Steve Jobs

The Co-Founder and CEO of Apple Computers and the Pixar animation studio, Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011) ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. At age 20, Jobs founded Apple in his parents’ garage with $1,300 he raised by selling his old Volkswagen and his parents’ calculator. Today, Apple leads the industry in innovation with its award-winning desktop and notebook computers, and with leading consumer and professional software applications. Apple led the digital music revolution with its iPod portable music players and iTunes online music store. It set the pace for the smart phone sector with the innovative iPhone, and dominates the tablet computer market with its wildly popular iPad. Jobs’s animation venture, Pixar, has created some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time: Toy Story; A Bug’s Life; Monsters, Inc.; Finding Nemo; and The Incredibles. In 2006, Pixar merged with The Walt Disney Company in a $7.4 billion deal that made Steve Jobs the largest individual shareholder in Disney. He announced his decision to retire as CEO of Apple in 2011, shortly before his untimely death at age 56. Steve Jobs was still a mischievous 26-year-old iconoclast when he addressed the Academy of Achievement at its 1982 Summit in New Orleans, Louisiana. Steve Jobs participated in the Academy’s Summit at the suggestion of his mentor Bill Hewlett who attended the 1981 Summit as a Golden Plate honoree when it was held in Dallas, Texas. Jobs spoke twice at the 1982 gathering, in an afternoon symposium session and at the evening’s award ceremonies, after receiving the Academy’s Golden Plate Award; both addresses are heard in this audio podcast. He exhorts the Academy’s student delegates to seek out the widest possible variety of experience and learn to think for themselves. He asks the students to retain their idealism, and to create a better world for future generations.