Today in History: Steve Jobs named Apple CEO, turns company around bigly.

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I have to admit that I am not a fan of Apple products. I find them to be good quality for sure, but definitely overpriced. However, that doesn't change the fact that Jobs was able to take this company, which was headed for bankruptcy and completely turn it around into a powerhouse of relative dominance that exists to this day.

The year was 1997


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Although Jobs had been a part of Apple during its inception, he was ousted from the company as it was discovered he was formulating a "coup" against the current leadership in the early 80's. A board meeting was called and while Steve wasn't fired, he was relieved of all operational duties. Feeling a bit hurt, Jobs left the company in 1985 (as did Steve Wozniak.) On a side note it is worth noting that Jobs acquired Pixar in the interum 10 years or so and well, they went on to be a reasonably profitable company now didn't they?

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The late 80's and early 90's were rather disastrous for Apple, who struggled to remain solvent and at 2 points during that time-period, the company was "hours away" from being sold to IBM and also Sun Microsystems.

After firing Gil Amelio due to a rather terrible performance as CEO, Jobs was asked to fill in as interim CEO and given complete creative control of the company. It turns out that this was exactly what the company needed.


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I was in college in the late 90's and all of a sudden these bad boys started appearing in computer labs. I worked in the labs and was informed that the computers were given to the university for free and this was happening all over the country. There was a massive advertising campaign detailing how there were only 2 wires (electric and phone line) that needed to be connected. Compare this to the mess of wires on the back of your run-of-the-mill PC desktop and the consensus among me and my nerdy pals was "Yeah, they're gonna sell a lot of those." And they did precisely that.

A series of wildly popular products followed: The iMac, iBook, the PowerMac, and of course the ubiquitous iPod were all created under the guidance of the the visionary Steve Jobs.


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pretty much everyone owned one of these in the early 2000's

Partnerships were made with Microsoft for the licensing of their popular Office Suite and OSX became the operating system of "stability" in a world of viruses. Apple branded their own stores and now those friggin things are everywhere.

Although i don't know anyone that uses it anymore, iTunes was one of the first forays into legally obtained music in a world where BearShare, LimeWire, and other such things made music free to steal for anyone with even basic computer knowledge. Itunes was so convenient and easy to use that most people appreciated how easy it was to obtain almost any song in existence for 99 cents.

In 2007 the name of the company was changed from Apple Computer company to simply Apple, since they were focused on far more than computers at this point. They also unveiled what is likely the most dominant Apple product of all time.

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Now i have only ever owned an iPhone once and i hated it... however, life is not about me. 40% of all mobile phone in the United States are made by Apple. When you consider how many other brands their are and the fact that the 2nd place brand, Samsung, has a mere 27% market-share. I think it is safe to say that the iPhone is a truly wonderful idea in Jobs' stash of great ideas.

Steve Jobs died on October 5th, 2011, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Despite his medical issues he continued to turn up to work for Apple until he resigned in August, 2011. How's that for dedication? If I have a bit of a runny nose, i call in sick.

In 2015 Apple became the most valuable company in the world and remained at that point until they were unseated by Amazon on June 11th of this year.

So although I don't use Apple products, it is very difficult to argue with Steve Jobs' legacy. He took a company that was constantly on the brink of insolvency and turned it into what is / was generally regarded as one of the most important and innovative companies in the history of time. Imagine how different the computing world could have been if he had never been let go in the first place.



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Sup Dork?!? Enjoy the Upvote!!! Keep up with the dorky content for more love!!!

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I'm still in absolute awe in how much of an idiot this guy was at the end of his life. It's honestly impressive someone so innovative who revolutionized tech would basically announce he was going to battle his cancer by eating fruit and excising.

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oh wow. After a liver transplant he went the hippy route? This is news to me!

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Yep. From what I gathered after looking into it, he went the hippy route for awhile, then realized it wasn't working or helping. He tried to get some treatment afterwards, but it was too late and he passed shortly after.

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Steve was involved in product development down to the pixel level. Apple re-imagined entire industries and gave us the smartphone as we know it. If he were with us now and still running the company, I'm sure things would be very different.

If you'd like a smile, check out The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs http://www.fakesteve.net/ This funny blog came out while he was alive and many thought it was written by Steve himself. The last entry was when he died, however, its been reported that Steve checked it out and found it hilarious!

Scroll down to "older entries" for even more like "From the mailbag" on may 18, 2010: http://www.fakesteve.net/2010/05/from-the-mailbag-2.html I followed this blog back then and really wondered if it was written by him to let off steam. Enjoy!

image credit: 1

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I am not an Apple fanboy, but I can appreciate what they do. When I used to use their products a lot more than I do now, I was really happy with some of the innovations they were coming out with. When OSX first came on the market, it was a total game changer like a lot of their other products. I think they are overpriced, but at this point I don't really care because it helps my stock and everything else is overpriced too. My biggest regret with Apple is the fact that I didn't buy some of the stock when I was working at Radio Shack and it was really cheap. Instead I put all of my money into Radio Shack stock and that ended up being worth nothing!

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LOL on the Radio Shack stock... that's a real shame. Do any of those stores exist still or are they completely gone?

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I think there are still some franchise stores out there but I don't know where they get their product. All of the corporate stores are shuttered. Their online store still seems to be up and running. The stock for Radio Shack was around $44 to $42 while I worked there with I think one split taking place. By the time I was done I had about 56 shares. During the same time frame, it looks like the cost of Apple stock was between $.75 and $2.00. That would have given me about 1600 shares of Apple. Figure they had a couple of splits (one of them being 7 to 1) I would have about 22,400 shares today equaling about 4.5 million dollars. I need to go cry now...

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damn... well, you know what they say about hindsight. That's a harsh one though.

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If I existed at that time, I would have invested in Apple Inc. it’s a really fascinating company, and with Jobs, investors were not just making more money but were having a good time knowing they were a part of these innovations.

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If I existed at that time, I would have invested in Apple Inc. it’s a really fascinating company, and with Jobs, investors were not just making more money but were having a good time knowing they were a part of these innovations.

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