Steve Jobs - The Silicon Valley Pioneer

In September 1997, Steve Jobs (Steve) was appointed the 'interim CEO' of leading information technology (IT) company, Apple Computers (Apple), by the Apple board. Considering the fact that the company's board itself had ousted Steve in a coup in 1983, this development was watched with interest by media and industry observers. Steve's comeback was being seen as Apple's desperate attempt to survive one of its worst phases: losses for 1997 amounted to $ 1.6 billion (refer Exhibit I for financial statistics). The company reportedly needed a charismatic leader who could steer it back to profitability and revive its fortunes. Those who had followed Steve's career graph over the decades were not too surprised at these developments.

During that period, the Wall Street Journal focused on Steve/Apple and did not cover entrepreneurial ventures like Intel even though its cofounder, Bob Noyce, was the inventor of the silicon chip, which was at that time a revolutionary product. Steve gave the world its first personal computer (PC), 'Apple' and reinvented the PC years later by creating the 'Macintosh'. He made a successful business out of creating PCs that were not only user friendly but were also aesthetically pleasing, unlike the 'dull' models available those days. Steve's research on the Macintosh resulted in the creation of the windows interface and the mouse technology, which went on to become standards in the software industry.