Steve Jobs Had Liver Transplant

According to Wall Street Journal today, Steve Jobs had a liver transplant 2 months ago in Tennessee. He is recovering well according to the paper and plan to return to work later this month. Here is the link to the source: WSJ (06/20/2009)

Steve Jobs is known for being very workaholic & innovative entrepreneur co-founding & running two hugely successful technology companies, Apple and Pixar (bought later by Disney). He is an expert innovator and very passionate on innovation and technology advancements. His work ethics and visions are legendary. Unfortunately, health of a human being is never certain no matter how much success and money a human has. We all should be grateful for his huge contribution so far to the technology & media landscape and wish him a great and sustainable health recovery.Steve Jobs' life story is inspirational. He came from a humble beginning. He was an orphan and a dropped-out college student.

Steve Jobs biography:

Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American businessman and co-founder, and CEO of Apple Inc. Jobs is the former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios.

In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, created one of the first commercially successful personal computers. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven graphical user interface.[8] After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets. NeXT's subsequent 1997 buyout by Apple Computer Inc. brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he has served as its CEO since then. Steve Jobs was listed as Fortune Magazine's Most Powerful Businessman of 2007.

In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios.[10] He remained CEO and majority shareholder until its acquisition by the Walt Disney Company in 2006. Jobs is currently a member of Walt Disney Company's Board of Directors.

Jobs' history in business has contributed greatly to the myths of the idiosyncratic, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design and understanding the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal. His work driving forward the development of products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted following.

Jobs is currently on a leave of absence from Apple due to health issues.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Here are various video clips of Steve Job we highly recommend:

Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005:

Useful quotes taken from the above speech:

• "When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."
• "I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life."
• "Death is the destination we all share, no one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life."
• "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
• "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
• "No one wants to die. Even people who wanna go to heaven don't wanna die to get there."
• "When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions."
• "I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to [learn calligraphy]. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful. Historical. Artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture. And I found it fascinating. None of this had any hope of any practical application in my life. But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would never have multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them."
• "Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards."

(Source: Wikiquote)

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates together during in mid 2007 at the D: All Things Digital: Wall Street Journal Executive Conference: click here.

Here are other absolutely great quotes from Steve Jobs:

• "I want to put a ding in the universe."
• "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."
• "It is piracy, not overt online music stores, which is our main competitor."
• "It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we'd given customers what they said they wanted, we'd have built a computer they'd have been happy with a year after we spoke to them - not something they'd want now."
• "Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations."
• "The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay."
• "A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets."
• "Apple's market share is bigger than BMW's or Mercedes's or Porsche's in the automotive market. What's wrong with being BMW or Mercedes?"
• "Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected."
• "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
• "I think we're having fun. I think our customers really like our products. And we're always trying to do better."
• "To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines."
• "Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?"
• "You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."

It is virtually impossible to find better presenter and communicator than Steve Jobs. He is absolutely brilliant marketer, innovator,  and leader.

Steve Jobs introduced iPhone in 2007:

Steve Jobs introduced MacBook Air in Macworld 2008 Keynote:

 Steve Jobs introduced iPhone 3G at Apple WWDC 2008