The death of Steve Jobs shook the tech industry to its very core. Many Apple enthusiasts and even those who prefer other companies have looked towards this man for inspiration. However, his fame and success were preceded and accompanied by many details that not everyone may know. We’ll discuss a few of these below so you can better understand the man and his life:
Adoption
The biological father of Steve Jobs was a Syrian named Abdulfattah Jandali, who came to the University of Wisconsin. There he met Jobs’ biological mother, Joanne Shielbe. They were both around the age of 23 when Jobs was conceived, and both decided they were too young to settle down and marry. AT that time, raising a child without a marriage wasn’t the norm, so they decided to place the baby with adoptive parents Paul and Clara.
There was one stipulation to the adoption, though. The biological parents took a promise from the adoptive couple that they would send the child to college when he grew up.
Bullying
While Steve Jobs is one of the most brilliant men in history, he was severely bullied for petty reasons in middle school. He attended Crittenden Middle school and supposedly didn’t fit in well there at all. Even back then, Jobs was showing signs of brilliance and knew how to take charge. Hence, he told his parents that he will drop out if they didn’t agree to move to a new area.
The result was that the whole family moved to Los Altos, California. This later became famous as Apple’s birthplace. It was also the place where Jobs and Bill Fernandez met. The latter was an engineer who introduced Jobs to Steve Wozniak, later the co-founder of Apple.
Religion
While many of the greatest entrepreneurs may have been atheist, Steve Jobs identified as a Zen Buddhist. In 1974, he took off from his job with Atari, a well-known video game and electronics company then (responsible for probably the first computer game, Pong). Jobs then visited India and stayed there for a whole seven months. He gained a lot of spiritual enlightenment in that time.
When he finally returned, Jobs continued meditating. He was also a pescatarian, which means someone who eats fish, but otherwise a vegetarian. He would also prefer to walk barefoot. This showed that he had a goal and a life other than that of electronics, technol0gy, and working on his company. Perhaps it was this solace that gave him the focus of developing Apple.
Dropping Out
While Jobs’ parents did fulfill their promise and sent him to college, Jobs followed the lead of many other geniuses by dropping out of college. He attended Reed College, Oregon, but dropped out due to not feeling right about using Paul and Clara’s money. However, he did take some extra classes, which indeed calligraphy among other interests.
This is an interesting fact, as Jobs later attributed that class to his inspiration for the typefaces and neatly spaced fonts on the Mac. He mentioned this in 2005, giving the commencement Speech in Stanford University.
Psychedelics
Jobs was no stranger to experimentation, so it’s only logical that he should have tried out LSD from time to time. He found the experience to be quite profound and illuminating, even claiming that it helped him to think more clearly and in a different manner than usual.
Ripping Off Wozniak
Jobs may have been brilliant, but he had his weaknesses and even scammed his partner at least once. This was when he still worked at Atari. Here, Jobs was asked to make the circuit board for Breakout, a video game the company was working on.
Since Jobs wanted to use fewer TTL chips, taking help from Wozniak in this area. He told Wozniak that he would split the profits evenly with him. While Atari gave Jobs around $5,000 for the job, the latter told his partner that he got only $700. Wozniak had a right to $2,500 but only received $750.
Firing
Jobs also faced betrayal and backstabbing during his lifetime as well. One noted example was by John Sculley, a Pepsi executive. After Jobs recruited Sculley into Apple, the latter told Apple’s board that Jobs was far too young to have a position in the company. consequently, Jobs was fired, but he still kept on working.
The next Jobs project was something called the NeXT computer. While it may have performed well for the time, it was quite expensive. Thus, sales were low and it’s doubtful he made a profit.
Return to Apple
Yet another twist resulting in Apple actually buying out the NeXT stock. Combining that hardware with the name of Apple is what brought us the iOS we now use for the modern-day iPhone.
The main upside to this was that Jobs was a part of apple again. As it turned out, of course, this move was the best one for the company after all.
Youngest on Forbes Lists
The huge success of Steve Jobs catapulted him onto several Forbes lists. He was not just good at what he did, but also made a lot of money through his eff9rts. Hence, he was in the 17th position of Forbes Most Powerful People in the year 2010. He also got the 39th position in the Forbes 400 richest people list in the year 2011, and the 110th on the list of Billionaires in the same year. He was among the youngest people on all these lists, which is quite an achievement.
Steve Jobs’ success meant that he made it on a number of Forbes lists. He was number 17 on most powerful people in 2010, 39 on the Forbes 400 rich list in 2011, and 110 on Billionaires in 2011.
Pixar
Many people might still not know this, but Jobs was actually a co-founder of Pixar, the animation company. It’s best known for turning out animated movies for children, such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, etc. In hindsight, this fact makes a lot of sense, as it requires advanced technology to create such graphics. Jobs held the majority of stock for this company, which was originally called Graphics group.
Conclusion
The biopic of Steve Jobs was released back in 2015, with excellent ratings and a great reception. The movie is worth watching for any who’s a fan of great entrepreneurs and technology. In any case, Steve Jobs certainly led a remarkable, full, and interesting life. It’s worth taking lessons from his personality and endeavors, as few people achieve so much in one lifetime. His efforts, method of working, and refusal to give up are certainly an inspiration for us all.