In his youth, Apple founder Steve Jobs did not conform to the computer nerd stereotype.

A folk-music fan who drove a VW Camper van and dated Joan Baez, Jobs also possessed a burning passion for technology. He was destined to bring computers, which in the early seventies were only used by the government and large corporations, into the homes of the masses.

Born and raised in Silicon Valley, California, the teenage Jobs indulged his interest in electronics with a summer job at Hewlett-Packard. There he met his friend Steven Wozniak, with whom he would later make the first ready-made personal computer.

After high school Jobs helped design video games for Atari Inc, and then sought spiritual enlightenment travelling around India and in a Californian commune.

Returning in 1975 with a Zen-like resolve, Jobs persuaded his Wozniak to leave his job at Hewlett-Packard and help him build computers.

1976 saw the birth of Apple Computers and Jobs and Wozniak soon set up a production line, selling Apple1 computers at $666 each. But it was the release of the Apple II, as the first mass marketed home computer, which really revolutionised the industry in 1977.

Jobs grasped the significance of the graphic interface system that had been developed at the Stanford Research Institute and made it the modus operandi of his Apple Macintoshes. The system, and the ‘mouse’ hardware without which the operation of the system was almost impossible, became the standard operating system for the industry.

In 1985 Jobs was ousted from Apple after numerous differences with colleagues. He set up a hardware company, NeXT, and bought Pixar computer animation studios, which made the kids classic Toy Story.

The NeXT workstation Jobs created did not fare well commercially due to its prohibitive cost, but it still pioneered a number of new technologies. In 1997 Jobs returned as an unpaid advisor to the familiar bosom of Apple and later became CEO, a post he still occupies.

Paying himself a dollar a day for the job he loves (but with an estimated worth of $900 million thanks to a few stocks and perks!) it seems the hippie and the techie at the heart of Steve Jobs have finally been reconciled.