Jobs and his "Apple"

1. Start a company

Jobs, 21, co-founded Apple in 1976 with talented engineerSwohn Woz and Wayne. Jobs and Woz each own 45 percent, and Wayne 10 percent. (Wayne sold the shares at a low price soon after.)

Jobs and Woz are both electronics enthusiasts, and Jobs's high school collaboration with Woz in a prank set the seeds for their future co-founding of the company.

At that time, Woz used materials such as diodes and transistors to make a digital blue box that could simulate a signal to make calls at will, and Woz just thought it was fun, but Jobs saw the business opportunity. Together, they made 100 units and sold them all for $150 each.

Jobs recalled, "If it weren't for the blue box, there would be no Apple."

2. The origin of apple name

Turing was the father of computer science, and in 1954, at the age of 44, Turing was poisoned by eating an apple containing cyanide.

So some people on the Internet speculated that Apple's name and the bitten Apple logo were meant to honor Turing.

This is not the case.

Jobs was a strict vegetarian and had been working for some time pruning fruit trees at Unity Farms before starting the company. While discussing the company name with Woz, Jobs had just returned from an apple farm, and he had been eating fruit meals during that time, so Jobs came up with the name Apple.

The logic that pruning apple trees can make fruit trees grow better, Jobs later also used apple companies. When he later returned to the company, he "cut" off a lot of product lines that he considered garbage.

3. Fame in one fell swoop

In April 1977, Apple held a product launch for the Apple II in San Francisco.

In the process of making the Apple II, in addition to the excellence of the computer itself, there are strict requirements for computer packaging and power supply. On the internal board layout of the Apple II, because the lines in it were not straight enough, Jobs rejected that design approach. Jobs's father once taught him that the pursuit of perfection meant that even where others could not see, he had to devote himself to his craftsmanship.

In the preparation of the press conference, Jobs also reflected the characteristics of his pursuit of perfection. He paid $5,000 in advance to secure the showroom at the forefront. The counter is made of black velvet, and a large piece of backlit plexiglass, which is stamped with the newly designed logo to distinguish it from other brands. At that time they only had three finished products, but there were a lot of empty boxes around to show that they had a lot of inventory. Even with a small black dot on an empty box, Jobs couldn't tolerate it.

At the press conference, Jobs showed his appeal and ability to marketing genius, the conference was a success, and in the next 16 years, a total of 6 million Apple II models were sold, which was Apple's main source of income in the early days.

By December 1980, the company went public, and Apple, which had been growing for more than three years, was valued at $1.79 billion. Jobs, 25, was worth $256 million.

4. Run away apples

Jobs, who pursues perfection, increasingly indulges his desire for control, and he wants to control every aspect of the product, resulting in constant conflicts with other managers and subordinates of the company. He would mercilessly scold them for trashing and denying their work.

Finally, in 1985, the board took away Jobs' real power and kicked him out of the board. Jobs sold his 11 percent stake at the time, cashed out $100 million, and founded a new computer company, NeXT.

In 1988, although the NeXT computer conference was very successful, sales were not satisfactory. During this time, Jobs bought Pixar for $50 million, and they were already ahead of the industry in designing computer graphics technology. Jobs saw the promise of a fusion of art and technology.

Since then, Pixar has also lost money and had to lay off employees, but there is a department, the animation production department, and Jobs appreciates the animation they make, even if he loses money, he still invests in them.

And it is this department that gives Jobs the opportunity to make a comeback.

Disney's first animated film, Toy Story, in collaboration with Pixar, was a huge commercial success and industry recognition. The film recouped its costs in its first week of release, eventually earning $192 million in the U.S. and $362 million in global revenue.

Taking advantage of the popularity of Toy Story, Pixar went public, and Jobs's 80% stake was worth $1.2 billion. Since then, Pixar and Disney have cooperated in animated films such as "Toy Story 2", "Toy Story 3", "Bug Crisis", "Finding Nemo" and so on.

Finding Nemo has also become the most popular work by then, with a domestic box office of $340 million in the United States and $868 million worldwide.

Pixar, on the other hand, was eventually acquired by Disney at a high price, and Jobs personally accounted for 7.8% of Disney's shares.

5. Go back to Apple

Without Jobs's apple, it was as if there was no soul. Their market share is also declining year by year and is starting to lose money every year. At this time, Jobs was in the same scenery.

In 1997, 13 years after leaving Apple, Jobs returned to Apple. Apple finally made a profit in the quarter, earning $45 million. In 1998, Apple made a profit of $309 million.

Jobs returns, Apple returns.

Since then, Apple has successively released products that have changed the world.

In May 1998, the IMac was released. The iMac went on sale in August 1998, selling 278,000 units within six weeks of its launch, and by the end of the year 800,000 units — the fastest-selling computer in Apple's history.

On May 19, 2001, the first Apple retail store opened. As of 2004, Apple's retail store revenue reached $1.2 billion, setting a new record in the retail industry.

In January 2001, iTunes, the digital hub, was released.

The iPod was released in October 2001. By January 2007, iPod sales accounted for half of Apple's total revenue.

In January 2007, the iPhone was unveiled. Five months later, the iPhone went live, and by the end of 2010, 90 million iPhones had been sold, accounting for more than half of the total profits in the global mobile phone market.

On January 27, 2010, the iPad was unveiled. In less than a month, Apple sold 1 million iPads.

iCloud was released in June 2011.

6. Jobs's design principles

The decisive criterion of Jobs's design philosophy: simplicity to simplicity. Advocate the purest simple design. Jobs said: Never be afraid of internal cannibalism, rather than being replaced by others, it is better to replace yourself.

In Jobs's philosophy, it wasn't about giving consumers what they needed, it was about figuring out what they wanted in the future.

This is also the motivation and inspiration for Apple to release a series of subversive new products later.

7. The end of life

On October 5, 2011, Jobs died of cancer at the age of 56.

Jobs knew he didn't have much time before he found someone to write a biography of himself. As for the reason, Jobs said, "I want my children to know me. I don't often surround them, and I want them to know why and understand what I'm doing. ”

In the face of death, people are afraid and will let go of complicated things and try to enjoy the rest of the time. But this was not the case for Jobs, who, during his illness, wanted to design a yacht for himself and his family, but did not know whether he had enough time, so he had the following tearful and thought-provoking words:

It made me very sad, but I thought it was fun to do the design, and maybe I could live until it was built. If I stopped designing, and then I lived two more years, I would go crazy. So I stuck with it.