Steve Jobs Resigns from Apple

It was announced in a public statement Wednesday that Steve Jobs is resigning as CEO of Apple after 14 years at the helm of the company.  It’s been slated by Apple’s board of directors that Tim Cook, previously the company’s chief operating officer, is to replace Jobs as Apple’s CEO and as a member of the board, which is to be effective immediately.

“Steve’s extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world’s most innovative and valuable technology company,” said Apple director and Genentech chairman Art Levinson, in the statement.

Levinson goes on to state that Jobs has made countless contributions to Apple’s success and that “Steve will continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration” in his new role as chairman of the board.

Job found the company in April 1, 1976 along with co-founders Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.  Wayne left shortly after, but Jobs and Wozniak went on to help usher in the personal computing revolution.  Their innovative PCs were among the first to use graphical user interfaces, which helped them knock competitors such as IBM from its perch as the dominant PC vendor.

Jobs resigned from Apple in 1984, and later became founder to NeXT, a computer platform developer.  He returned to Apple in 1996 when NeXt was bought out by the company, and was named interim CEO in 1997, later on becoming permanent CEO in 2000.

Jobs’ second stint at Apple seemed to have superseded his first in regards to success.  Jobs rescued Apple from irrelevance by attaching the letter “i” as a calling card – the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad – even going on to refer himself as Apple’s “iCEO” in 2000, reports PCMag.

But in recent years, it appears Jobs’ health has taken a turn.  In the mid-2000s, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  He underwent a liver transplant in 2009, and in the ensuing years, Jobs had ceded much of his duties at running Apple to Cook.

Photo Courtesy of acaben via Flickr