Steven P. Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple who helped usher in the era of personal computers and then led a cultural transformation in the way music, movies and mobile communications were experienced in the digital age, died Wednesday. He was 56.
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The death was announced by Apple, the company Mr. Jobs and his high school friend Stephen Wozniak started in 1976 in a suburban California garage.
Mr. Jobs had waged a long and public struggle with cancer, remaining the face of the company even as he underwent treatment. He continued to introduce new products for a global market in his trademark blue jeans even as he grew gaunt and frail.
He underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004, received a liver transplant in 2009 and took three medical leaves of absence as Apple’s chief executive before stepping down in August and turning over the helm to Timothy D. Cook, the chief operating officer. When he left, he was still engaged in the company’s affairs, negotiating with another Silicon Valley executive only weeks earlier.
“I have always said that if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s C.E.O., I would be the first to let you know,” Mr. Jobs said in a letter released by the company. “Unfortunately, that day has come.”
By then, having mastered digital technology and capitalized on his intuitive marketing sense, Mr. Jobs had largely come to define the personal computer industry and an array of digital consumer and entertainment businesses centered on the Internet. He had also become a very rich man, worth an estimated $8.3 billion.
Eight years after founding Apple, Mr. Jobs led the team that designed the Macintosh computer, a breakthrough in making personal computers easier to use. After a 12-year separation from the company, prompted by a bitter falling-out with his chief executive, John Sculley, he returned in 1997 to oversee the creation of one innovative digital device after another — the iPod, theiPhone and the iPad. These transformed not only product categories like music players and cellphones but also entire industries, like music and mobile communications.
During his years outside Apple, he bought a tiny computer graphics spinoff from the director George Lucas and built a team of computer scientists, artists and animators that became Pixar Animation Studios.
Starting with “Toy Story” in 1995, Pixar produced a string of hit movies, won several Academy Awards for artistic and technological excellence, and made the full-length computer-animated film a mainstream art form enjoyed by children and adults worldwide.
Mr. Jobs was neither a hardware engineer nor a software programmer, nor did he think of himself as a manager. He considered himself a technology leader, choosing the best people possible, encouraging and prodding them, and making the final call on product design.
It was an executive style that had evolved. In his early years at Apple, his meddling in tiny details maddened colleagues, and his criticism could be caustic and even humiliating. But he grew to elicit extraordinary loyalty.
“He was the most passionate leader one could hope for, a motivating force without parallel,” wrote Steven Levy, author of the 1994 book “Insanely Great,” which chronicles the creation of the Mac. “Tom Sawyer could have picked up tricks from Steve Jobs.”
“Toy Story,” for example, took four years to make while Pixar struggled, yet Mr. Jobs never let up on his colleagues. “‘You need a lot more than vision — you need a stubbornness, tenacity, belief and patience to stay the course,” said Edwin Catmull, a computer scientist and a co-founder of Pixar. “In Steve’s case, he pushes right to the edge, to try to make the next big step forward.”
Mr. Jobs was the ultimate arbiter of Apple products, and his standards were exacting. Over the course of a year he tossed out two iPhone prototypes, for example, before approving the third, and began shipping it in June 2007.
To his understanding of technology he brought an immersion in popular culture. In his 20s, he dated Joan Baez; Ella Fitzgerald sang at his 30th birthday party. His worldview was shaped by the ’60s counterculture in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he had grown up, the adopted son of a Silicon Valley machinist. When he graduated from high school in Los Altos in 1972, he said, ”the very strong scent of the 1960s was still there.”
Apple Co-Founder Had Waged Public Battle With Cancer
By JOHN MARKOFF
Steven P. Jobs helped usher in the era of the personal computer and led a cultural transformation in mobile communications and music for the digital age.
Steve,Thank you for helping us connect -- to the world and to each other. You will be missed, but your legacy will continue to be a blessing.
Reaction on Twitter to #SteveJobs’s Death
Bradley Wierson 08:49 PM ET
"stay hungry, stay foolish" #stevejobslegacy
Jay Verzosa 08:49 PM ET
"Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” #RIPSteveJobs #stevejobslegacy
flock of ewe 08:41 PM ET
Only tribute I could think of was: pay bills, listen to music, check the weather/news/twittersphere all on iDevices.#stevejobslegacy RIP
Spencer Irvin 08:40 PM ET
Steve Jobs didn't impact the world of technology - he defined it. We see & experience the world differently because of him.#stevejobslegacy
Bill Gates 08:38 PM ET
For those of us lucky enough to get to work with Steve, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely. http://t.co/g4HLDYtb
rosanne cash 08:36 PM ET
I feel bad I never wrote him a letter, even if he never saw it, telling him how immeasurably my life was changed by his genius. #stevejobs
Emma Gilbey Keller 08:34 PM ET
"Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.” RIP #STEVEJOBS
david carr 08:33 PM ET
Jobs' legacy winks light from every shiny wonder he put in out eager hands. #StillHere
Jayesh Patel 08:13 PM ET
RIP #SteveJobs, the most influential technological mastermind and visionary of my generation. 1955-2011.
MORE ON STEVE JOBS
- DealBook: A Look Back an Outsized Presence
- Jobs Steps Down as C.E.O. (Aug. 24, 2011)
- Video: Steve Jobs's Legacy (Aug. 25, 2011)
- Video: Jobs at Stanford, 2005 (youtube.com)
Interactive: Steve Jobs’s Patents- Interactive: Apple With and Without Jobs
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