Neeleman, 47, who grew up in Salt Lake City, dropped out of the University of Utah in 1981 and started JetBlue as CEO in 1998, suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder.

While ADD made schoolwork hard and led Neeleman to conclude incorrectly that he was stupid, it also made him into one of the country's most celebrated entrepreneurs.

"If someone told me you could be normal or you could continue to have your ADD, I would take ADD," Neeleman once said to ADDitude, a Web site for people living with the condition.

It seems he relishes the forgetfulness, restlessness and other symptoms of ADD, which affect an estimated 4 percent to 6 percent of the population. They nourish his inventiveness, Neeleman said.

"With the disorganization, procrastination, inability to focus, and all the other bad things that come with ADD, there also come creativity and the ability to take risks," he said.

Before founding JetBlue, he helped to set up Canada's WestJet Airlines and co-founded Morris Air, a Salt Lake-based low-fare carrier that was acquired by Southwest Airlines in 1993.

After selling Morris Air, he served briefly on the executive planning committee at Southwest. Before leaving the company, Neeleman was forced by Southwest founder Herb Kelleher to sign a five-year noncompete clause.

"David's a genius," Kelleher told Time magazine. "There's no question about it."

During his five-year hiatus, Neeleman took an electronic ticketing system that he had started at Morris Air and built Open Skies, a company whose airline reservation system is touted as the world's simplest.

And when the noncompete period with Southwest ended, Neeleman sold Open Skies to Hewlett Packard Co. and started JetBlue.

As JetBlue's chairman, Neeleman will have no daily executive responsibilities, spokeswoman Alison Eshelman said. Instead, he will focus on the company's long-term strategy, she said.

"He will be taking over the representation of the interests of our shareholders. He will not be in 9-to-5 duty at our headquarters," Eshelman said.

That should give Neeleman, who thought up free in-flight TV, flies his own airline once a week, surfs the Internet for airline developments after his family is asleep, and once toyed with serving pizza to passengers, plenty of time to dream up new projects.

"It's a good step to open up the time and energy to focus on the creative aspects of JetBlue. He's still the founder, and will always be. It's more of the direction of continuing the growth of JetBlue and where it needs to go in the future," Eshelman said.