Biographies

=__Founders and Key Players__=

A closer look into the personal lives of the founders and most influential people in these two companies

 * //The Founders of Microsoft//**

[[image:http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~n_r_d/bill-gates.jpg width="160" height="200" caption="Bill Gates"]]
Gates was born on October 28th 1955. His father William H. Gates, is a wealthy lawyer from Washington state and his mother, Mary Gates, leads a local charity. In 1968 Gates enrolled in The very selective Seattle private school called Lakeside. This same year the local parent association bought the school a type-writer that communicated with a local university's computer through a phone wire. This early computer fascinated Gates so much that he would sneak into school late at night to work with it. In 1972 Gates actually used the computer in order to create Lakeside's schedule. It is said that he often would put the prettiest girls into his classes. ([])

Paul Allen was born in Mercer, Washington in 1953. In 1975 he began seventh grade at the prestigious Lakeside school ([]). When Paul was in tenth grade he met his lifelong friend and future business partner, Bill Gates, through the typewriter that could talk to the local university. "Our friendship started after the mothers' club paid to put a computer terminal in the school in 1968," Gates told Fortune in 1995 ([]). In 1971 Allen graduated from Lakeside and went to Washington State University. The following year he stayed in touch with Gates by buying "Intel Corporation's 8008 chip, the 2nd computer [|microprocessor] for $360. The pair used the chip to develop a special computer that conducted traffic - volume - count analysis, and started a company called Traf - O - Data, planning to sell the computers to traffic departments" ([]). In 1974 Allen dropped out of Washington State to follow Gates to Harvard where he accepted a job at Honeywell in Boston.


 * //Founders of Apple//**

Steve Jobs was born on February 14, 1955. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs in San Francisco, California. Steve's father was very skilled with his hands, and Steve always enjoyed watching him work on cars and do other projects around the house. In 1961 Steve moved to Mountain View, California, a place known as Silicon Valley. Because silicon was used in the making of the compters and electronic devices which were created in Mountain View. Here Jobs enrolled in a Hewlett-Packard Explorer Club. In this club he saw many engineers who presented very interesting ideas including a computer. In high school, Steve went to Hewlett-Packard to attend lectures. At one lecture he asked the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, William Hewlett for spare parts for a science project he was working on. William Hewlett, was so impressed by his self-confidence that he gave him the parts and offered him an internship. In 1972 Jobs graduated high school and attended Reed College. Two years later he dropped out and went to India to study eastern religions. In 1975 Jobs joined the Homebrew Computer Club, where he met the computer genius who would later become his business partner, Steve Wozniak. __ [] __

Stephen Wozniak was born in 1950, in Sunnyvale California,. Even as a kid Wozniak loved to fiddle with any electronics that he could get his hands on. "When we were in elementary school and Junior high school and even high school, it was neat to have other kids in electronics down the block. We would run house-to-house wired intercoms, and somebody would build a neat little sound maker, and we'd go down to Sunnyvale Electronics and buy the parts" ([]). In 6th grade, Wozniak built a computer that played Tic-Tac-Toe. He liked to do everything himself; he never used any manuals or guides. Later in life he went to work for HP, building calculators. From these tiny machines he got the idea to create a personal computer using micro-proccessors, and out of this came the idea for the Apple I. When he met up with Steve Jobs at a local computer club, Homebrew computer company, the idea to manufacture and create these personal micro-processing computers was born.


 * //Key Players at Apple Computer//**

John Sculley's father was very strict with him. His father always demanded the very best and had him go to an exclusive boarding school. There he became the captain of the Soccer team and had outstanding grades. Unlike the other founders Sculley did not have much interest in computers at a young age.Sculley got started in Pepsi Co a Soda Company. At Pepsi Sculley learned how to market and manufactor. At Pepsi Sculley invented the taste test commercial between Pepsi and Coca Cola. In fact at Pepsi he had an Apple computer but thought it was way to confusing to operate but still remainded interested. John Sculley was a business and marketing wiz. When Sculley came to Apple he was the Senior Vice president of Marketing but than later went on to become the CEO and president of the company in place of Steve Jobs. When he moved to Apple he put them on the right track with their two infamous commercials that I talk about in the media section of this website. []

Jean Gassee was brought in by Sculley, to replace Steve Jobs who was moved down to Vice president when Sculley came in. Gassee always focused on profit margins and the business side of Apple. He could hardly be considered an engineer and almost went completely against Jobs in all aspects. Jobs wanted his computers to be affordable and be able to have them in every house. Gassee on the other hand went by the 55 or die rule. This 55 or die moto was aimed to encourage a 55% profit margin on all products. A specific example of Jean wanting to raise the price on a product was the Macintosh I. Which originally Jobs wanted to be sold for under 1,000$ ended up being sold for over 2,400$. []