Steve Jobs Passes Away, Dead At 56 Years Old

It was a day we all feared was coming, especially after he stepped down from running Apple for a second time, and now the Apple Board of Directors has announced that Steve Jobs passed away, the tech mogul was pronounced dead at the young age of 56-year-old.

Statement by Apple’s Board of Directors

CUPERTINO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today.

Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.

His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.

There is no denying that Jobs had a profound effect not just on technology but our world as a whole as he literally transformed our ideas of what computers, music, and phones were. His is a history of forever challenging preconceived notions whether it be animated films through his running of Pixar to what the world of personal computers should look and work.

It was his drive and vision that brought Apple, the company that he started, was fired from and then returned to, back from the brink of disaster and then lead it to be one of the biggest technology companies in the world.

On the official website the Steve Jobs page (Apple.com/SteveJobs) posted the following message:

Jobs dropped out of Reed College and created Apple in 1976 with the help of high school friend Steve Wozniak, the two men released the Apple I during that same year.

During the 1980’s Apple sales were lagging and in 1985 the Apple board pushed out Jobs. In 1996 the company’s co-founder was reinstated after Apple purchased his start-up NeXT for $400 million. Five years after being reinstated Steve Jobs released the iPod music player, followed by the iTunes music store, iPhone and iPad.

Under his leadership Steve Jobs helped not only turn around Apple Inc. he helped the company surpass Microsoft in earnings to become the number one tech company in the world.

While Apple nearly claimed bankruptcy during the period in which Jobs lost control of his company today the organization has a market valuation of $350 billion, closely approaching revenues earned by No. 2 Exxon Mobil.

Steve Jobs resigned as company CEO in August 2011, the second time in less than 3 years that he stepped down to deal with “personal issues.”

Steve Jobs, a Buddhist, is survived by wife Laurene Powell Jobs, 47 and four children. One of his children Lisa had an early Apple computer named after her.

He will be sorely missed. In rememberance of Steve Jobs here’s a nostalgic video of the Apple CEO introducing the first iMac: