Steve Paul Jobs was an American inventor and entrepreneur, co-founder of Apple Inc. He made history initially by revolutionizing the personal computer with the introduction of the graphical user interface. He then transformed the music industry with the invention of the iPod and iTunes. Finally, with the creation of the iPhone and later the iPad, Apple became a leader in the mobile device market.
Steve Jobs
Childhood
Steve was born in 1955 in San Francisco. His biological parents were the unmarried couple, Syrian Abdul Fattah (John) Jandali, a political science professor, and German Joanne Schieble, who met at the University of Wisconsin. Joanne's family opposed the relationship and threatened to disinherit her, so she decided to give the child up for adoption.
Steve Jobs in childhood (pictured on the right with his adoptive father)
The boy was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs from Mountain View, California, who named the newborn Steven Paul Jobs. His adoptive mother worked at an accounting firm, and his father was a mechanic at a company that made laser systems.
When Steve was in the 7th grade, due to increased crime in their new neighborhood, his parents had to spend their last savings to buy a house in the more affluent Los Altos. They could only afford a modest three-bedroom bungalow on Crist Drive. The house, where Steve assembled the first Macintosh, is now part of the popular tourist routes, and the city itself has become part of Silicon Valley, the world's most progressive area.
The house where Steve Jobs spent his childhood
In school, Steve was a restless troublemaker, but thanks to the efforts of his teacher Mrs. Hill, young Jobs started to show exceptional academic performance. As a result, he skipped from the fourth to the sixth grade at Crittenden Middle School.
In elementary school, Steve was a restless troublemaker
In middle school, Steve became passionate about electronics and befriended Bill Fernandez, a boy who shared his interests. According to Bill, he clicked with Steve because he was a "nerdy, socially awkward, smart guy." Later, Bill became the first employee of Apple alongside Jobs and Wozniak. As a teenager, Steve spent a lot of time at Bill's house, which his mother had decorated in a Japanese minimalist style. Fernandez believes that the design of his house influenced Jobs' love for minimalism.
In middle school, he showed an interest in electronics
At age 13, Jobs called William Hewlett, the president of Hewlett-Packard, at home. The boy was building an electronic device and needed some parts. Hewlett talked to the boy for 20 minutes, agreed to send the necessary parts, and offered him a summer job at his company. Steve attended extracurricular lectures at an HP branch for a long time.
Education and Early Steps
After high school, Steve Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, but soon dropped out because the tuition was too expensive. During his brief time there, Steve met Daniel Kottke, who became his best friend. He received a job offer from Hewlett-Packard and accepted it. At work, Jobs met his namesake, Steve Wozniak, with whom he would make history.
Steve Jobs with Stephen Wozniak
Parallel to his studies, Jobs was fascinated by the art of calligraphy. Although it had no practical use, Steve simply enjoyed the soulful relaxation of crafting neat letters with a pen. However, 10 years later, calligraphy proved useful when Jobs was designing fonts for his first computer. It is believed that the fonts of the first Macintosh computers laid the foundation for modern personal computer fonts.
Steve Jobs in his youth
In February 1974, Steve returned to California, where his friend and technical genius Wozniak invited Jobs to work as a technician at Atari, a company that manufactured games, like the famous arcade game Pong.
Since his student days, Steve was interested in the hippie subculture, and later his mind was captivated by the concept of Zen Buddhism. Therefore, after working at Atari for six months, he traveled to India. The journey was challenging: Jobs contracted dysentery and lost 33 pounds. Later, Kottke joined him on his trip, and together they searched for a guru and spiritual enlightenment. Years later, Steve admitted that he went to India to resolve the inner turmoil caused by his biological parents abandoning him.
Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address
In 1975, Jobs returned to Los Altos and to Atari, volunteering to create a circuit board for the video game Breakout in record time. Steve had to minimize the number of chips on the board, with a reward of $100 for each chip eliminated. Jobs convinced Wozniak that he could do the job in four days, though such work typically took several months. In the end, Jobs succeeded, and Wozniak gave him a $350 check, lying that Atari had paid him $700 instead of the actual $5,000. After receiving a substantial sum for those times, Jobs quit his job.
The Creation of Apple
At 20, Steve Jobs was shown a homemade computer by Steve Wozniak, who convinced him to start manufacturing computers for sale. It all began with circuit board production, but eventually, the young men moved on to assemble computers.
Steven Wozniak convinced Steve Jobs to create PCs for sale
In 1976, they brought on engineer Bill Fernandez (who left the company after 18 months, deeming it unpromising) and draftsman Ronald Wayne. On April 1st, the friends founded Apple Computer Co. For starting capital, Jobs sold his Volkswagen Microbus, and Wozniak sold his programmable calculator, totaling $1,300.
The friends also sold phone hacking equipment to phreakers, the predecessors of computer hackers. To hack, a 2600Hz tone was needed. Using simple children's whistles, former U.S. Air Force radio operator John Draper invented a gadget dubbed the "blue box," which emitted the required sound and allowed for free long-distance calls. Jobs and Wozniak connected with Draper and sold his invention, raising enough money to create their first batch of computers. However, Draper was unlucky and ended up in jail.
Steve Jobs' first computer cost $666.66
Shortly after, they received their first order from a local electronics store. The two Steves convinced the store owner that their computer was unmatched: it could display data simultaneously with input and was meant to be delivered fully assembled and ready to use. Wozniak's technical genius and Jobs' speaking skills persuaded the owner to order 50 computers.
Apple. The Beginning
However, the team lacked the funds to purchase parts for such a large order. So Steve mobilized all his friends. In his parents' garage, he set up a workshop where they soldered, assembled, and packaged. According to witnesses, Jobs was a strict leader. He never raised his voice at Steve Wozniak.
A month later, in July 1976, the first batch of computers named Apple I, each priced at $666.66, was delivered to the store.
Steve Jobs, John Sculley, and Steven Wozniak
The first mass-produced computer from IBM appeared the same year Wozniak finished the Apple II, prompting Jobs to start an advertising campaign and create attractive packaging with a logo to outdo competitors. The new Apple computers sold 5 million units worldwide. By the age of 25, Steve Jobs became a millionaire.
By the age of 25, Steve Jobs became a millionaire
At the end of 1979, Steve and other Apple employees visited the Xerox research center, where Jobs saw the Alto computer. He was immediately inspired to create a PC with an interface that allowed cursor-based commands.
At that time, the Lisa computer was being developed, named after Steve Jobs' daughter. The inventor planned to incorporate all of Xerox's developments and lead the innovative computer project, but his colleagues, Mark Markkula, who had invested more than $250,000 in Apple, and Scott Forstall reorganized the company and sidelined Jobs.
In 1980, Steve Jobs started working on the Macintosh project
In 1980, computer interface expert Jeff Raskin and Jobs began working on a new project – a portable machine that could fold into a compact case. Raskin named the project Macintosh after his favorite apple variety.
Stephen Jobs was a demanding and tough boss
Even then, Stephen was demanding and strict, and working under his leadership was challenging. Numerous conflicts with Jeff resulted in him being sent on leave and later dismissed. Soon after, disagreements also led John Sculley to leave the corporation, and in 1985, Wozniak followed. That same year, Steve founded the company NeXT, which specialized in hardware.
In 1986, Jobs took the helm of Pixar Animation Studios
In 1986, Jobs took the helm of Pixar Animation Studios, releasing many world-famous animated films, such as "Monsters, Inc." and "Toy Story." In 2006, Steve sold his brainchild to Walt Disney but remained on the board of directors and became a Disney shareholder with a 7 percent stake.
Stephen Jobs founded the company NeXT
In 1996, Apple Corporation wanted to buy NeXT. This allowed Steve to return to work after being sidelined for many years and to join the board of directors as the company's CEO. By 2000, Jobs made it into the Guinness Book of World Records as the CEO with the most modest salary – $1 per year.
Steve Jobs 1997 Interview: Defending His Commitment To Apple
Revolution in the World of Gadgets
In 2001, Steve Jobs introduced the first Apple player named iPod. Later, the sales of this product became the company's main source of income, as the MP3 player was the fastest and most capacious player of its time.
The very first iPod
The first iPod had, firstly, a touch-sensitive scroll wheel, which was an extraordinary novelty at the time, and secondly, the player was available with a memory capacity of either 5 or 10 gigabytes. The new product's slogan was: "A thousand songs in your pocket!"
Evolution of the iPod (2001-2023)
Since then, a new iPod has been released every year, with each generation featuring increased memory capacity. In 2004, the player came with a color screen, and in 2005, it gained the ability to play videos. In 2006, the new iPod Classic line was introduced, distinguished by an especially large memory capacity – the most capacious iPod could hold up to 160 gigabytes of music, photos, and videos. Not every personal computer could boast such a hard drive capacity.
Simultaneously, starting from 2004, Apple launched the iPod Mini (which later transformed into the iPod Nano) and the ultra-portable iPod Shuffle without a screen.
In 2007, the touchscreen mobile phone iPhone went on sale. It was far from being the first phone with a touchscreen. For instance, Ericsson released its first touch-sensitive phone back in 2000, long before merging with Sony. In 2004, Philips launched the model 550 with a stylus-responsive screen. Three years before the first iPhone, Nokia, then the leading mobile device market player, introduced the touch phone 7710 based on the Symbian OS.
The first iPhone appeared in stores in the summer of 2007
The iPhone, released in June 2007 and later referred to as the iPhone 2G, had a highly responsive sensor, the ability to connect to Wi-Fi networks, and none of the competing models could match its sleek and slim design. The iPhone had its shortcomings, for example, it did not support 3G networks, but it did have a dedicated OS that allowed downloading applications from the App Store.
Steve Jobs had a subtle sense of what the buyer needed
The iPhone 2G marked the beginning of the end for button phones and the worldwide smartphone craze. Since then, a new iPhone has been traditionally released every year (usually in the fall) and, despite being priced higher than its competitors, it consistently sets the bar for sales. In 2008, Apple showcased the world's thinnest laptop, the MacBook Air.
Steve Jobs introduces iPhone in 2007
In 2010, Jobs introduced the internet tablet iPad, which initially puzzled the public. However, Steven's ability to convince consumers they needed this product boosted tablet sales to 15 million units per year. Subsequently, a smaller version, the iPad Mini, was released, and in 2015, sadly without Steve Jobs, sales of the iPad Pro began, a tablet with a larger screen diagonal. The evolving mobile applications market made the iPad a fully-fledged, and in many cases, a more convenient laptop replacement. Today, you can write music, take notes, draw, design, and much more on an iPad.
Jobs had a keen sense of what consumers wanted, so he aimed to create a compact machine capable of satisfying the whims of modern users. Steve's ideas were not always innovative; he skillfully utilized existing third-party developments, but he perfected them and "packaged them in an attractive wrapper." After his death, new Apple products, such as the Apple Watch, have not been revolutionary.
Steve Jobs presents the first iPad
Steve Jobs' Personal Life
Steve Jobs called Chrisann Brennan his first love. He met the hippie girl in 1972 after running away from their parents. Together, they studied Zen Buddhism, took LSD, and hitchhiked.
Steve Jobs' first love was Chrisann Brennan (in the photo with her daughter)
In 1978, Chrisann gave birth to their daughter Lisa, but Steve persistently denied paternity. A year later, a genetic test confirmed Jobs' relationship with his daughter, which required him to pay child support. The inventor rented a house in Palo Alto for Chrisann and Lisa and paid for the girl's education, but Steve only started communicating with her years later.
Steve Jobs and his daughter Lisa
In 1982, Jobs had an affair with folk singer Joan Baez, who was 14 years his senior. The relationship lasted three years, until Steve became infatuated with a young student named Tina Redse, with whom he had a brief fling.
Tina Redse, the most beautiful woman in Jobs' life, refused him
Later, Steve met the most beautiful woman in his life, as he himself said. Tina Redse was a computer consultant and was interested in hippie culture. Their romance lasted for four years, after which Jobs proposed, but she declined, and the couple split up.
At a lecture at the Stanford Business School in 1989, Steve accidentally met a banking employee named Laurene Powell. A year later, the young couple got married, and in 1991 they had a son named Reed. Laurene later gave birth to two daughters - Erin (1995) and Eve (1998).
Steve Jobs with his wife Laurene Powell and children
Illness and Death
In August 2004, doctors diagnosed Steve Jobs with pancreatic cancer, a disease that is difficult to treat. Typically, tumors in this location are considered inoperable, but Jobs was fortunate, in relative terms, to have a neuroendocrine tumor, which grows much slower and responds better to treatment; this occurs in one out of 20 cases.
Steve Jobs fought cancer for a long time
The doctors were hopeful—surgery and a treatment course would likely have put the disease into lasting remission. However, Jobs declined surgery, opting instead for treatment from Hindu gurus. Jobs did not want his body "cut open and poked around in." He treated his cancer with a vegetable diet, meditation, and acupuncture. Nine months later, he underwent a follow-up examination. The tumor had not only grown significantly but had also metastasized. Precious time had been lost.
Jobs underwent chemotherapy, but the tumor continued to grow. In 2009, Jobs had his liver, which was infected with cancer cells, completely removed and received a transplant. Immunosuppressive drugs were used to help his body accept the new liver, but this led to the metastases growing.
Despite the doctors continuing treatment and providing optimistic forecasts, in August 2011, the inventor resigned, and on October 5, 2011, Steve passed away from respiratory failure.
Steve Jobs is buried at Alta Mesa Cemetery in California
Legacy
After Steve's death, Tim Cook, the former COO, became the CEO of Apple. The company continues to thrive, releasing new models of smartphones, tablets, and computers.
In 2013, the film "Jobs: The Man in the Machine" was released, featuring Ashton Kutcher as Steve, depicting the inventor's college years. Two years later, the biographical drama "Steve Jobs" hit the theaters, starring Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet in the lead roles.
Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine - Official Trailer
His son Reed studied history at Stanford University and after graduating, joined the investment fund Emerson Collective, founded by his mother. Soon after, he established the Yosemite Fund, supporting new cancer research methods.
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