Born in San Francisco, USA in 1955, Jobs had little, if any, formal business training. He worked a regular summer job at Hewlett-Packard during school vacations before becoming a technician at Atari, a manufacturer of popular arcade games and consoles, when he was 19. In 1976, Jobs founded Apple with his friend Steve Wozniak and funding from multimillionaire A.C. Markkula. In 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh - whose development was largely handled by Jobs - and it quickly became one of the first commercially successful small computers.

However, Jobs' working relationship with Apple's CEO John Sculley had begun to deteriorate. Jobs had recruited Sculley from Pepsi-Cola back in 1983, acknowledging that an experienced executive was needed to run the company. But by 1985 their relationship had soured and, after an internal power struggle, Jobs was relieved of his duties.

However, it wasn't long before Jobs had established his new company, NeXT Computer, as an innovative designer of software systems. Jobs marketed his new technologies to the academic and scientific fields, and presented what he called an "interpersonal computer" with the NeXT Cube. In 1996, Apple announced its plan to buy NeXT Software, Inc. (as it was then known), in a move that brought Jobs back to the company he had started 20 years previously. He was soon made interim CEO and the merger saw much of NeXT's technology feature in Apple products, in particular the operating system that would become Mac OS X.

Apple's sales began to rise dramatically, thanks to products like the iMac, which coupled attractive aesthetics with powerful branding, and Apple has since become an industry giant. The launch of the iPod MP3 player, iTunes music software and the iTunes Store have seen Apple make hugely influential waves in the fields of consumer electronics and music distribution. The iPhone, launched in 2007, couples the iPod with a touch screen cellular phone and internet device and has been a huge international success. The iPhone was named Time magazine's "Invention of the Year" in 2007, and to date has sold close to 20 million units worldwide.

Steve Jobs bought Pixar Animation Studios in 1986 from movie mogul George Lucas for a price tag of US$10million. Originally intended as a high-end graphics hardware developer, Pixar finally struck a lucrative deal with Disney to produce computer animated films, which Disney would co-finance and distribute. Since 1995, Pixar's animated films have grossed more than US$5billion worldwide.

In January 2006 Disney agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction reportedly worth US$7.4billion. The deal made Jobs The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with around 7% of the company's stock, and he joined their board of directors. From this position it would appear Jobs was better-placed than ever in his quest to bring Apple, Pixar - and one can only assume, Disney - to the forefront of their industries, setting trends and standards in both quality, design and performance. In fact, one might argue he has achieved his goal already.

However, in January 2009, Steve Jobs announced to his Apple workforce that he would be taking a six-month leave of absence due to escalating health concerns. Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004 and had been suffering from a "hormone imbalance" for some months prior to his issued statement. He ended his announcement by saying: "I plan to remain involved in [Apple's] major strategic decisions while I am out...I look forward to seeing all of you this summer." Only time will tell if this proves to be the case.

All images courtesy of Apple Inc.