In a stunning move that ended his 14-year reign at the technology giant he co-founded in a garage, Silicon Valley legend Steve Jobs has resigned as chief executive of Apple Inc.
Steve Jobs is credited of single-handedly saving Apple, bringing a revolution in online music, creating a world-beating smartphone and leading Pixar to dominate computer animation. With iPad launch in 2010, the tech czar once again rewrote computing history.
It's little surprising that Apple fortunes are often linked to Jobs' presence at the helm. A Pancreatic cancer survivor, the news of Jobs' illness has often sent Apple's stock into a tizzy.
As the writing is clear on the wall that Apple will have to gear up to deal with Jobs' retirement, here are some little-known facts about the tech czar.
College dropout
Not many people know that Steve Jobs is a college dropout. In 1972, Jobs graduated from Homestead High School in Cupertino, California and enrolled in Reed College in Oregon. One semester later he dropped out.
Jobs started Apple with a fellow college dropout Steve Wozniak in the his family garage in Los Altos, California in April 1976. Jobs, then 21, was the 'sales' guy, while Wozniak worked as an engineer.
Wozniak said about Jobs during an Intel Corp conference in August 2008, "Every time I designed something great from when we were very young, he would say, "let's sell it." "It was always his idea to sell it."
Born to an Arab father!
Born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco to then unmarried graduate student Joanne Carole Schieble and a Syrian father Abdulfattah Jandali, Steven Paul Jobs was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs, a middle-class American couple.
Fan list includes Bill Gates
"In terms of an inspirational leader, Steve Jobs is really the best I have ever met," said former Microsoft Chairman and Chief Architect, Bill Gates in January 1998 when asked to name the CEO he most admired.
"He's got a belief in excellence of products. He's able to communicate that," said Gates.
Sought 'enlightenment' in India
Steve Job's quest for spiritual enlightenment brought him to India in the summer of 1974. Jobs came to India with one of his best friends from Reed College, Dan Kottke.
Deeply philosophical then, Jobs wanted to study and experience spiritualism and existentialism. In India, he wanted to visit the Neem Karoli Baba at his Kainchi Ashram. However, when they arrived they learn't that Baba has died.
Takes home $1 salary
One of the most admired CEOs, Jobs takes home a $1 salary. His compensation came to spotlight when the company gifted him a Gulf stream airplane in 2001.
According to a regulatory filing, Jobs took a salary of $1 in 2010. However, he owns some 5.5 million shares in the company, which are worth some $1.8 billion at the current price of around $333 a share, a rise of more than 50 per cent on the year.
Got 'Pinkslip' in the company he co-founded
In 1985, Jobs was ousted from Apple by John Sculley after a disagreement on how to run the company. Incidentally, Jobs had brought Sculley from Pepsi.
Fortune magazine, dated August 5, 1985, with cover story "The Fall Of Steve Jobs" dwelled on the Jobs exit from the company he founded: Here's an excerpt: "From the end of May to the middle of June, Apple reorganised in a rush, fired 20 per cent of its workforce, announced that will record its first-ever quarterly loss, saw its stock hit a three-year low of $14.25 per share, and stripped Steve P Jobs, Apple's 30-year-old co-founder and Chairman of all operating authority."
"Jobs fate aroused intense speculation. Not just another young entrepreneur, he is Johnny Appleseed of personal computing. Many insiders are shocked at his removal; they fear Apple has lost the spirit, and vision that made it into a business phenomenon. No players in the drama have explained publicly why Jobs come to grief. But several of them, promised anonymity, have revealed essential details to Fortune."
"What emerges from Apple sources is a tale of adversity -- a general slump in the PC business and disappointing sales at Mac division -- driving a wedge between Sculley and Jobs. Apple's board of directors played an important role in Job's downfall. On several occasions, beginning December, the board goaded Sculley to assert his authority over the company. Even then, Sculley put off acting partly from innate caution about organisational change and partly out of concern for Jobs' feelings."
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