Steve Jobs Is Dead

Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Steve Jobs, who built the world's most valuable technology company by creating devices that changed how people use electronics and revolutionized the computer, music and mobile-phone industries, died. He was 56.

Jobs, who resigned as Apple Inc. chief executive officer on Aug. 24, 2011, passed away today, the Cupertino, California- based company said. He was diagnosed in 2003 with a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare form of pancreatic cancer, and had a liver transplant in 2009.

"We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today," Apple said. "Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve."

Jobs embodied the Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He was a long-haired counterculture technophile who dropped out of college and started a computer company in his parents' garage on April Fools' Day, 1976. He had no formal technical training and no real business experience.

What he had instead was an appreciation of technology's elegance and a notion that computers could be more than a hobbyist's toy or a corporation's workhorse. These machines could be indispensable tools. A computer could be, he often said, "a bicycle for our minds." He was right -- owing largely to a revolution he started.

Obama Statement

Jobs's passing was met with an outpouring of grief from consumers who flocked to Apple stores, technology executives who partnered and competed with Jobs over the years and even President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

"Michelle and I are saddened to learn of the passing of Steve Jobs," Obama said. "Steve was among the greatest of American innovators -- brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it."

On his watch, Apple came to dominate the digital age, first through the creation of the Macintosh computer and later through the iPod digital music player, the iPhone wireless handset and more recently, the iPad tablet.

With each product, Jobs confronted new adversaries --from International Business Machines Corp. in computers to Microsoft Corp. in operating systems, to Sony Corp. in music players and Google Inc. in mobile software.

Visionary to Virtuoso

And Jobs would prove himself not just a techie visionary, but the virtuoso executive who built the world's second-most valuable company after Exxon Mobil Corp.

The opening act of Jobs's professional ascent stretched from 1976 to 1984. He scored his first hit with the Apple II computer, a device that resonated with schools and some consumers and small businesses, and made Apple an alluring alternative to IBM, then the world's largest computer maker. Apple had its initial public offering in 1980 and the graphical Macintosh was born just over three years later.

During his second act, from 1984 to 1997, Jobs's star dimmed. In 1985, he was fired after a power struggle with Apple's board. He started another computer company, NeXT Computer Inc., and bought a digital animation studio from filmmaker George Lucas. The firm later took the name Pixar.

String of Hits

Apple's purchase of NeXT in 1997 brought Jobs back to the computer maker he helped found and commenced his career's third act. The company was foundering. He ignited a flurry of innovation and growth -- and achieved what may be the greatest comeback in business history.

Whether he was working on the Mac or the iPhone or backing the computer animation that yielded an unbroken string of Pixar hits, Jobs proved that complex technologies could be designed into simple, beautiful products that people would find irresistible.

His meticulous attention to product detail carried over to his public image, which grew inseparable from the Apple brand. In public he wore beltless jeans and a black mock-turtleneck.