It's funny how you pick and chose parts of history to make your point.
Jobs did not found Pixar -- he bought the company (under a different name then changed to Pixar) from Lucas Film. He was not the CEO, he was chairman of the board and famously had very little to do with their day-to-day activities -- he really just let them do their thing. He almost sold Pixar multiple times because they were not the home-run company he had hope for, until Toy Story. He slowly bought shares back from employees and the actual founders until he owned almost 100% of the company (making his total investment $50 million). Then he sold the company off to Disney.
Jobs was the check book for Pixar -- he didn't make them great, they were great all along. They just had no product and no capital for a long period of time. He gave them the chance to succeed, and for that he should get credit. But he wasn't some sort of creative mastermind genius that turned Pixar into what is became.
In any regard, we've gone into the weeds. As I said multiple posts ago, I'm never going to change your mind. Apple sold products you like as a consumer, and therefore you like the person at the helm. Personally, I think there are far better businessman examples all over, some I've mentioned already, others are like the guy in Napa Valley, CA making $2 billion a year selling wine corks.
Steve Jobs, by any definition, founded Pixar. He bought a team of people from Lucas Film and some technology, most of which had to be extensively re-worked.
The technology he bought was for rendering hardware. The company, under his specific direction, went from producing hardware and software to feature films.
Your hand-waving dismissal of the role Jobs played in Pixar is staggeringly ignorant.
Many accounts from the key people on the Pixar team credit Jobs with his important decisions and his hand in creating the culture that Pixar has today. I'm presuming you haven't ready any of those. "It's funny how you pick and choose", or in your case flat-out ignore.
How does making money have anything to do with being a better businessman? How does $2B in sales compare to a titanic company like Apple that's pulling down $40B per quarter? Not very well.
Steve was someone I threw out as a person who had multiple acts. I threw out Elon as an example on this page too. We are not trying to solve who the best business man is? After all, what would any of that have to do with the Woz? If you want to compare a $2 billion business to one of the most valuable companies in the world, we could be here all day.
By the way, I based my claim that Jobs was CEO of Pixar based on the co-founder of Pixar, and other facts I found on the Internet. Can you provide some facts to show that I'm wrong?
If we take it back to the original point - it was that the true innovators were the engineers hidden away at Apple; Woz was/is one of them. Before Job's passing, he made some very famous exclamations of things Apple would never do.
1) Never will have a small form factor tablet
2) Never will have a large form factor phone
3) Never will produce "cheap" plastic-component phones
4) Never will embrace NFC
Towards the end, as we can very clearly now see, Jobs stood in the way of his team and innovation. Every single one of the things he said Apple will never do, they have done. And as we can see, they have been very successful with each line item. In fact, they've sold more iPhones now than ever during his tenure.
Jobs could put together a management team -- but he couldn't produce a product. During his first tenure at Apple, the company produced some of the worst garbage the world has ever seen from a modern company. It wasn't until his second chance that his management team finally got the right engineers hired. Like I said earlier, Jony Ive wasn't even a Jobs hire - Ive almost left apple when Jobs returned!
His management team were the ones that put together the engineering team and production teams -- and ultimately turned Apple into what they are today. People like Woz deserve the credit Jobs takes and gets.
As we can clearly see you have no idea how Jobs worked. He was extremely passionate about his beliefs, but as many have said, again and again, he would be completely opposed to an idea one day and the next he'd be telling you about how that was the best thing ever. He knew when it was time to re-evaluate his opinions.
He said Apple would never make a phone. They did. He said "never" many times, and many times Apple went and did exactly that.
Learn your history.
Yes, pre-NeXT Steve Jobs wasn't as good at directing products, but he did create the Macintosh. Post-NeXT (and Pixar) he had a much better sense of how to build teams and create products, those years were not squandered.
Dismissing someone because of failures is ridiculous. Bill Gates shipped Windows 1.0, an abortion of a product, and Windows 2.0, which was nearly as useless. It was only with Windows 3.0 they finally got traction and that went on to become the dominant operating system in the world.
Thanks for finally giving me a link. Unfortunately, it confirms that I'm right and you're wrong. Steve Jobs is listed one of the founders. Please see the Founders box on the right-hand side.
In addition, read the paragraph containing this line:
"He also began then for the first time to take an active direct leadership role in the company, making himself its CEO. "
http://alvyray.com/Pixar/PixarMyth1.htm
"A new spinout corporation from Lucasfilm, called Pixar, was capitalized with $10 million from Steve Jobs."
"Eventually, by about 1991, he owned 100% of Pixar at a total investment of $50 million."
And Jobs was the CEO of Pixar. By the way, my facts are from one of the co-founders of Pixar:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvy_Ray_Smith
I suppose we don't give Bill Gates credit for his foundation either? Everyone else is doing all the work. It's just his vision and money.