Steve Jobs

NAME Steven Paul Jobs. He was widely known simply as Steve Jobs, and the name became synonymous with Apple and the personal computer revolution.

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Steve Jobs was an American businessman, inventor, and investor, best known as the co-founder and transformative CEO of Apple Inc. He oversaw the creation of some of the most influential consumer technology products of the modern era, including the Macintosh computer, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. He also founded NeXT, purchased the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm which became Pixar Animation Studios — responsible for Toy Story and dozens of other acclaimed films — and later joined the board of The Walt Disney Company. (1)

BIRTH Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco, California. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND Jobs was the biological son of Joanne Carole Schieble, an American of Swiss-German descent, and Dr. Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, a Syrian Muslim who was born in Homs, Syria, and was the youngest of nine siblings from a wealthy family.  Jandali had come to the United States to pursue a PhD in political science at the University of Wisconsin, where he met Schieble. The two faced opposition from Schieble's father due to Jandali's Muslim faith, and when she became pregnant, she arranged a closed adoption.

Jobs was adopted at birth by Paul Reinhold Jobs, an American of German descent who had worked as a mechanic and later as a car salesman and repossession agent, and his wife Clara Hagopian Jobs, of Armenian descent, who worked as a bookkeeper. 

Neither Paul nor Clara had a college education, and Schieble initially refused to sign the adoption papers, going to court to have the baby placed elsewhere, but relented after Paul and Clara promised to fund their son's college tuition. 

Jobs would bristle when anyone referred to Paul and Clara as his "adoptive parents," insisting they were his parents "1,000%." He referred to his biological parents dismissively as "my sperm and egg bank." (1)

As an adult, Jobs discovered he had a biological sister, novelist Mona Simpson, with whom he developed a close relationship. 

Jobs also visited his biological father's Mediterranean restaurant in San Jose, where the two reportedly shook hands without either realising who the other was — Jobs did not know it was his father, and his father did not know Jobs was the son he had given up for adoption. (2)

CHILDHOOD The Jobs family settled in the Monta Loma neighbourhood of Mountain View, California, and Paul built a workbench in the garage for his son to foster a love of mechanics. Steve had difficulty in a traditional classroom, resisted authority, misbehaved frequently, and was suspended several times. He was bullied at Crittenden Middle School in Mountain View, and eventually gave his parents an ultimatum: move him to a different school or he would drop out. The family stretched their finances to buy a new home in 1967 in Los Altos, California — at 2066 Crist Drive — which placed Steve in the Cupertino School District and later within reach of Homestead High School, a school with strong ties to Silicon Valley. 

At the age of 13, in 1968, Jobs cold-called Bill Hewlett of Hewlett-Packard to ask for electronic parts and ended up being given a summer job. It was at Homestead High that a mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, introduced Jobs to Steve Wozniak. 

By his senior year, Jobs was experimenting with LSD and developing twin passions for electronics and literature, reading Shakespeare and Plato. 

Jobs' Homestead High School yearbook photo, 1972

EDUCATION Jobs had a high school GPA of 2.65. 

 In September 1972, he enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he studied physics, literature, and poetry. After just one semester, he dropped out without telling his parents — partly because he did not want to spend their hard-earned money on an education that felt meaningless to him — but he stayed on campus for a further 18 months, sleeping on friends' floors and returning Coke bottles for food money, while auditing classes that interested him.  Among the courses he audited was a calligraphy class taught by Robert Palladino, which Jobs later credited as the reason Apple's computers featured such elegant multiple typefaces and proportionally spaced fonts. 

As a student, Jobs reportedly stopped showering regularly, believing a fruit-only diet had eliminated his body odour — a conviction his former colleagues firmly disputed. (2)

CAREER RECORD 1974, Worked as a technician for Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California. He was famously assigned to the night shift because his strong body odor—stemming from his belief that his diet eliminated the need for showers—disturbed his coworkers.

1976, Co-founded Apple Computer with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in his parents' garage on Crist Drive in Los Altos. They released the Apple I.

1984, Led the development and launch of the Macintosh, the first successful mass-market personal computer featuring a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI).

1985, Following a power struggle with CEO John Sculley and the Board of Directors, Jobs was forced out of Apple. He founded NeXT Inc. that same year.

1986, Purchased the Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm’s computer division for $10 million.

1997, Returned to Apple as a consultant after Apple purchased NeXT for $429 million. By July, he was named interim CEO (iCEO).

2000, Officially dropped the "interim" from his title and became the permanent CEO of Apple.

2001-2010, Oversaw a decade of unprecedented innovation, launching the iPod (2001), the iTunes Store (2003), the iPhone (2007), and the iPad (2010).

2011, Resigned as CEO on August 24 due to failing health, serving as Chairman of the Board until his death in October

APPEARANCE Jobs stood approximately 6 feet tall, with a lean, angular frame.  He was known for his piercing, intense gaze — colleagues described his stare as almost hypnotic — and in his later years he had a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. 

During his illness in his final years, he became notably gaunt. 

Steve Jobs shows at the 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference

FASHION Jobs is one of the most recognizable figures in modern fashion history precisely because of the rigid consistency of his wardrobe. While he dressed more conventionally early in his career, his personal style grew increasingly minimalist as his public profile expanded. By the early 1980s, he was regularly wearing a black turtleneck, and by the late 1990s, he had adopted it as a permanent uniform. 

This signature daily outfit consisted of a black mock turtleneck by Japanese designer Issey Miyake, Levi's 501 jeans, and New Balance sneakers. Jobs reportedly owned hundreds of these turtlenecks, adopting the look deliberately to eliminate the fatigue of daily decision-making and to physically embody his philosophy of focused simplicity. (4)

CHARACTER  Jobs was known for being extremely demanding, temperamental, and possessing a "reality distortion field"—a term used by colleagues to describe his ability to convince himself and others of almost anything through sheer charisma and persistence. 

He was famously dismissive of what he considered mediocre work, and could be brutal in delivering that verdict. He also had a capacity for great generosity: when a secretary was late to work because of car trouble, he reportedly gave her a Jaguar and said, "Don't be late anymore." (2) 

Jobs was a perfectionist who obsessed over details that users might never see, such as the neatness of a computer's internal circuit board.

SPEAKING VOICE Jobs was a celebrated public speaker with a calm, measured, and persuasive delivery — a voice that carried quiet authority rather than volume. He was a master of the dramatic pause and the simple declarative sentence. 

His product launch presentations at Apple were studied by communications experts worldwide as models of clarity and showmanship. 

His 2005 Stanford commencement address, in which he spoke about death and the importance of following one's own path, is regarded as one of the great speeches of the modern era.

SENSE OF HUMOUR Jobs had a dry, sardonic wit. A 1983 typed letter in which he politely declined an autograph request sold at auction for almost $479,939 — the joke being that, despite refusing to sign, the letter bore his signature at the bottom. (2) 

When asked how he planned to lure John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to run Apple, he famously challenged him: "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?" (1)

RELATIONSHIPS Jobs's first serious girlfriend was Chrisann Brennan, whom he met at Homestead High School; they had an on-and-off relationship from 1972 to 1977.  In 1978, Brennan gave birth to their daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, but Jobs initially denied paternity even after a DNA test confirmed it at 94.1% probability — he infamously argued that "28% of the male population could be the father."  He later reconciled with Lisa, though their relationship remained complicated, as Lisa documented in her 2019 memoir Small Fry. (3)

Jobs met his future wife, Laurene Powell, in 1989 at a lecture he gave at Stanford University. They married on March 18, 1991, in a ceremony officiated by Zen teacher Kobun Chino Otogawa, and together had three children: son Reed (born 1991), daughter Erin Siena (born 1995), and daughter Eve (born 1998). (5) 

Isaacson wrote that Laurene provided "an anchor for his personality." (6) 

Laurene Powell Jobs by Craig McDean - https://www.emersoncollective.com

Jobs had a particularly warm relationship with Reed, while his relationship with his daughters was more variable — he was often emotionally distant with Erin but admired Eve's strong will. (3)

Jobs had a notable relationship with folk singer Joan Baez, with whom he had a romantic involvement in the early 1980s; four of her albums appeared on his personal iPod. (7)

MONEY AND FAME By age 23, Jobs was worth over $1 million; by age 25, his net worth had grown to an estimated $250 million, making him one of the youngest people ever to appear on the Forbes list of the nation's richest people. When he died, he was worth approximately $8.3 billion — and the majority of that wealth came from his shareholding in Disney, not Apple. Jobs drew an annual salary of only $1 from Apple as CEO. (2)

In 2012, an Italian clothing company called "Steve Jobs" was created after its founders discovered that Apple had never trademarked Jobs's name. (2)

FOOD AND DRINK Jobs was a committed fruitarian — he ate predominantly fruit, along with some nuts and grains. His extreme dietary beliefs led him as a young man to stop showering, convinced that a fruit-only diet had eliminated his body odour; his colleagues strongly disagreed. 

Jobs later adopted a vegan diet and maintained the same conviction about deodorant being unnecessary — again to the discomfort of those around him. 

His dietary habits were among the factors that may have complicated his health in his later years; some medical commentators have noted that his initial decision to pursue juice cleanses and alternative remedies rather than scientifically proven treatments for his cancer may have cost him critical time. (2)

MUSIC AND ARTS  Jobs's musical tastes were rooted in the rock and folk of the 1960s and '70s. His biographer Walter Isaacson wrote: "His iPod selections were those of a kid from the '70s with his heart in the '60s." (8) 

His favourite musical artist was Bob Dylan, of whom he called "one of my heroes," and his iPod contained over a dozen Dylan albums. (7) 

Jobs' favourite band was The Beatles — he once said: "If the vault was on fire and I could grab only one set of master tapes, I would grab the Beatles." (8) 

His iPod also contained music from the Rolling Stones (six albums), Joan Baez, and the Grateful Dead. (7)

Jobs had a profound love of calligraphy, which he had studied at Reed College and which he directly credited as the inspiration for Apple's beautiful typefaces. He worked closely with British designer Jony Ive at Apple, and their shared aesthetic sensibility — elegant, minimal, and purposeful — defined the visual culture of their products. He also had a deep appreciation for Japanese art and maintained a lifelong admiration for artists such as woodblock print artist Hasui Kawase. 

LITERATURE Jobs was a voracious reader with broad literary tastes. At Homestead High he read Shakespeare and Plato and had a phenomenal AP English class that he remembered with great warmth. His biographer Walter Isaacson reports that among his favourite books were Be Here Now by Ram Dass, Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé, King Lear by Shakespeare, and the works of William Blake. 

Jobs was deeply influenced by Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. Jobs encouraged Isaacson to speak to people honestly about him and insisted on no editorial control over the biography except its cover design; he also waived his right to read it before publication. (2)

NATURE Jobs spent time in the early 1970s at the All One Farm commune in Oregon, owned by his friend Robert Friedland, and it was there — working among apple orchards — that the name "Apple" for the company originated. 

He had a deep aesthetic appreciation for simplicity in natural forms, which fed directly into his product design philosophy. His Zen practice reinforced a contemplative relationship with the natural world.

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Jobs was an avid walker and held important business meetings while walking, convinced that physical movement stimulated clearer thinking.  He was known to go on long walks when working through problems. 

Image by Perplexity

He had a passion for calligraphy, Zen meditation, and music. He also showed an early interest in electronics as a hobby, which evolved into his career.

COMPUTER INNOVATIONS When Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, the company began in the now-traditional manner for Silicon Valley legends: in a garage, with little money, uncertain prospects and a product that looked as if it had been assembled from spare parts found behind a radio shop. Wozniak was the engineering wizard who designed the Apple I. Jobs was the one who looked at it and thought, in effect, "People might actually buy this."

That instinct proved rather useful. The Apple II, launched in 1977, became one of the first mass-produced microcomputers and helped transform computing from a hobby pursued by men in sheds into something that could plausibly sit on an ordinary desk.

Jobs had an uncanny knack for spotting possibilities that others overlooked. After visiting Xerox PARC in 1979, he became fascinated by its mouse-controlled graphical interface. At the time, most computers communicated with users in a manner that suggested a strained conversation with an irritated filing cabinet. Jobs recognised that people might prefer clicking on pictures instead. The idea led first to the Lisa and then to the Macintosh 128K in 1984, the first mass-produced computer with a graphical user interface, and a machine so influential that it effectively launched the desktop publishing industry.

His return to Apple in 1997 marked one of the more spectacular corporate comebacks in business history. Under Jobs' leadership, Apple introduced a succession of products—the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone and iPad—that didn't merely succeed in their markets but often rearranged them entirely. It takes a special kind of company to redefine one industry; Apple managed several before lunch.

Jobs' influence extended beyond Apple. At NeXT, the company he founded after leaving Apple, he oversaw the development of an operating system so robust that it later became the foundation of modern macOS when Apple acquired NeXT. Meanwhile, at Pixar, he helped shepherd Toy Story into cinemas in 1995, giving the world its first fully computer-animated feature film and proving that audiences would happily cry over digital toys.

By the time of his death in 2011, Jobs had been named as an inventor or co-inventor on 342 United States patents. With posthumous grants included, the total exceeds 450—a reminder that while he was not always the person inventing things, he possessed a remarkable talent for recognising which inventions might change the world, and then insisting, often relentlessly, that they do.

Jobs holds up a MacBook Air at the 2008 MacWorld Conference & Expo.by Matthew Yohe

SCIENCE AND MATHS Jobs was not a scientist or engineer in the technical sense — he once described himself as standing "at the intersection of humanities and sciences." He had a gift for intuiting what technology could become rather than how it worked. His approach to product development was driven by aesthetics, simplicity, and user experience rather than pure engineering. He was, however, deeply interested in physics at Reed College.

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1990 using a NeXT computer, one of Jobs's most significant indirect contributions to science. 

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Jobs was raised Lutheran but in his teens became drawn to Eastern mysticism. In 1974, he travelled to India for seven months, visiting ashrams and seeking spiritual enlightenment, accompanied by his Reed College friend Daniel Kottke. On returning to the United States, he became a devoted practitioner of Soto Zen Buddhism under the guidance of Japanese Zen master Kōbun Chino Otogawa, the teacher who later officiated at his wedding.

He undertook lengthy meditation retreats at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in California and considered taking up monastic residence in Japan. 

Zen principles — emptiness, simplicity, the removal of the unnecessary, and mindfulness — permeated his design philosophy and working methods throughout his life. (9) 

He once said: "Remembering that you'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life." (1)

POLITICS Jobs was a Democrat and had connections to Democratic political figures in Silicon Valley. He was briefly a member of the board of directors at Gap Inc. from 1999 to 2002. 

He met President Barack Obama and participated in a dinner of technology leaders with him in 2011, at which Jobs reportedly told Obama that he was "headed for a one-term presidency" due to his perceived anti-business stance. 

Jobs was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Biden in 2022. 

Jobs and his Pixar team visited the Oval Office in 1998.

SCANDAL Jobs's denial of paternity for his daughter Lisa Brennan, despite DNA test results, was widely reported and caused lasting damage to his reputation as a father and a man. 

His treatment of early business partner Steve Wozniak — secretly pocketing the lion's share of an Atari bonus that should have been split equally — was only revealed to Wozniak a decade after the fact. (

His decision at Atari to mislead Wozniak about the size of their shared bonus was characterised by Isaacson as an early example of Jobs's willingness to deceive even those closest to him when it suited his interests. (1)

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour. He initially chose to treat it with alternative therapies — including juice cleanses, acupuncture, and dietary interventions — rather than surgery, a delay that he later acknowledged was one of his greatest regrets, as it may have cost him a chance at survival. He eventually underwent surgery and, in 2009, received a liver transplant. 

In his final illness, he reportedly refused to wear an oxygen mask because he disliked its design. (2)

HOMES Jobs grew up in the family home at 2066 Crist Drive, Los Altos, California — the same garage in which Apple Computer was founded in 1976, and which was designated a historic site in 2013. 

The childhood family home of Steve Jobs on Crist Drive in Los Altos by Mathieu Thouvenin 

In 1982, Jobs purchased a two-floor apartment at The San Remo in Manhattan, a building with a politically progressive reputation, which he never actually lived in and spent years renovating with architect I. M. Pei. 

In 1984, he bought the Jackling House, a large estate in Woodside, California, where he lived for approximately a decade before allowing it to fall into disrepair; it was eventually demolished in 2011, shortly before his death. 

For the last two decades of his life, his primary residence was a seven-bedroom English Tudor-style house on Waverley Street, Palo Alto. (10)

TRAVEL In 1974, Jobs travelled to India for seven months, visiting ashrams and seeking spiritual enlightenment. He later travelled to Japan, where he deepened his engagement with Zen Buddhism and developed his aesthetic appreciation for Japanese design and cuisine. (

As a young man at Apple, he travelled extensively to build the company's global reach, and during his years at NeXT he continued to travel widely for business.

DEATH Steve Jobs died at his home on Waverley Street, Palo Alto, California, at approximately 3 p.m. on October 5, 2011, from respiratory arrest caused by complications from a relapse of pancreatic cancer. He was 56 years old. 

His last words were reported to be: "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow." 

Bill Gates wrote Jobs a letter as he lay dying; Jobs was moved by it and kept it by his bed. (

Jobs is buried in an unmarked grave at Alta Mesa Memorial Park, the only non-denominational cemetery in Palo Alto, where he rests alongside his parents and technology pioneers such as David Packard. (2)

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Walter Isaacson's authorised biography, Steve Jobs, was published on October 24, 2011, just 19 days after his death. Jobs had encouraged interviewees to speak frankly, asked for no editorial control over the content — only the cover design — and waived his right to read it before publication. (2) 

The 2013 film Jobs starred Ashton Kutcher as Jobs. The 2015 film Steve Jobs, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle, starred Michael Fassbender. 

Jobs has appeared as a character in numerous documentaries, including Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999), in which he was played by Noah Wyle. 

Jobs's own product launches, especially the 2007 iPhone reveal, have been widely broadcast and studied as landmark moments of modern media presentation.

ACHIEVEMENTS Co-founded Apple Computer Company (1976), which became the world's most valuable publicly traded company. 

Oversaw the invention of the Macintosh (1984), the first mass-produced personal computer with a graphical user interface. 

Founded NeXT (1985), whose technology became the foundation of modern Apple operating systems. 

Built Pixar into a world-leading animation studio, producing multiple Academy Award-winning films including Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and WALL-E. 

Oversaw the creation of the iPod (2001), iPhone (2007), and iPad (2010), transforming the music, mobile telephone, and computing industries respectively. 

Was listed as inventor or co-inventor on over 450 US patents.

Was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2022)

Sources: (1) Wikipedia — Steve Jobs (2) Encyclopaedia of Trivia — Steve Jobs (3) All About Steve Jobs — Steve at Home (4) Apple Scoop — Why Did Steve Jobs Wear the Same Outfit Every Day? (5) The Celebrity Families — Steve Jobs' Relationships with Children (6) Shortform — Steve Jobs's Personal Life (7) Rob D. Kelly — Steve Jobs's Personal iPod (8) Far Out Magazine — The Music Steve Jobs Used to Achieve Greatness (9) The Vintage News — How Zen Buddhism Inspired Steve Jobs (10) Realestate.com.au — Steve Jobs' Fortune and Properties