Apple CEO Tim Cook has penned an emotional post for the company’s founder Steve Jobs on his death anniversary. The Apple founder had taken his last breath on October 5, 2011, after eight years of battling pancreatic cancer.
Cook called Jobs his ‘friend’ while stating that the tech visionary “lit the path forward” and inspired others to follow.
“Steve saw the future as a bright and boundless place, lit the path forward, and inspired us to follow. We miss you, my friend,” Cook wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
Steve Jobs’ role at Apple:
Jobs co-founded Apple along with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne at his parents’ garage in 1976, and the company eventually gained fame with the success of the Apple II. However, Jobs was ousted from his own company in 1985 after a power struggle with the then-CEO John Sculley.
After leaving Apple, Jobs founded a new company called NeXT, whose NeXTSTEP operating system would become the foundation for Apple’s future macOS. He also purchased the graphics division of Lucasfilm and renamed it Pixar, which later made many important animated movies like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and Cars. The company would later be sold to Disney for $7.4 billion.
Meanwhile, as Apple continued to struggle without Jobs, it reached out to its founder to once again take the helm and bought his company NeXT for $400 million in 1996. Jobs was named the interim CEO in 1997 and continued to lead the company until he resigned in 2011 due to health reasons, just months prior to his death.
During his second stint with the company, Jobs led the introduction of several products that would not only go on to change the trajectory of Apple but the tech industry altogether. The new lineup under Jobs‘ leadership began with the iMac in 1998, followed by the iPod and iTunes launch in 2001, the first iPhone launch in 2007, and the iPad launch in 2010.
Cook joined Apple in 1998 and initially served as the company’s Senior Vice President for Worldwide Operations. He was given the role of overhauling Apple’s manufacturing and supply chain, which he did by drastically reducing inventory and increasing efficiency.
He was promoted to Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the company in 2005 and was given the role of interim CEO in 2009 after Jobs took another medical leave. As Jobs resigned from the role of CEO, he asked the Apple board to appoint Cook as the full-time chief of the company in 2011.
Jobs’ intense focus on perfection, simplicity, and user experience, which he learned from his father, became a hallmark of Apple products.
