Who was Steven Jobs?
Summary
Steven Jobs was the chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Company, CEO of Pixar and the founder of NeXT. Steve was the one who knew the world was going to change and the one who made it happen.
He was born in San Francisco to parents who had to put him up for adoption at birth; he was raised in the San Francisco during the 1960s. Jobs then attended Reed College in 1972 before dropping out.Jobs and Wozniak co-founded Apple in 1976 to sell Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. The visionaries gained fame and wealth a year later for the Apple II,one of the first highly successful mass-produced personal computers. This led to development of the unsuccessful Apple Lisa in 1983, followed by the breakthrough Macintosh in 1984. In addition to being the first mass-produced computer with a GUI, the Macintosh introduced the sudden rise of the desktop publishing industry in 1985 with the addition of the Apple LaserWriter, the first laser printer to feature vector graphics. Following a long power struggle, Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985.
After leaving Apple, Jobs started up NeXT,a computer platform development company that specialized in state-of-the-art computers for higher-education and business markets. Years later, his new company, Pixar, produced the first fully computer-animated film, Toy Story—an event made possible thanks to Disney and Jobs’ personal financial support.
In 1997, Apple merged with NeXT. Within a few months of the merger, Jobs became CEO of his former company; he revived Apple at the verge of bankruptcy. Beginning in 1997 with the "Think different" advertising campaign, Jobs worked closely with designer Jonathan Ive to develop a line of products that would have larger cultural ramifications: the iMac, iTunes and iTunes Store, Apple Store, iPod, iPhone, App Store, and the iPad. In 2001, the original Mac OS was replaced with a completely new Mac OS X, giving the OS a modern Unix-based foundation for the first time.
Jobs was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 and died on October 5, 2011, of respiratory arrest related to the tumor.
Vocabulary
handpick
这个单词出现在乔布斯坚持开发Macintosh的部分，讲到He handpicked a team of engineers to build it. 词汇效果类似于select, sort out等，译为“精心挑选”“亲手挑选”。
RDF (reality distortion field)
“现实扭曲力场”，就是指结合骇人的眼神、专注的神情，口若悬河的表述、过人的意志力、扭曲事实以达到目标的迫切愿望，及所形成的视听混淆能力。
该词汇原本来自《星际迷航》，由于乔布斯本身就是《星际迷航》忠粉，又极其擅长“洗脑”（劝服他人认同他的观点），所以自诩也拥有此力量。
Thoughts
乔布斯是个一个非常复杂又非常简单的人物。他自幼被领养，虽然和养父母过着愉快的生活，但内心却总有一道过不去的坎，导致他egotism严重。一方面，他惹得同事不快，另一方面，又以其独特的个人魅力吸粉无数。他大学时期由于学费问题“主动”退学，但就算睡地铺捡可乐罐换钱饱腹也从未停止学业。虽然在生活中有诸多怪癖（比如有段时间只吃水果不洗澡），但他有决定做一件事就一定做到底的意志力。开发二代苹果也好，倾家荡产投资皮克斯也罢，只要他认定这件事会成功，就排除万难，不谈放弃。自古英雄出少年，却只有不寻借口、坚持不懈的终身学习者才能成大事。向这个改变历史的创业者学习：Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.
