(1955-2011)

Known for: Apple

Quote: “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”

About: Designed, developed, and marketed (along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak) the Apple II series, which was one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven graphical user interface, leading to the creation of the Macintosh operating system. In 1986, Jobs acquired Graphics Group for $5 million and changed the name to Pixar (purchased by Disney in 2006 for $7.4 billion). He returned to Apple when its yearly revenue was $1.6 billion, and under his leadership, Apple grew to $15.5. billion in revenue by 2010.

University education: Reed College