Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The Nerds

Great People

Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, Stephen Wozniak, Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg, just to name a few, I call them The Nerds. These great men have played a great role in changing the life style of humanity. I greatly admire how they worked tirelessly in achieving their dreams.Their dreams began from simple ideas that they eventually turned into reality. I have dedicated this forum for this great heroes by looking at their biographies.


Steve Paul Jobs


Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955 in San Francisco, California. His unwed biological parents, Joanne Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali, put him up for adoption. Steve was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, a lower-middle-class couple, who moved to the suburban city of Mountain View a couple of years later.

 One of his famous quotes that I really like was the one he talked about how people do not take to understand the gadgets the use, here it is "We're both busy and we both don't have a lot of time to learn how to use a washing machine or to use a phone - you get one of the phones now and you're never going to learn more than 5 per cent of the features. You're never going to use more than 5 per cent, and, uh, it's very complicated. So you end up using just 5 per cent. It's insane: we all have busy lives, we have jobs and we have interests and some of us have children, everyone's lives are just getting busier, not less busy, in this busy society. You just don't have time to learn this stuff, and everything's getting more complicated."

Bachelor Days
Steve Jobs grew up in a lower-middle class suburban neighborhood in the 1960s. When he was a young adult, in the early 1970s, he delved into eastern mysticism, Zen Buddhism, and hippie ideals. Then he started Apple and became a millionaire at 23, an icon of entrepreneurialism and capitalism. It is not hard to picture how big of a shock to his values this new status must have created. In his late 20s, while he was still single, Steve Jobs was not living the life of a typical young nouveau riche.

Family man?
Steve Jobs's lifestyle changed a lot after the birth of Reed, his first child with Laurene. He took his family very seriously, and became an affectionate father. Until the end of his life, he would keep that same way of life: that of a hard-working CEO, but one who don't choose the celebrity circuit: "What's astonishing is how normal a family life it is. Steve just never went out socially. He was home every evening", wrote Jobs's biographer Walter Isaacson. Jobs himself said: "I have a very simple life. I have my family and I have Apple and Pixar. And I don't do much else.

Bill Gates


Born on Oct. 28, 1955, Gates grew up in Seattle with his two sisters. Their father, William H. Gates II, is a Seattle attorney. Their late mother, Mary Gates, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington regent, and chairwoman of United Way International.ates attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside School. There, he discovered his interest in software and began programming computers at age 13.

In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman, where he lived down the hall from Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft’s chief executive officer. While at Harvard, Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer - the MITS Altair.

Early Life
Bill had a very close relationship with his mother, Mary, who after a brief career as a teacher devoted her time to helping raise the children and working on civic affairs and with charities. She also served on several corporate boards, among them First Interstate Bank in Seattle (founded by her grandfather), the United Way, and International Business Machines (IBM). She would often take Bill along on her volunteer work in schools and community organizations.

Bill was a voracious reader as a child, spending many hours pouring over reference books such as the encyclopedia. Around the age of 11 or 12, Bill's parents began to have concerns about his behavior. He was doing well in school, but he seemed bored and withdrawn at times. His parents worried he might become a loner. Though they were strong believers in public education, when Bill turned 13 they enrolled him in Seattle's Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory school. He blossomed in nearly all his subjects, excelling in math and science, but also doing very well in drama and English.

His Take on Software
In February of 1976, Gates wrote an open letter to computer hobbyists saying that continued distribution and use of software without paying for it would "prevent good software from being written." In essence, pirating software would discourage developers from investing time and money into creating quality software. The letter was unpopular with computer enthusiasts, but Gates stuck to his beliefs and would use the threat of innovation as a defense when faced with charges of unfair business practices. Thanks Gates, I truly support you on this.... cool