Steven Jobs was born in San Francisco, California, in 1955. He studied at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and later became a computer hobbyist. In 1975 he founded the Apple Computer Company in his garage with Stephen Wozniak, formerly an engineer at Hewlett-Packard. Together in 1977 they created the Apple II computer, the first “open system” machine—a computer for which other companies could legally write programs and build hardware. The Apple II would later become the model for the personal computer, and it made Apple the fastest-growing company in U.S. history. In 1985 Jobs left Apple and founded a new company, NeXT Software Inc. He also bought Pixar Animation Studios in 1986 and made himself chief executive officer. In November 1995 Pixar released the movie Toy Story, the first full-length movie made entirely with computer animation. In 1996 Apple bought NeXT for about $400 million, and Jobs became an adviser to the chief executive officer of Apple. In 1997 Jobs returned to Apple as interim president.
