Birthday in IP

Birthday in IP: Today in 1955, Steve Paul Jobs, was born in San Francisco, California. This iconic innovator has his name on 346 patents (mostly design patents), has created markets where none existed, co-founded Apple and Pixar, and his actions would even change the course of his competitors. I was an electrical engineering student during the late 70s/early 80s and experienced the steady progression of computers released by Apple during those formative years. When Steve Jobs resigned from Apple in 1985 after losing a power struggle over the control of Apple he started Pixar and NeXT Computer. Pixar was a group within Lucasfilm that Steve Jobs purchased for $10 million in 1986. The films produced by Pixar have become household favorites such as Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Cars, and many more. Steve Jobs later sold Pixar to Walt Disney for a stock transaction valued at $7.4 billion. Although NeXT Computers released novel and advanced computers sales were limited by their high cost and NeXT Computer never achieved much success. Apple, experiencing financial hardships, bought NeXT Computers in 1996 and brought Steve Jobs back into a leadership role. The results since then have been nothing short of spectacular as Apple released a string of successful and innovative products. Steve Jobs died October 5, 2011. He was 56 years old.

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