Apple’s Tim Cook grew up in small-town Robertsdale, Alabama, the son of a shipyard worker and a pharmacy employee, and was salutatorian of his high school before studying industrial engineering at Auburn.
Source: Public biographyVerified 2026-07-10
To lure PepsiCo president John Sculley to Apple in 1983, Steve Jobs asked him one question: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” Sculley took the job.
Before Apple, Jobs took an Atari job to design the arcade game Breakout and brought in his friend Steve Wozniak, agreeing to split the pay. Wozniak built it in a few days; Jobs told him it paid $700 and handed him $350 — while reportedly keeping a bonus of around $5,000. Wozniak only learned the truth years later.
From his return in 1997 until his death in 2011, Steve Jobs drew a salary of exactly $1 a year from Apple — his fortune was in stock. The $1-salary move was later copied by Google’s founders and by Mark Zuckerberg.