And despite years of signs of illness, his resignation as chief executive of Apple Inc caused a global gasp since the world contemplated the future of an icon and the company he symbolises.
"Steve Jobs is the most successful CEO in america of the last 25 years, " said Google Inc Chairman Eric Schmidt, who accustomed to sit on Apple's board but stepped down because of overlapping business pursuits.
"He uniquely combined an artist's touch and an engineer's vision to build an exceptional company, one of the greatest American leaders in history, " Schmidt said inside a statement.
A college dropout, Jobs floated through India in search of spiritual guidance prior to founding Apple company -- a name he suggested to his friend and co-founder Steve Wozniak after a visit to a commune in Oregon he known as an "apple orchard. "
With his passion for minimalist design and advertising genius, Jobs changed the course of personal computing during two stints from Apple and transformed the mobile market.
The iconic iPod, the iPhone -- dubbed the "Jesus phone" because of its quasi-religious following -- and the iPad are the creation of a man known for his near-obsessive control from the product development process.
"Most mere mortals cannot understand a person like Dorrie Jobs, " Guy Kawasaki, a former Apple employee who considers Jobs "the greatest CEO within the history of man", said recently. "He's just got a different operating program. "
Charismatic, visionary, ruthless, perfectionist, dictator - these are some of what that people use to describe the larger-than-life figure of Jobs, who could be the biggest dreamer the technology world has ever known, but also a hard-edged business person and negotiator through and through.
"Steve Jobs is the business genius in our generation, " former eBay Inc chief Meg Whitman said recently. "His efforts to Apple, his contributions to technology, frankly his contributions to America, are unparalleled in the commercial world. He is amazing. "
Former nemesis Bill Gates, the co-founder associated with Microsoft, has called Jobs the most inspiring person in the tech industry and President Barack Obama has held him up since the embodiment of the American Dream
It's hard to imagine a bigger achievement story than Steve Jobs, but rejection, failure and bad fate have been part and parcel of who he's. Jobs was given away at birth, driven out of Apple in the mid-80s and struck with cancer when he finally had regained the the surface of the mountain. His resignation as CEO on Wednesday comes at the relatively youthful age of 55.
"I have always said if there ever came each day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's BOSS, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day time has come, " he said in a brief letter announcing his resignation.
A source near to Jobs said he plans to be active in his new role because chairman of Apple's board.
Jobs grew up with an adopted family within Silicon Valley, which was turning from orchards to homes for workers at Lockheed along with other defense and technology companies.
Electronics friend Bill Fernandez introduced him to young man engineer Wozniak, and the two Steves began a friendship that eventually selectively bred Apple Computer.
"Woz is a brilliant engineer, but he is not really a business owner, and that's where Jobs came in, " remembers Fernandez, who was the very first employee at Apple.
Wozniak said that his goal was only to design hardware and he'd no interest in running Apple.
"Steve Jobs' role was defined -- you need to learn to be an executive in every division of the company to help you be the world's most important person some day. That was his objective, " recently joked Woz, who is still listed as an employee reporting straight to Jobs, even though he has not worked at Apple for years.
AWFUL-TASTING MEDICATION
Jobs created Apple twice -- once when he founded it and the 2nd time after a return credited with saving the company, which now vies with Exxon Mobil as the most valuable publicly traded corporation in the usa.
"Every day to him is a new adventure in the company, inch said Jay Elliot, a former senior vice president at Apple who worked very closely with Jobs within the eighties. "He is almost like a child when it comes to their inquisitiveness. Steve has such a thirst of understanding for what's going on within the company. What he is intolerant about it - politics, bureaucracy. "
But the inspiring Jobs came with lots of hard edges, oftentimes alienating colleagues and early investors with his my-way-or-the-highway dictums and plans that were generally ahead of time.
Elliot was a witness to the acrimony between Jobs and former Apple Leader John Sculley who often clashed on ideas, products and the direction from the company.
The dispute came to a head at Apple's first major sales meeting in Hawaii in 1985 in which the two "just blew up against each other, " Elliot said.
Jobs left right after, saying he was fired.
"It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the individual needed it. Sometimes life's gonna hit you in the head with the brick. Don't lose faith, " he told a Stanford graduating class within 2005. He returned to Apple about a decade after he left, working like a consultant. Soon he was running it, in what has been called Jobs' 2nd act.
To this point, he has reinvented the technology world four or even five times, first with the Apple II, a beautiful personal computer within the 1970s; then in the 1980s with the Macintosh, driven by a computer mouse and presenting a clean screen that made computing inviting; the ubiquitous ipod device debuted in 2001, the iPhone in 2007 and in 2010 the apple ipad, which a year after it was introduced outsold Macs.
LESS IS MUCH MORE
How did he do it? Design fans, Apple employees and Jobs acquaintances credit an all natural design sense driven to simplify. Jobs' return to Apple was a research in reduction.
Ed Niehaus, who was wooed and hired by Jobs to complete PR for resurgent Apple, remembers an elevator ride that everyone in Silicon Valley has heard about, but seemed more myth than reality. It was soon after Jobs' triumphant return and he was axing product plans -- the ones.
Niehaus recalled: "I once rode down an elevator, not that many flooring. We got in the elevator and the next floor a young lady got in, and I could see her go, 'oops, wrong elevator. a And Steve said, 'Hi, who are you? ' and introduces himself to her -- 'I'm Steve Jobs' and switched on the charm and said, 'What do you do? ' and all this kind of thing. And the door of the elevator opens at the bottom, as well as he says, 'We are not going to need you. ' And we leave. "
Apple was bloated, Niehaus added, and Jobs was bringing back simpleness and focus.
"What makes Steve's methodology different from everyone else's is that he always believed the most crucial decisions you make are not the things you do - but things that you decide not to do. He's a minimalist, " former CEO Sculley -- who had been recruited by Jobs, watched him build the Mac, and then helped get rid of the Apple founder in a boardroom battle -- told the CultofMac news website this year.
A few steps to Apple design have leaked out over the many years, despite the obsessive secrecy that is part of the company culture. An Apple engineer outlined an extended development process at a conference blogged by Businessweek in 2008.
A new product or feature begins with 10 ideas -- plans, no also-rans, which are presented as "pixel-perfect" mockups. Apple culls the 10 in order to three, which are tried out for months more, before a final celebrity is chosen.
Meanwhile, the design team meets for two types of weekly meetings -- someone to brainstorm with no limits, and one to focus on getting the product out the doorway, BusinessWeek described.
When Steve Jobs weighs in, it is with a simple group of verdicts: insanely great; really, really great; and shit, Niehaus recalled.
"Basically Steve tells you exactly what he wants and you simply go build it, " said one former iPhone engineer, who declined to provide his name.
He remembers working on one project for two months. "Steve stated 'What is this shit? Why are you wasting my time? '" he or she recalled.
Being chewed up and spat out by Jobs is an experience most Apple employees who have are exposed to Jobs can relate to. And Jobs is known to like people who can endure him.
"I never asked you to start, so why should I request you to stop? " Jobs told another former Apple employee, who wanted to know whether he should still work on a project that was being questioned by the forceful BOSS.
Jobs likes to push. From the very start, people told tales of him putting his -- often dirty -- feet up for grabs in meetings. Others tell of Jobs putting down their company, making all of them defend themselves in interviews.
"He was clearly looking for someone who could endure him, " said another former member of the top team. He remembers Work and Tim Cook, who is taking over as CEO, as the "metronome" from the company, with vastly different personal styles and exactly the same "insane" focus on detail.
Jobs, in fact, revels in details, many a time irking everyone around him together with his obsessiveness.
Apple's first CEO Michael Scott has said that Jobs spent weeks contemplating how rounded the edges from the Apple II case should be.
"He put white earbuds in the ears of everyone in the world, and shut us all in to our own little pods of encounter, " said Niehaus, who is in awe of Jobs' taste and expertise. Jobs, given a Gulfstream jet by his appreciative board, probably hasn't flown industrial in years, and everyone who sits down with an iPod next to someone they don't want to acknowledge gets some that experience.
"He understands envy as well as anybody on the earth, and he carries it around with him, triple parking his car, because he is able to. Part of what he is selling is envy, " Niehaus said.
THE ACTUAL STEVE JOBS
Even Jobs' appearance simplified over the years. When he came back to Apple after his decade away, he wore fancy white shirts and vests as well as a pin stripe suit to introduce new products.
The black mock turtleneck and jeans which have become the defining Jobs outfit showed up at more comfortable settings, whenever Jobs wooed developers, in the late 1990s. But he pulled the iPod from a jeans pocket to introduce the music player in 2001. From after that on, he's barely taken off the outfit.
The jeans and running footwear flashed under his academic gown when he gave the Stanford commencement talk in 2005, and he's wearing a black mock turtleneck sitting next to President Barack Obama in a 2011 dinner with Silicon Valley titans. On Obama's other side was Myspace founder Mark Zuckerberg, who wore a jacket to the event.
Jobs himself describes his world as quite simple.
"For the past 33 years I have looked in the mirror each and every morning and asked myself, 'if today were the last day of my entire life, would I want to do what I am about to do these days. And whenever the answer has been 'no' for too many days inside a row, I know I need to change something, " he told Stanford University students within the soul-baring commencement address.
"Remembering that you are going to die is the easiest way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to get rid of. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your own heart, " he said.
That kind of earnest, almost naive hope, coupled with ruthless dismissal of whatever misses his lofty standards, are a potent mix for all those around him.
"His approval is an addictive drug, " said Niehaus. "I believe that most people would knock themselves out to have that experience again, as soon as they've had it. It's that defining. It is a really tremendous encounter. "
APPLE 3. 0
Jobs has been on leave three times because 2004, and he clearly has thought about an Apple without him. Jobs has already established a liver transplant and a rare form of pancreatic cancer.
For years every presentation by Jobs sparked discussions of if the gaunt executive looked better or worse.
Jobs has talked about his personal mortality, and said it has been a major driver in his existence and work.
"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to assist me make the big choices in life, " Jobs said in the actual commencement speech at Stanford in 2005. "Because almost everything -- all exterior expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away when confronted with death, leaving only what is truly important. "
Jobs and the board had a succession plan -- put Cook in control -- and has a well-respected team. Jobs has put extraordinary effort into finding individuals who he says are 10, 20, 50 times better than average, he informed Time magazine, adding that there were no prima donnas when great people met up.
"He has a close circle of advisers he relies on. Having a detailed circle of people was really important to him, " Elliot said.
Many Apple watchers and investors say how the company has a deep bench, led by Cook. But for others, which just doesn't ring true.
The former engineer whose months of works was dismissed by Jobs having a single curse doesn't see much strength in the ranks. "Steve is the actual visionary, " he said. "If something happens, it's like 'Let's ask Steve'. inch.