boards inside a computer. He believed good design meant simplicity — removing buttons, menus and features until only the essential remained. This philosophy shaped Apple's products and influenced the whole technology industry.
The comeback
Jobs was pushed out of Apple in 1985 after conflicts with its board. During his years away, he built NeXT and Pixar. When Apple bought NeXT in 1997, Jobs returned to a struggling company and led a turnaround with the colourful iMac, then the iPod and iTunes, and finally the iPhone, which made Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world.
The art of the launch
Jobs was famous for product presentations in which he told a story, built suspense and revealed products with a dramatic 'one more thing'. These keynotes were watched by millions and became a model for technology presentations worldwide. His style showed how much storytelling can matter in selling new technology.
Learning from failure
Jobs often described being forced out of Apple as one of the best things that happened to him, because it gave him the freedom to start again. At NeXT and Pixar he learned lessons about management and patience that he later applied at Apple. His career is frequently used in business schools as a case study of resilience, reinvention and the importance of combining technology with good design.