How Steve Jobs affected my future

I know I said I wasn't going to write a post like this, but I changed my mind now that all the post funeral ranting had subsided.

Whether you love Apple or hate it you probably know of the infamous CEO Steve Jobs, or at least the black turtle neck an jeans he was famous for. But what most people don't know is how Steve Jobs changed the world. Now I know alot of people will argue Microsoft is better, but that isn't what I mean. Mr. Jobs life story is always what captivated and inspired me.

In 1976 when Jobs was just 21, he and
Steve Wozniak started Apple Compters. They only had the Jobs family garage to work in, but that didn't stop them. They funded their ventures by selling Steve's Volkswagen bus ands Wozniak's authentic scientific calculator. With this the two created a series of personal compters called the Apple I. This inital model earned earned them $774,000! Three years later, the Apple II released, earning 139 million! Apple Compters then became a publicly traded company worth 1.2 billion on the first day.

The next few products from Apple didn't do as well though, and IBM overtook Apple's sales. In 1984 Apple released the Macintosh, styling the computer as something youthful, romantic, and creative. Though it had superior performance, it was still IBM incompatible, and that didn't work in a IBM dominated market. John Scully, the then president of Apple, believed Steve Jobs was the problem and began phasing him out.

In 1985 Jobs resigned as CEO, sold his market shares in Apple and left the company he and Wozniak created in his garage. Jobs always looking for the next thing to change created a new company called NeXT Inc. The following year he purchased an animation company from George Lucas, which later became Pixar Animation Studios. Believing in Pixar, Jobs invested 50 million of his item money. After many big hits, the studio merged with Walt Disney in 2006, making Jobs Disney's largest share holder.

Although Pixar flew NeXT fell. In 1997 Apple bought NeXT for 429 million, thay same year Jobs took the position of CEO again. With Jobs return Apple flourished. With a new management team, altered stock options, and a self imposed annual salary of $1, Apple was back on track.

Even on his death bed he was sketching new accessories for the iPad and trying to learn new things.

I think it is a truly inspiring story. He builds the company, had someone take it away, makes another company, merges with one of America's largest companies, and finally revitalizes his originally company; bringing it back from the brink of death.

His story taught me to follow your passion and stock to your  belifs.

It taught me that even if everyone blames and kicks you out, get back up and keep moving forward.

And most importantly, take pride in everything you do, make excellence an expected standard, never settle for letting your products be mediocre.