It is interesting to know that when his biological mother, Joanne Schieble, gave him up at birth, she insisted that the boy’s adopted parents pay for his college education. Neither his biological father, Syrian-born Abdulfattah Jandali, nor his mother ever tried to find their son. He later referred to them as his “sperm and egg bank” and said he considered Paul and Clara Jobs to be his real parents. However, realizing that he was smarter than his parents and the fact that he was adopted, “made him feel apart, detached and separate, from both his family and the world,” writes Walter Isaacson.
Aware that Jobs was intellectually special, his school suggested he skip two grades to keep him challenged and stimulated. Jobs, who was then finishing the fourth grade, believed that he was forced to memorize “stupid stuff.” He felt the same way when he went to Reed College. He did not attend the classes he was assigned but went to the ones he liked. Feeling guilty that his parents’ savings were being wasted on an education that was not worth it, he decided to stop paying tuition for the classes he didn’t like. The dean of students acknowledged that Jobs “had a very inquiring mind that was enormously attractive” and allowed him to audit classes and even remain in the dorms.
Jobs was influenced by a calligraphy class he took, which explains his fascination with the interaction between the arts and technology. “If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.”
To understand Jobs’ rise to fame, it is also important to note that he was deeply affected by the counterculture movement born in the San Francisco Bay area. In the early 1970s, Jobs, like many other students, became interested in personal fulfillment. He was particularly influenced by Eastern spirituality, especially Zen Buddhism, which continued to influence him throughout his life. He also became a vegetarian and started fasting regularly. At one point, he followed an extreme diet of fruit and starchless vegetables, which he believed would prevent mucus and body odor, even if he didn’t use a deodorant or wash regularly. As a result, for many years, Jobs was known for his body odor.
Jobs also happened to be in the right place, at the right time. He witnessed the wave of technological innovation that arrived with the invention of the microprocessor. After hanging around for 18 months, Jobs decides to return to his parents’ home and look for a job. This was not difficult because at the time, there was a profusion of technology-related jobs. Jobs immediately responded to a job vacancy ad to “Have fun, make money” and began working for the video game manufacturer Atari. Working for $5 an hour, he got his first chance to prove himself when Atari’s founder asked him to design a video game and offered a bonus for every chip fewer than 50 that he used. He asked his friend, Steve Wozniak, an electronics wiz, to help him. It took them only four days, instead of a few months and 45 chips!
The genial Wozniak came up with the idea of using a microprocessor and putting some of the capacity of the minicomputer inside the terminal itself. He suddenly had a vision of a system where the keyboard, screen and computer were integrated in an all-in-one package that would later be known as the personal computer. “That night, I started to sketch out on paper what would later become known as the Apple I,” Isaacson quotes Wozniak as saying.
Wozniak later acknowledged that it never crossed his mind to sell computers; that was Steve’s idea. The two friends started their own computer company with $1,300 in working capital. On April 1, 1976, they signed a partnership agreement, with Ron Wayne who had 10 percent of the shares while both, Jobs and Wozniak, held 45 percent of the shares. Wayne soon regretted his decision and 11 days later, decided to leave the company. Had he stayed on, his 10 percent stake would have been worth $2.6 billion at the end of 2010.
Apple I made way for Apple II, which was officially launched in April 1977 at the first West Coast Computer Fair. Apple got 300 orders. Its sales rose from 2,500 units in 1977 to 200,000 in 1981. Valued at $5,309 in 1977, Apple would be valued by the end of December 1980, at $1.79 billion. During those years, Jobs’ behavior became increasingly disruptive and there was a clash of visions, which culminated with the Macintosh. Jobs wanted an inexpensive product for the masses whereas John Sculley’s (Apple’s CEO) drive for profits came at the expense of gaining market share. Sculley clashed with Jobs and eventually ousted him from Apple in 1985.
Nolan Bushnell, the Atari founder who had been Job’s mentor 10 years earlier, told Time that Jobs would be sadly missed. On the other hand, Arthur Rock, an early Apple board member believed that: “The best thing ever to happen to Steve is when we fired him.” They were both right.
After Jobs left Apple, he founded two companies: Computer manufacturer NeXT and animation studio Pixar. Among many of Pixar’s productions was “Toy Story,” which was released in 1995 and went on to become the top-grossing film of the year. Time called it “the year’s most inventive comedy.” The following year, Apple acquired NeXT, but Jobs officially returned to the company he had founded in 1997 as a part-time adviser. However it was obvious from the start that Jobs was aiming to take control and not be a mere adviser.
Ten weeks after he came back to Apple, he gathered his top managers and staff in the Apple auditorium. “What we’re trying to do is not highfalutin. We’re trying to get back to the basics of great products, great marketing and great distribution. Apple has drifted away from doing the basics really well,” he said.
Jonathan Ive, a brilliant designer, was considering leaving Apple but after listening to Jobs insisting that Apple’s goal was not to make money but to make great products, he stayed on. “Ive and Jobs would soon forge a bond that would lead to the greatest industrial design collaboration of their era,” writes Isaacson. Together, they produced the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad among other devices. The “i” according to Jobs, highlights the fact that the devices are seamlessly integrated with the Internet. The devices’ slick design and user friendliness would set Apple apart and lead to its resounding success after Jobs’ return.
Success came at a price, however. Jobs believed that his cancer, diagnosed in 2003, was caused by the excessive work he had undertaken when he was running both Apple and Pixar. Soon after he learned of his cancer, he asked Isaacson to write his biography. At first, Isaacson refused, but he was baffled by Jobs’ persistence. Finally in 2009, Jobs’ wife Laurene Powell remarked bluntly: “If you’re ever going to do a book on Steve, you’d better do it now.” At the time, almost nobody knew he was sick.
Jobs always had an eye for talent. Isaacson, whose earlier works include biographies of Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, has written a superb biography, which shows Jobs in his true light. “Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius. His imaginative leaps were instinctive, unexpected and at times magical… thus Steve Jobs became the greatest business executive of our era, the one most certain to be remembered a century from now… with a ferocity that could make working with him as unsettling as it was inspiring, he also built the world’s most creative company. And he was able to infuse into its DNA the design sensibilities, perfectionism and imagination that make it likely to be, even decades from now, the company that thrives best at the intersection of artistry and technology.”
"Steve Jobs"
By Walter Isaacson
Published by Simon & Schuster
Hardback 627 pages
