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‘Steve Jobs’: 10 Biography Excerpts That Portray a Passionate, Intense Visionary

It’s nearly impossible to shrink down Steve Jobs’s legacy into mere sentences, but Walter Isaacson’s comprehensive biography of the Apple chief somehow manages to do so in 571 pages. Isaacson (TIME’s former managing editor) weaves together the story of a brilliant but heady, innovative but volatile leader. Here are Isaacson’s 10 best brushstrokes in his painting of Steve Jobs.

On Persuasion

“It was not merely intelligence that [Jobs’s fourth-grade teacher Mrs. Hill] saw. Years later she liked to show off a picture of that year’s class on Hawaii Day. Jobs has shown up without the suggested Hawaiian shirt, but in the picture he is front and center wearing one. He had, literally, been able to talk the shirt off another kid’s back.”

On Personality

“Jobs’s craziness was of the cultivated sort. […] He learned to stare at people without blinking, and he perfected long silences punctuated by staccato bursts of fast talking. This odd mix of intensity and aloofness, combined with his shoulder-length hair and scraggly beard, gave him the aura of a crazed shaman. He oscillated between charismatic and creepy.”

( PHOTOS : The World Mourns Steve Jobs )

Kimberly White / Reuters

On Criticism

“Jobs did not wear his growing responsibilities gracefully. He had always been temperamental and bratty. At Atari his behavior had caused him to be banished to the night shift, but at Apple that was not possible. ‘He became increasingly tyrannical and sharp in his criticism,’ according to [Apple’s first chairman Mike] Markkula. ‘He would tell people, ‘That design looks like s–t.’”

On Efficiency

“Jobs had been referring to computers as a bicycle for the mind; the ability of humans to create a bicycle allowed them to move more efficiently than even a condor, and likewise the ability to create computers would multiply the efficiency of their minds. So one day Jobs decreed that henceforth the Macintosh should be known instead as the Bicycle. This did not go over well.”

On Independence

“Another of Jobs’s maxims […] was ‘It’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy.’ He wanted to instill a rebel spirit in his team, to have them behave like swashbucklers who were proud of their work but willing to commandeer from others.”

( PHOTOS : The Creative Vision of Steve Jobs )

On Distinction

“Ever since he left the Apple commune, Jobs had defined himself, and by extension Apple, as a child of the counterculture. […] ‘Steve created the only lifestyle brand in the tech industry,’ Larry Ellison said. ‘There are cars people are proud to have — Porsche, Ferrari, Prius — because what I drive says something about me. People feel the same way about an Apple product.'”

Author Walter Isaacson (Screenshot / CBS News)

On Cohesiveness

“The connection between the design of a product, its essence, and its manufacturing was illustrated for Jobs and [Apple’s chief designer Jony] Ive when they were traveling in France and went into a kitchen supply store. Ive picked up a knife he admired, but then put it down in disappointment. Jobs did the same. ‘We both noticed a tiny bit of glue between the handle and the blade,’ Ive recalled. They talked about how the knife’s good design had been ruined by the way it was manufactured.”

On Selectivity

“When it came time to launch the iPhone, Jobs decided, as usual, to grant a magazine a special sneak preview…He wanted to give TIME the exclusive, ‘but there’s nobody smart enough at TIME to write it, so I’m going to give it to someone else.'” (The article indeed ended up being written by TIME’s Lev Grossman ).

“He could taste two avocados that most mortals would find indistinguishable, and declare that one was the best avocado ever grown and the other inedible.”

On Leadership

“’I’m disappointed in Obama,’ he said. ‘He’s having trouble leading because he’s reluctant to offend people or piss them off.’ He caught what I was thinking and assented with a little smile: ‘Yes, that’s not a problem I ever had.'”

–by Terri Pous and Nick Carbone

WATCH : Bill Clinton Reflects on Steve Jobs

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Key excerpts from Steve Jobs' biography

A new biography of late Apple Inc co-founder Steve Jobs hit book-shelves on Monday, offering arguably the most comprehensive, insightful look to date at the life and times of the revered technology visionary.

Below are excerpts from the tome, penned by Walter Isaacson, relating to Apple and Jobs' sometimes stormy, often difficult relationship with Silicon Valley, partners and rivals, and how Jobs communicated his key business beliefs.

JOBS' RESIGNATION AS CEO:

Jobs was wheeled into a board meeting on August 24, 2011, the day he handed Apple's reins to Tim Cook.

As Jobs' health deteriorated, he wrestled with the decision for weeks, discussing it with his wife, board member Bill Campbell, design chief Jonathan Ive and attorney George Riley.

When he finally made up his mind, arrangements were made to have him driven to 1 Infinite Loop and wheeled into the boardroom as secretly as possible.

"One of the things I wanted to do for Apple was to set an example of how do you transfer power right," Jobs told Isaacson. He added later that evening that his hope was to remain as active as his health allowed.

MAKING AN ENEMY OUT OF GOOGLE INC:

Isaacson's account of Jobs' blow-up over Google's entry into the smartphone market underscores the subsequent animosity he bore toward one-time Apple board member Eric Schmidt.

Jobs felt betrayed because Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had treated him very much as a mentor. In 2008, he got into a shouting match with the pair, as well as with Android chief Andy Rubin, at Google's headquarters.

Jobs had offered Google an icon or two on the iPhone's home page; but in January 2010, HTC released a phone with multi-touch and other iPhone-like features that prompted Jobs to sue.

"Our lawsuit is saying, 'Google, you fucking ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off.' Grand theft. I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm willing to go to thermonuclear war on this," Jobs told Isaacson the week after the suit was filed.

"They are scared to death, because they know they are guilty. Outside of Search, Google's products -- Android, Google Docs -- are shit."

Schmidt met with Jobs for coffee days later, but Jobs remained enraged and nothing was resolved.

"We've got you red-handed," Jobs told Schmidt. "I'm not interested in settling. I don't want your money, If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android."

ON APPLE'S INTEGRATED APPROACH:

Jobs' infuriation stemmed partly from a fundamental conflict between Android's open-source approach and his own belief in a closed, carefully controlled ecosystem.

"We do these things not because we are control freaks," he said.

Addressing users' concerns, he said: "They are busy doing whatever it is they do best, and they want us to do what we do best. Their lives are crowded; they have other things to do than think about how to integrate their computers and devices."

"Look at the results -- Android's a mess .... We do it not to make money. We do it because we want to make great products, not crap like Android."

FLASH TIRADE GOT PERSONAL

Jobs' well-known tirade against Adobe Systems Inc's Flash multimedia software may have had its roots in the 1980s. Apple had invested in Adobe in 1985 and they collaborated to popularize desktop publishing.

But in 1999, Jobs -- after returning to Apple -- had asked Adobe to make its video-editing software available for the new iMac but the company refused, focusing instead on Microsoft Windows. Soon after, founder John Warnock retired.

"I helped put Adobe on the map," Jobs told Isaacson. "The soul of Adobe disappeared when Warnock left. He was the inventor, the person I related to. It's been a bunch of suits since then, and the company has turned out crap."

APPLE'S CONTROL OVER APPS, AND CENSORSHIP

Isaacson describes an exchange with Ryan Tate, editor of the tech gossip site Valleywag, that offers glimpses into Jobs' steadfast belief in carefully curating the types of applications available for downloading on the iPhone.

Tate emailed Jobs decrying Apple's heavy-handedness and asked: "If (Bob) Dylan was 20 today, how would he feel about your company .... Would he think the iPad had the faintest thing to do with 'revolution'? Revolutions are about freedom."

According to Tate, Jobs replied after midnight: "Yep ... freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin', and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is."

When Tate mentioned pornography was just fine with him and his wife, Jobs got snarky. "You might care about porn when you have kids. ... By the way, what have you done that's so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others' work and belittle their motivations."

Tate told Isaacson he was impressed by Jobs' willingness to spar one-on-one with bloggers and customers.

ANTENNAGATE ... AND REED

"Antennagate" -- a faulty iPhone 4 antenna design that caused occasional dropped calls -- received a mountain of publicity, and Jobs came out publicly to acknowledge the mistake and announce a fix. But one little-known incident came to light in Isaacson's book.

Jobs, alerted to the possible defect while in Hawaii, first became defensive, then anguished in a conversation with director Art Levinson. Jobs brushed him off. But where Levinson failed, then-COO Tim Cook prevailed -- by quoting someone as saying Apple was becoming the new Microsoft.

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Steve Jobs: The Story Of The Man Behind The Personal Computer

The Apple founder spoke with Fresh Air's Terry Gross in 1996. Later, after he was diagnosed with cancer, Jobs asked Walter Isaacson to write his biography. Isaacson spoke to Fresh Air Oct. 25, 2011.

Hear The Original Interview

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Jobs' biography: thoughts on life, death and apple.

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Key Excerpts From Steve Jobs’ Biography

Journalist and author Walter Isaacson’s biography of the late Apple Co-Founder Steve Jobs went on sale Monday. Here are some key excerpts from the book.

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In 1976, Steve Jobs cofounded Apple Computer Inc. with Steve Wozniak. Under Jobs’ guidance, the company pioneered a series of revolutionary technologies, including the iPhone and iPad.

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Quick Facts

Steve jobs’ parents and adoption, early life and education, founding and leaving apple computer inc., creating next, steve jobs and pixar, returning to and reinventing apple, wife and children, pancreatic cancer diagnosis and health challenges, death and last words, movies and book about steve jobs, who was steve jobs.

Steve Jobs was an American inventor, designer, and entrepreneur who was the cofounder, chief executive, and chairman of Apple Inc. Born in 1955 to two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave him up for adoption, Jobs was smart but directionless, dropping out of college and experimenting with different pursuits before cofounding Apple with Steve Wozniak in 1976. Jobs left the company in 1985, launching Pixar Animation Studios, then returned to Apple more than a decade later. The tech giant’s revolutionary products, which include the iPhone, iPad, and iPod, have dictated the evolution of modern technology. Jobs died in 2011 following a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

FULL NAME: Steven Paul Jobs BORN: February 24, 1955 DIED: October 5, 2011 BIRTHPLACE: San Francisco, California SPOUSE: Laurene Powell (1991-2011) CHILDREN: Lisa, Reed, Erin, and Eve ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Pisces

Steve Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco to Joanne Schieble (later Joanne Simpson) and Abdulfattah “John” Jandali, two University of Wisconsin graduate students. The couple gave up their unnamed son for adoption. As an infant, Jobs was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs and named Steven Paul Jobs. Clara worked as an accountant, and Paul was a Coast Guard veteran and machinist.

Jobs’ biological father, Jandali, was a Syrian political science professor. His biological mother, Schieble, worked as a speech therapist. Shortly after Jobs was placed for adoption, his biological parents married and had another child, Mona Simpson. It was not until Jobs was 27 that he was able to uncover information on his biological parents.

Jobs lived with his adoptive family in Mountain View, California, within the area that would later become known as Silicon Valley. He was curious from childhood, sometimes to his detriment. According to the BBC’s Science Focus magazine, Jobs was taken to the emergency room twice as a toddler—once after sticking a pin into an electrical socket and burning his hand, and another time because he had ingested poison. His mother Clara had taught him to read by the time he started kindergarten.

As a boy, Jobs and his father worked on electronics in the family garage. Paul showed his son how to take apart and reconstruct electronics, a hobby that instilled confidence, tenacity, and mechanical prowess in young Jobs.

Although Jobs was always an intelligent and innovative thinker, his youth was riddled with frustrations over formal schooling. Jobs was a prankster in elementary school due to boredom, and his fourth-grade teacher needed to bribe him to study. Jobs tested so well, however, that administrators wanted to skip him ahead to high school—a proposal that his parents declined.

While attending Homestead High School, Jobs joined the Explorer’s Club at Hewlett-Packard. It was there that he saw a computer for the first time. He even picked up a summer job with HP after calling company cofounder Bill Hewlett to ask for parts for a frequency counter he was building. It was at HP that a teenaged Jobs met he met his future partner and cofounder of Apple Computer Steve Wozniak , who was attending the University of California, Berkeley.

After high school, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Lacking direction, he withdrew from college after six months and spent the next year and a half dropping in on creative classes at the school. Jobs later recounted how one course in calligraphy developed his love of typography.

In 1974, Jobs took a position as a video game designer with Atari. Several months later, he left the company to find spiritual enlightenment in India, traveling further and experimenting with psychedelic drugs.

In 1976, when Jobs was just 21, he and Wozniak started Apple Computer Inc. in the Jobs’ family garage. Jobs sold his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak his beloved scientific calculator to fund their entrepreneurial venture. Through Apple, the men are credited with revolutionizing the computer industry by democratizing the technology and making machines smaller, cheaper, intuitive, and accessible to everyday consumers.

Wozniak conceived of a series of user-friendly personal computers, and—with Jobs in charge of marketing—Apple initially marketed the computers for $666.66 each. The Apple I earned the corporation around $774,000. Three years after the release of Apple’s second model, the Apple II, the company’s sales increased exponentially to $139 million.

In 1980, Apple Computer became a publicly-traded company, with a market value of $1.2 billion by the end of its first day of trading. However, the next several products from Apple suffered significant design flaws, resulting in recalls and consumer disappointment. IBM suddenly surpassed Apple in sales, and Apple had to compete with an IBM/PC-dominated business world.

Jobs looked to marketing expert John Sculley of Pepsi-Cola to take over the role of CEO for Apple in 1983. The next year, Apple released the Macintosh, marketing the computer as a piece of a counterculture lifestyle: romantic, youthful, creative. But despite positive sales and performance superior to IBM’s PCs, the Macintosh was still not IBM-compatible.

Sculley believed Jobs was hurting Apple, and the company’s executives began to phase him out. Not actually having had an official title with the company he cofounded, Jobs was pushed into a more marginalized position and left Apple in 1985.

After leaving Apple in 1985, Jobs personally invested $12 million to begin a new hardware and software enterprise called NeXT Inc. The company introduced its first computer in 1988, with Jobs hoping it would appeal to universities and researchers. But with a base price of $6,500, the machine was far out of the range of most potential buyers.

The company’s operating system NeXTSTEP fared better, with programmers using it to develop video games like Quake and Doom . Tim Berners-Lee, who created the first web browser, used an NeXT computer. However, the company struggled to appeal to mainstream America, and Apple eventually bought the company in 1996 for $429 million.

In 1986, Jobs purchased an animation company from George Lucas , which later became Pixar Animation Studios. Believing in Pixar’s potential, Jobs initially invested $50 million of his own money in the company.

The studio went on to produce wildly popular movies such as Toy Story (1995), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Cars (2006), and Up (2009) . Pixar merged with Disney in 2006, which made Jobs the largest shareholder of Disney. As of June 2022, Pixar films had collectively grossed $14.7 billion at the global box office.

In 1997, Jobs returned to his post as Apple’s CEO. Just as Jobs instigated Apple’s success in the 1970s, he is credited with revitalizing the company in the 1990s.

With a new management team, altered stock options, and a self-imposed annual salary of $1 a year, Jobs put Apple back on track. Jobs’ ingenious products like the iMac, effective branding campaigns, and stylish designs caught the attention of consumers once again.

In the ensuing years, Apple introduced such revolutionary products as the Macbook Air, iPod, and iPhone, all of which dictated the evolution of technology. Almost immediately after Apple released a new product, competitors scrambled to produce comparable technologies. To mark its expanded product offerings, the company officially rebranded as Apple Inc. in 2007.

Apple’s quarterly reports improved significantly that year: Stocks were worth $199.99 a share—a record-breaking number at that time—and the company boasted a staggering $1.58 billion profit, an $18 billion surplus in the bank, and zero debt.

In 2008, fueled by iTunes and iPod sales, Apple became the second-biggest music retailer in America behind Walmart. Apple has also been ranked No. 1 on Fortune ’s list of America’s Most Admired Companies, as well as No. 1 among Fortune 500 companies for returns to shareholders.

Apple has released dozens of versions of the iPhone since its 2007 debut. In February 2023, an unwrapped first generation phone sold at auction for more than $63,000.

According to Forbes , Jobs’ net worth peaked at $8.3 billion shortly before he died in 2011. Celebrity Net Worth estimates it was as high as $10.2 billion.

Apple hit a market capitalization of $3 trillion in January 2022, meaning Jobs’ initial stake in the company from 1980 would have been worth about $330 billion—enough to comfortably make him the richest person in the world over Tesla founder Elon Musk had he been alive. But according to the New York Post , Jobs sold off all but one of his Apple shares when he left the company in 1985.

Most of Jobs’ net worth came from a roughly 8 percent share in Disney he acquired when he sold Pixar in 2006. Based on Disney’s 2022 value, that share—which he passed onto his wife—is worth $22 billion.

Jobs and Laurene Powell married on March 18, 1991. The pair met in the early 1990s at Stanford business school, where Powell was an MBA student. They lived together in Palo Alto with their three children: Reed (born September 22, 1991), Erin (born August 19, 1995), and Eve (born July 9, 1998).

Jobs also fathered a daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, with girlfriend Chrisann Brennan on May 17, 1978, when he was 23. He denied paternity of his daughter in court documents, claiming he was sterile. In her memoir Small Fry , Lisa wrote DNA tests revealed that she and Jobs were a match in 1980, and he was required to begin making paternity payments to her financially struggling mother. Jobs didn’t initiate a relationship with his daughter until she was 7 years old. When she was a teenager, Lisa came to live with her father. In 2011, Jobs said , “I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, such as getting my girlfriend pregnant when I was 23 and the way I handled that.”

In 2003, Jobs discovered that he had a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare but operable form of pancreatic cancer. Instead of immediately opting for surgery, Jobs chose to alter his pesco-vegetarian diet while weighing Eastern treatment options.

For nine months, Jobs postponed surgery, making Apple’s board of directors nervous. Executives feared that shareholders would pull their stock if word got out that the CEO was ill. But in the end, Jobs’ confidentiality took precedence over shareholder disclosure.

In 2004, Jobs had successful surgery to remove the pancreatic tumor. True to form, Jobs disclosed little about his health in subsequent years.

Early in 2009, reports circulated about Jobs’ weight loss, some predicting his health issues had returned, which included a liver transplant. Jobs responded to these concerns by stating he was dealing with a hormone imbalance. Days later, he went on a six-month leave of absence.

In an email message to employees, Jobs said his “health-related issues are more complex” than he thought, then named Tim Cook , Apple’s then–chief operating officer, as “responsible for Apple’s day-today operations.”

After nearly a year out of the spotlight, Jobs delivered a keynote address at an invite-only Apple event on September 9, 2009. He continued to serve as master of ceremonies, which included the unveiling of the iPad, throughout much of 2010.

In January 2011, Jobs announced he was going on medical leave. In August, he resigned as CEO of Apple, handing the reins to Cook.

Jobs died at age 56 in his home in Palo Alto, California, on October 5, 2011. His official cause of death was listed as respiratory arrest related to his years-long battle with pancreatic cancer.

The New York Times reported that in his final weeks, Jobs had become so weak that he struggled to walk up the stairs in his home. Still, he was able to say goodbye to some of his longtime colleagues, including Disney CEO Bob Iger; speak with his biographer; and offer advice to Apple executives about the unveiling of the iPhone 4S.

In a eulogy for Jobs , sister Mona Simpson wrote that just before dying, Jobs looked for a long time at his sister, Patty, then his wife and children, then past them, and said his last words: “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

Jobs’ closest family and friends remembered him at a small gathering, then on October 16, a funeral for Jobs was held on the campus of Stanford University. Notable attendees included Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates ; singer Joan Baez , who once dated Jobs; former Vice President Al Gore ; actor Tim Allen; and News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch .

Jobs is buried in an unmarked grave at Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto. Upon the release of the 2015 film Steve Jobs , fans traveled to the cemetery to find the site. Because the cemetery is not allowed to disclose the grave’s location, many left messages for Jobs in a memorial book instead.

Before his death, Jobs granted author and journalist Walter Isaacson permission to write his official biography. Jobs sat for more than 40 interviews with the Isaacson, who also talked to more than 100 of Jobs’ family, friends, and colleagues. Initially scheduled for a November 2011 release date, Steve Jobs hit shelves on October 24, just 19 days after Jobs died.

Jobs’ life has been the subject of two major films. The first, released in 2013, was simply titled Jobs and starred Ashton Kutcher as Jobs and Josh Gad as Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak. Wozniak told The Verge in 2013 he was approached about working on the film but couldn’t because, “I read a script as far as I could stomach it and felt it was crap.” Although he praised the casting, he told Gizmodo he felt his and Jobs’ personalities were inaccurately portrayed.

Instead, Wozniak worked with Sony Pictures on the second film, Steve Jobs , that was adapted from Isaacson’s biography and released in 2015. It starred Michael Fassbender as Jobs and Seth Rogen as Wozniak. Fassbender was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, and co-star Kate Winslet was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Apple and NeXT marketing executive Joanna Hoffman.

In 2015, filmmaker Alex Gibney examined Jobs’ life and legacy in the documentary Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine .

• Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world? [Jobs inviting an executive to join Apple]
• It’s better to be a pirate than join the Navy.
• In my perspective... science and computer science is a liberal art. It’s something everyone should know how to use, at least, and harness in their life.
• It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing.
• There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love—‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been’—and we’ve always tried to do that at Apple.
• You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.
• I think humans are basically tool builders, and the computer is the most remarkable tool we’ve ever built.
• You just make the best product you can, and you don’t put it out until you feel it’s right.
• With iPod, listening to music will never be the same again.
• Things don’t have to change the world to be important.
• I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates .
• If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away.
• Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful—that’s what matters to me.
• I like to believe there’s an afterlife. I like to believe the accumulated wisdom doesn’t just disappear when you die, but somehow, it endures. But maybe it’s just like an on/off switch and click—and you’re gone. Maybe that’s why I didn’t like putting on/off switches on Apple devices.

Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

The Biography.com staff is a team of people-obsessed and news-hungry editors with decades of collective experience. We have worked as daily newspaper reporters, major national magazine editors, and as editors-in-chief of regional media publications. Among our ranks are book authors and award-winning journalists. Our staff also works with freelance writers, researchers, and other contributors to produce the smart, compelling profiles and articles you see on our site. To meet the team, visit our About Us page: https://www.biography.com/about/a43602329/about-us

Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.

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18 Fascinating Facts About Steve Jobs From Isaacson's Biography

Steve Jobs , a biography by Walter Isaacson, will be released tomorrow.

Throughout the past week, multiple excerpts and surprising facts have been leaked.

We rounded up everything out there from the book, which is based on more than 40 interviews with Apple's remarkable founder.

If Jobs hadn't started Apple, another destination awaited.

Jobs told former Apple CEO John Scully that if he hadn't started Apple, he might have been a poet in Paris (via The Huffington Post).

Jobs stopped going to church when he was 13.

When Jobs was 13, he saw starving children on the cover of Life magazine .  He asked his Sunday school teacher if God knew what would happen to the children.

After that he never returned to church and he never went back to Christianity.

Jobs first smoked pot when he was 15 and later tried LSD. He calls it an important life experience.

Jobs found inspiration from many things, one of which was drugs.

At age 15, Jobs first smoked marijuana. Before graduating high school he tried LSD; he called it a "profound experience, one of the most important things in my life."

Jobs' iPod had 15+ Bob Dylan albums and 3 Yo-Yo Ma albums. He only had one book downloaded on his iPad 2.

Jobs' iPod collection had an abundance of Bob Dylan and Yo-Yo Ma. Jobs once said that Yo-Yo Ma was the best case for God's existence.

Jobs only had one book on his iPad 2, An Autobiography of a Yogi . He read it once every year from the time he was a teenager.

Jobs considered most people replaceable, but not designer Jonathan Ive.

Apple designer Jony Ive has a lot of power within the company. Jobs set it up that way and called Ive his "spiritual partner."

"Most people in Steve's life are replaceable," Jobs' wife told Isaacson. "But not Jony."

Steve Jobs and his biological father met before either knew they were related.

According to a 60 Minutes interview with Walter Isaacson, Jobs used to frequent a restaurant his father managed in the 1980s.

Jobs was adopted and befriended his biological sister, Mona Simpson.  Simpson met their father who told her, "I wish you could have seen me when I was running a bigger restaurant… Everybody used to come there… Even Steve Jobs used to eat there.  Yeah, he was a great tipper.”

Simpson told Jobs about the conversation, but Jobs never pursued a relationship with his father because he didn't trust him. He did recall the meeting though.

"I had been to that restaurant a few times, and I remember meeting the owner. He was Syrian. Balding. We shook hands."

Bill Clinton asked for Steve Jobs' advice during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

According to the Telegraph, Bill Clinton placed a phone call to Steve Jobs when he was president. He was under public scrutiny for the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.

Jobs reportedly told the president, "I don't know if you did it, but if so, you've got to tell the country."  There was apparently a long silence on the other end of the line.

Jobs came to hate Eric Schmidt because he thought Schmidt had stolen Android.

Jobs didn't like Eric Schmidt because he felt Google stole the iPhone's interior to make Android.

"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs told Isaacson. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

Last spring, Jobs started meeting with people he wanted to see before he died. One of them was Bill Gates.

Jobs' to do list had a meeting with Bill Gates on it.

Jobs wasn't impressed by Gates, though. "Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he's more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology," Jobs said. "He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger."

Gates, meanwhile, found Jobs to be strange .  "He really never knew much about technology, but he had an amazing instinct for what works," Gates said.  Gates also called Jobs "fundamentally odd" and "weirdly flawed as a human being."

Larry Page asked Steve Jobs for advice. Jobs told him Google was turning into Microsoft...

Despite his quarrel with Eric Schmidt, Jobs gave Larry Page some advice for Google.

He told Page that Google was turning into Microsoft, and that it had too many mediocre products bringing it down.

Keep five products and get rid of the rest, he told Page. "Figure out what Google wants to be when it grows up. It's now all over the map."

Jobs told Obama he would be a one-term president because of the country's anti-business regulations.

In a 2010 meeting with the president, Jobs told Obama he was headed for a one-term presidency. He cited the corrupt education system and un-business-friendly laws as major problems.

Still, Obama and Jobs stayed in touch. Jobs even offered to help with Obama's 2012 campaign.

"He had made the same offer in 2008, but he'd become annoyed when Obama's strategist David Axelrod wasn't totally deferential," writes Isaacson (via The Huffington Post ). Jobs wanted to create a campaign that would be as epic as Ronald Reagan's Morning in America ads.

Jobs told Isaacson he had "finally cracked" the secret to making a great television. Expect one of Apple's next products to be one.

There is a big product spoiler in Steve Jobs' biography. 

According to a leaked excerpt in the Washington Post , Jobs says he finally cracked TV:

“He very much wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones: make them simple and elegant,” Isaacson wrote.

Isaacson continued: “‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’”

Jobs trashed the first design of the new Cupertino campus because his son thought it looked phallic.

Apple is building a big, spaceship-like campus. The initial design was scrapped .

Jobs got depressed with the iPad's lukewarm reception.

When the iPad launched, many people mocked it. They said it wasn't impressive or necessary and that the name was terrible. Jobs received more than 800 emails from consumers about it.

Jobs didn't take the lukewarm reception well. He told Isaacson, "I kind of got depressed today. It knocks you back a bit." (via The Huffington Post )

Jobs initially trashed the idea for apps. One of Apple's board members called him a dozen times until he changed his mind.

Jobs made many great decisions for Apple, but he initially rejected one of its most well-known inventions: Apps.

According to Isaacson, "Jobs at first quashed the discussion, partly because he felt his team did not have the bandwidth to figure out all the complexities that would be involved in policing third-party app developers."

Apple board member Art Levinson called Jobs at least a dozen times asking him to change his mind. He did.

After his pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2004, Jobs opted not to have surgery. He later regretted the decision.

According to an interview Walter Isaacson gave with 60 Minutes, Jobs postponed surgery in favor of alternate therapies after his pancreatic cancer diagnosis. He later regretted the decision.

From The Huffington Post:

"I've asked [Jobs why he didn't get an operation then] and he said, 'I didn't want my body to be opened ... I didn't want to be violated in that way,' said Isaacson.

"I think that he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you don't want something to exist, you can have magical thinking. ... We talked about this a lot," he told Kroft. "He wanted to talk about it, how he regretted it. ... I think he felt he should have been operated on sooner."

Jobs did everything he could to recover from the cancer. He spent $100,000 to have his tumor's DNA sequenced . Unfortunately it wasn't enough.

Jobs told John Scully he thought he'd die early.

According to The Huffington Post, Jobs told former Apple CEO John Scully early on that he thought he'd have to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time.

"We all have a short period of time on this earth. We probably only have the opportunity to do a few things really great and do them well. None of us has any idea how long we're going to be here nor do I, but my feeling is I've got to accomplish a lot of these things while I'm young."

Steve Jobs' only request for his biography? An awesome cover.

For Jobs, presentation was everything.

He promised not to look over Walter Isaacson's shoulder as he was writing the book, but did make one request: the cover had to be awesome.

From Janet Maslin's review in The New York Times : "Mr. Jobs promised... not to meddle with anything but the book’s cover. (Boy, does it look great.)"

Now don't miss:

How Steve Jobs Took Apple From Near Bankruptcy To Billions In 14 Years >>

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Excerpt 1 His personality was reflected in the products he created. Just as the core of Apple's philosophy, from the original Macintosh in 1984 to the iPad a generation later, was the end-to-end integration of hardware and software, so too was it the case with Steve Jobs: His passions, perfectionism, demons, desires, artistry, devilry, and obsession for control were integrally connected to his approach to business and the products that resulted. The unified field theory that ties together Jobs's personality and products begins with his most salient trait: his intensity. His silences could be as searing as his rants; he had taught himself to stare without blinking. Sometimes this intensity was charming, in a geeky way, such as when he was explaining the profundity of Bob Dylan's music or why whatever product he was unveiling at that moment was the most amazing thing that Apple had ever made. At other times it could be terrifying, such as when he was fulminating about Google or Microsoft ripping off Apple. This intensity encouraged a binary view of the world. Colleagues referred to the hero/shithead dichotomy. You were either one or the other, sometimes on the same day. The same was true of products, ideas, even food: Something was either "the best thing ever," or it was shitty, brain-dead, inedible. As a result, any perceived flaw could set off a rant. The finish on a piece of metal, the curve of the head of a screw, the shade of blue on a box, the intuitiveness of a navigation screen--he would declare them to "completely suck" until that moment when he suddenly pronounced them "absolutely perfect." He thought of himself as an artist, which he was, and he indulged in the temperament of one. His quest for perfection led to his compulsion for Apple to have end-to-end control of every product that it made. He got hives, or worse, when contemplating great Apple software running on another company's crappy hardware, and he likewise was allergic to the thought of unapproved apps or content polluting the perfection of an Apple device. This ability to integrate hardware and software and content into one unified system enabled him to impose simplicity. The astronomer Johannes Kepler declared that "nature loves simplicity and unity." So did Steve Jobs. Excerpt 2 For Jobs, belief in an integrated approach was a matter of righteousness. "We do these things not because we are control freaks," he explained. "We do them because we want to make great products, because we care about the user, and because we like to take responsibility for the entire experience rather than turn out the crap that other people make." He also believed he was doing people a service: "They're busy doing whatever they do best, and they want us to do what we do best. Their lives are crowded; they have other things to do than think about how to integrate their computers and devices." This approach sometimes went against Apple's short-term business interests. But in a world filled with junky devices, inscrutable error messages, and annoying interfaces, it led to astonishing products marked by beguiling user experiences. Using an Apple product could be as sublime as walking in one of the Zen gardens of Kyoto that Jobs loved, and neither experience was created by worshipping at the altar of openness or by letting a thousand flowers bloom. Sometimes it's nice to be in the hands of a control freak. Jobs's intensity was also evident in his ability to focus. He would set priorities, aim his laser attention on them, and filter out distractions. If something engaged him--the user interface for the original Macintosh, the design of the iPod and iPhone, getting music companies into the iTunes Store--he was relentless. But if he did not want to deal with something--a legal annoyance, a business issue, his cancer diagnosis, a family tug--he would resolutely ignore it. That focus allowed him to say no. He got Apple back on track by cutting all except a few core products. He made devices simpler by eliminating buttons, software simpler by eliminating features, and interfaces simpler by eliminating options. He attributed his ability to focus and his love of simplicity to his Zen training. It honed his appreciation for intuition, showed him how to filter out anything that was distracting or unnecessary, and nurtured in him an aesthetic based on minimalism. Unfortunately his Zen training never quite produced in him a Zen-like calm or inner serenity, and that too is part of his legacy. He was often tightly coiled and impatient, traits he made no effort to hide. Most people have a regulator between their mind and mouth that modulates their brutish sentiments and spikiest impulses. Not Jobs. He made a point of being brutally honest. "My job is to say when something sucks rather than sugarcoat it," he said. This made him charismatic and inspiring, yet also, to use the technical term, an asshole at times. Andy Hertzfeld once told me, "The one question I'd truly love Steve to answer is, 'Why are you sometimes so mean?'" Even his family members wondered whether he simply lacked the filter that restrains people from venting their wounding thoughts or willfully bypassed it. Jobs claimed it was the former. "This is who I am, and you can't expect me to be someone I'm not," he replied when I asked him the question. But I think he actually could have controlled himself, if he had wanted. When he hurt people, it was not because he was lacking in emotional awareness. Quite the contrary: He could size people up, understand their inner thoughts, and know how to relate to them, cajole them, or hurt them at will. The nasty edge to his personality was not necessary. It hindered him more than it helped him. But it did, at times, serve a purpose. Polite and velvety leaders, who take care to avoid bruising others, are generally not as effective at forcing change. Dozens of the colleagues whom Jobs most abused ended their litany of horror stories by saying that he got them to do things they never dreamed possible. Excerpt 3 The saga of Steve Jobs is the Silicon Valley creation myth writ large: launching a startup in his parents' garage and building it into the world's most valuable company. He didn't invent many things outright, but he was a master at putting together ideas, art, and technology in ways that invented the future. He designed the Mac after appreciating the power of graphical interfaces in a way that Xerox was unable to do, and he created the iPod after grasping the joy of having a thousand songs in your pocket in a way that Sony, which had all the assets and heritage, never could accomplish. Some leaders push innovations by being good at the big picture. Others do so by mastering details. Jobs did both, relentlessly. As a result he launched a series of products over three decades that transformed whole industries. Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius. His imaginative leaps were instinctive, unexpected, and at times magical. He was, indeed, an example of what the mathematician Mark Kac called a magician genius, someone whose insights come out of the blue and require intuition more than mere mental processing power. Like a pathfinder, he could absorb information, sniff the winds, and sense what lay ahead. Steve Jobs thus became the greatest business executive of our era, the one most certain to be remembered a century from now. History will place him in the pantheon right next to Edison and Ford. More than anyone else of his time, he made products that were completely innovative, combining the power of poetry and processors. 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. Excerpt 4 The difference that Jony has made, not only at Apple but in the world, is huge. He is a wickedly intelligent person in all ways. He understands business concepts, marketing concepts. He picks stuff up just like that, click. He understands what we do at our core better than anyone. If I had a spiritual partner at Apple, it's Jony. Jony and I think up most of the products together and then pull others in and say, "Hey, what do you think about this?" He gets the big picture as well as the most infinitesimal details about each product. And he understands that Apple is a product company. He's not just a designer. That's why he works directly for me. He has more operational power than anyone else at Apple except me. There's no one who can tell him what to do, or to butt out. That's the way I set it up. Excerpt 5 When Jobs gathered his top management for a pep talk just after he became iCEO in September 1997, sitting in the audience was a sensitive and passionate thirty-year-old Brit who was head of the company's design team. Jonathan Ive, known to all as Jony, was planning to quit. He was sick of the company's focus on profit maximization rather than product design. Jobs's talk led him to reconsider. "I remember very clearly Steve announcing that our goal is not just to make money but to make great products," Ive recalled. "The decisions you make based on that philosophy are fundamentally different from the ones we had been making at Apple." Ive and Jobs would soon forge a bond that would lead to the greatest industrial design collaboration of their era. Ive grew up in Chingford, a town on the northeast edge of London. His father was a silversmith who taught at the local college. "He's a fantastic craftsman," Ive recalled. "His Christmas gift to me would be one day of his time in his college workshop, during the Christmas break when no one else was there, helping me make whatever I dreamed up." The only condition was that Jony had to draw by hand what they planned to make. "I always understood the beauty of things made by hand. I came to realize that what was really important was the care that was put into it. What I really despise is when I sense some carelessness in a product." Ive enrolled in Newcastle Polytechnic and spent his spare time and summers working at a design consultancy. One of his creations was a pen with a little ball on top that was fun to fiddle with. It helped give the owner a playful emotional connection to the pen. For his thesis he designed a microphone and earpiece--in purest white plastic--to communicate with hearing-impaired kids. His flat was filled with foam models he had made to help him perfect the design. He also designed an ATM machine and a curved phone, both of which won awards from the Royal Society of Arts. Unlike some designers, he didn't just make beautiful sketches; he also focused on how the engineering and inner components would work. He had an epiphany in college when he was able to design on a Macintosh. "I discovered the Mac and felt I had a connection with the people who were making this product," he recalled. "I suddenly understood what a company was, or was supposed to be." Excerpted from Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

• Becoming Steve Jobs : the evolution of a reckless upstart into a visionary leader / by: Schlender, Brent Published: (2015)
• iCon : Steve Jobs, the greatest second act in the history of business / by: Young, Jeffrey S., 1952- Published: (2005)
• I, Steve : Steve Jobs in his own words / by: Jobs, Steve, 1955-2011 Published: (2011)
• Inside Steve's brain / by: Kahney, Leander Published: (2008)
• I, Steve : Steve Jobs, in his own words / by: Jobs, Steve, 1955-2011 Published: (2011)

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About The Author

Walter Isaacson is the bestselling author of biographies of Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. He is a professor of history at Tulane and was CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of  Time . He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2023. Visit him at Isaacson.Tulane.edu.

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• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 5, 2021)
• Length: 672 pages
• ISBN13: 9781982176860

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Short Biography of Steve Jobs

Reading comprehension: steve jobs biography.

Steve Jobs , the American businessman and technology visionary who is best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. , was born on February 24, 1955. His parents were two University of Wisconsin graduate students, Joanne Carole Schieble and Syrian-born Abdulfattah Jandali. They were both unmarried at the time. Jandali, who was teaching in Wisconsin when Steve was born, said he had no choice but to put the baby up for adoption because his girlfriend’s family objected to their relationship.

The baby was adopted at birth by Paul Reinhold Jobs (1922-1993) and Clara Jobs (1924-1986). Later, when asked about his “adoptive parents,” Jobs replied emphatically that Paul and Clara Jobs “were my parents.” He stated in his authorized biography that they “were my parents 1,000%.” Unknown to him, his biological parents would subsequently marry (December 1955), have a second child, novelist Mona Simpson, in 1957, and divorce in 1962.

Jobs’s youth was riddled with frustrations over formal schooling. At Monta Loma Elementary School in Mountain View, he was a prankster whose fourth-grade teacher needed to bribe him to study. Jobs tested so well, however, that administrators wanted to skip him ahead to high school a proposal his parents declined. Jobs then attended Cupertino Junior High and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California. During the following years, Jobs met Bill Fernandez and Steve Wozniak , a computer whiz kid.

Through Apple, Jobs was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields. Jobs also co-founded and served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios ; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006 when Disney acquired Pixar.

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Steve Jobs: A Biography Hardcover – 24 October 2011

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Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different

A Biography

Author: Karen Blumenthal

Award Winner

• YALSA Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners
• New Jersey Garden State Teen Book Award
• Kentucky Blue Grass Award Master List
• YALSA-College Bound /Lifelong Learners
• Arizona Grand Canyon Young Readers Maste

1 Seeds Steve Jobs's first story involved connecting dots, and it began with a most unusual promise. Joanne Schieble was just twenty-three and attending graduate school in Wisconsin when she learned she was pregnant. Her father didn't approve of her relationship with a Syrian-born graduate student, and social customs in the 1950s frowned on a woman having a child outside of marriage. To avoid the glare, Schieble moved to San Francisco and was taken in by a doctor who took care of unwed mothers and helped arrange adoptions. Originally, a lawyer and his wife agreed to adopt the new baby. But when the child was born on February 24, 1955, they changed their minds. Clara and Paul Jobs, a modest San Francisco couple with some high school education, had been waiting for a baby. When the call came in the middle of the night, they jumped at the chance to adopt the newborn, and they named him Steven Paul. Schieble wanted her child to be adopted by college-educated parents. Before the adoption could be finalized, however, she learned that neither parent had a college degree. She balked and only agreed to complete the adoption a few months later, "when my parents promised that I would go to college," Jobs said. Signing on to the hope of a bright future for their baby, the Jobs family settled in, adopting a daughter, Patty, a couple of years later. Little Steve proved to be a curious child, and a challenging one to rear. He put a bobby pin into an electrical outlet, winning a trip to the emergency room for a burned hand. He got into ant poison, requiring yet another trip to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. To keep Steve busy when he got up before the rest of the household, his parents bought him a rocking horse, a record player, and some Little Richard records. He was so difficult as a toddler, his mother once confided, that she wondered if she had made a mistake adopting him. When Steve was five, his father, Paul, was transferred to Palo Alto, about forty-five minutes south of San Francisco. After serving in the Coast Guard during World War II, Paul had worked as a machinist and used-car salesman, and now was working for a finance company collecting bad debts. In his free time, he fixed up used cars and sold them for a profit, money that would go to Steve's future college fund. The area south of San Francisco was largely undeveloped then and dotted with apricot and prune orchards. The family bought a house in Mountain View, and as Paul put together his workshop in the garage, he set aside a part of it, telling his son, "Steve, this is your workbench now." He taught Steve how to use a hammer and gave him a set of smaller tools. Over the years, Jobs remembered, his dad "spent a lot of time with me … teaching me how to build things, how to take things apart, put things back together." His father's careful craftsmanship and commitment to the finest details made a deep impression. He "was a sort of genius with his hands. He can fix anything and make it work and take any mechanical thing apart and get it back together," Jobs told an interviewer in 1985. His father also stressed the importance of doing things right. For instance, his son learned, "When you're a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you're not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You'll know it's there, so you're going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back." That was a lesson Jobs would apply over and over to new products from Apple. "For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through," he said. Clara supported her young son as well, babysitting the children of friends in the evenings to pay for swimming lessons. And because Steve was precocious and interested, she taught him to read, giving him a big head start at school. Unfortunately for Steve, knowing how to read became something of a problem. Once in school, "I really just wanted to do two things," he remembered. "I wanted to read books because I loved reading books and I wanted to go outside and chase butterflies." What he didn't want to do was follow instructions. He bucked at the structure of the school day and soon was bored with being in class. He felt different from his classmates. When he was six or seven years old, he told the girl across the street that he was adopted. "So does that mean your real parents didn't want you?" she asked. The innocent question hit him like a punch to the stomach, planting a frightening thought that had never occurred to him. He ran into his house, sobbing. His parents quickly moved to comfort him and shoot down that notion. "They were very serious and looked me straight in the eye," he said. "They said, ‘We specifically picked you out.'" In fact, his parents thought he was very special—exceptionally bright, though also exceptionally strong-willed. Later, friends and colleagues would say that his drive and need for control grew out of a deep-rooted sense of abandonment. But he didn't see it that way. "Knowing I was adopted may have made me feel more independent, but I have never felt abandoned," he told a biographer. "I've always felt special. My parents made me feel special." Some of his teachers, however, saw him more as a troublemaker than as a special kid. Jobs found school so dull and dreadful that he and a buddy got their biggest kicks out of causing havoc. Many of the kids rode bikes to school, locking them up in racks outside Monta Loma Elementary School, and in third grade, Jobs and his friend traded the combination to their bike locks with many of their classmates. Then one day, they went out and switched the locks all around. "It took them until about ten o'clock that night to get all the bikes sorted out," he recalled. The worst behavior was reserved for the teacher. Jobs and his friend let a snake loose in the classroom and created a small explosion under her chair. "We gave her a nervous twitch," he said later. He was sent home two or three times for his misbehavior, but he doesn't remember being punished for it. Instead, his father defended him, telling teachers, "If you can't keep him interested, it's your fault." In fourth grade, he was rescued by a special teacher, Imogene "Teddy" Hill, who kindly showered attention on him during a particularly trying time at home. Impressed by a neighbor who seemed to be making a successful living selling real estate, Paul Jobs went to school at night and earned a real-estate license. But his timing was bad and the demand for housing slumped just as he was trying to break into the business. One day, Mrs. Hill asked her students, "What is it that you don't understand about the universe?" Young Jobs answered: "I don't understand why all of a sudden my dad is so broke." Clara took a part-time job in the payroll department of a local company and the family took out a second loan on their house. For a year or so, money in the Jobs home was very tight. Within a few weeks of having Jobs in her class, Mrs. Hill had sized up her unusual student. She offered Jobs a sweet bargain: If he could finish a math workbook on his own and get at least 80 percent right, she would give him five dollars and a giant lollipop. "I looked at her like, ‘Are you crazy, lady?'" Jobs said. But he took the challenge. Before long, his admiration and respect for Mrs. Hill were so great that he didn't need bribes anymore. She returned the admiration, providing her precocious student with a kit for making a camera by grinding his own lens. But that didn't mean Jobs became an easy kid. Many years later, Mrs. Hill entertained some of Jobs's coworkers by showing them a photo of her class on Hawaiian Day. Jobs was in the middle, wearing a Hawaiian shirt. But the photo didn't tell the whole story: Jobs hadn't actually worn a Hawaiian shirt that day—but he had managed to convince a classmate to give him the shirt off his back. Calling the teacher "one of the saints in my life," Jobs said, "I learned more that year than I think I learned in any year in school." And he credits her with moving him onto the right path. "I'm one hundred percent sure that if it hadn't been for Mrs. Hill in fourth grade and a few others, I would absolutely have ended up in jail," he said later. With his interest in school reignited and his performance seemingly on track, Jobs was tested and scored so high that school officials recommended he skip a couple of grades. His parents agreed to let him skip just one. Middle school was tougher academically and he still wanted to chase butterflies. A sixth-grade report called him "an excellent reader," but noted "he has great difficulty motivating himself or seeing the purpose of studying reading." He was also "a discipline problem at times." Seventh grade brought a much rougher crowd of classmates. Fights were common. Some students bullied the wiry kid who was a year younger than everyone else. Jobs was miserable, and in the middle of that year, he gave his parents an ultimatum: He said "if he had to go back to school there again, he just wouldn't go," his father recalled. They took him seriously. "So we decided we better move," his dad said. His parents pulled together what little they had and bought a three-bedroom home in Los Altos, where the schools were top-notch—and safe. There, presumably, their gifted son might focus on his studies. But in the mid-1960s, times were changing. Jobs would soon have other things on his mind. Copyright © 2012 by Karen Blumenthal

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Iconoclast. Inventor. Visionary. Genius. Adopted. Dropout. Rejected. Steve Jobs was the founder of Apple, and he was all these things.

Book Details

A riveting biography of the groundbreaking innovator who was a giant in the worlds of computing, music, filmmaking, design, smart phones, and more. A finalist for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award! "Your time is limited. . . . have the courage to follow your heart and intuition." —Steve Jobs From the start, his path was never predictable. Steve Jobs was given up for adoption at birth, dropped out of college after one semester, and at the age of twenty, created Apple in his parents' garage with his friend Steve Wozniack. Then came the core and hallmark of his genius—his exacting moderation for perfection, his counterculture life approach, and his level of taste and style that pushed all boundaries. A devoted husband, father, and Buddhist, he battled cancer for over a decade, became the ultimate CEO, and made the world want every product he touched, from the Macintosh to the iPhone, from iTunes and the iPod to the Macbook. Critically acclaimed author Karen Blumenthal takes us to the core of this complicated and legendary man while simultaneously exploring the evolution of computers. Framed by Jobs' inspirational Stanford commencement speech and illustrated throughout with black and white photos, this is the story of the man who changed our world. Read more thrilling nonfiction by Karen Blumenthal: Hillary Rodham Clinton: A Woman Living History (A YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award Finalist) Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition Tommy: The Gun That Changed America Praise for Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different: A Biography: “This is a smart book about a smart subject by a smart writer.” — Booklist, starred review “Students who know Steve Jobs only through Apple's iTunes, iPhones, and iPads will have their eyes opened by this accessible and well-written biography.” — VOYA “An engaging and intimate portrait. Few biographies for young readers feel as relevant and current as this one does.” — The Horn Book Magazine “A perceptive, well-wrought picture of an iconic figure.” — Kirkus Reviews “Blumenthal crafts an insightful, balanced portrait.” — Publishers Weekly

Imprint Publisher

Square Fish

9781250014450

Reading Guide

Reading Guides for Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different

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“This is a smart book about a smart subject by a smart writer.” — Booklist, starred review “Students who know Steve Jobs only through Apple's iTunes, iPhones, and iPads will have their eyes opened by this accessible and well-written biography.” — VOYA “An engaging and intimate portrait. Few biographies for young readers feel as relevant and current as this one does.” — The Horn Book Magazine “A perceptive, well-wrought picture of an iconic figure.” — Kirkus Reviews “Blumenthal crafts an insightful, balanced portrait.” — Publishers Weekly

About the Creators

• Teen & Young Adult
• Education & Reference

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Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different: A Biography Paperback – Illustrated, February 14, 2012

A riveting biography of the groundbreaking innovator who was a giant in the worlds of computing, music, filmmaking, design, smart phones, and more. A finalist for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award! "Your time is limited. . . . have the courage to follow your heart and intuition." ―Steve Jobs From the start, his path was never predictable. Steve Jobs was given up for adoption at birth, dropped out of college after one semester, and at the age of twenty, created Apple in his parents' garage with his friend Steve Wozniack. Then came the core and hallmark of his genius―his exacting moderation for perfection, his counterculture life approach, and his level of taste and style that pushed all boundaries. A devoted husband, father, and Buddhist, he battled cancer for over a decade, became the ultimate CEO, and made the world want every product he touched, from the Macintosh to the iPhone, from iTunes and the iPod to the Macbook. Critically acclaimed author Karen Blumenthal takes us to the core of this complicated and legendary man while simultaneously exploring the evolution of computers. Framed by Jobs' inspirational Stanford commencement speech and illustrated throughout with black and white photos, this is the story of the man who changed our world. Read more thrilling nonfiction by Karen Blumenthal: Hillary Rodham Clinton: A Woman Living History (A YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award Finalist) Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition Tommy: The Gun That Changed America Praise for Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different: A Biography: “This is a smart book about a smart subject by a smart writer.” ― Booklist, starred review “Students who know Steve Jobs only through Apple's iTunes, iPhones, and iPads will have their eyes opened by this accessible and well-written biography.” ― VOYA “An engaging and intimate portrait. Few biographies for young readers feel as relevant and current as this one does.” ― The Horn Book Magazine “A perceptive, well-wrought picture of an iconic figure.” ― Kirkus Reviews “Blumenthal crafts an insightful, balanced portrait.” ― Publishers Weekly

• Reading age 12 - 18 years
• Print length 320 pages
• Language English
• Grade level 2 - 7
• Lexile measure 1110L
• Dimensions 5.45 x 0.85 x 8.2 inches
• Publisher Square Fish
• Publication date February 14, 2012
• ISBN-10 125001445X
• ISBN-13 978-1250014450
• See all details

Editorial Reviews

“This is a smart book about a smart subject by a smart writer.” ― Booklist, starred review “Students who know Steve Jobs only through Apple's iTunes, iPhones, and iPads will have their eyes opened by this accessible and well-written biography.” ― VOYA “An engaging and intimate portrait. Few biographies for young readers feel as relevant and current as this one does.” ― The Horn Book Magazine “A perceptive, well-wrought picture of an iconic figure.” ― Kirkus Reviews “Blumenthal crafts an insightful, balanced portrait.” ― Publishers Weekly

From the Back Cover

About the author.

Karen Blumenthal (1959-2020) was a financial journalist and editor whose career included five years with The Dallas Morning News and twenty-five with The Wall Street Journal ―where her work helped earn the paper a Pulitzer Prize for its breaking news coverage of the September 11, 2001 attacks―before becoming an award-winning children’s non-fiction book writer. Three of her books, Hillary Rodham Clinton: A Woman Living History , Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different , and Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition , were finalists for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award. Karen was also the author of Six Days in October: The Stock Market Crash of 1929 (named a Sibert Honor Book), Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX (winner of the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award), Tommy: The Gun That Changed America , Bonnie and Clyde: The Making of a Legend , and Jane Against the World: Roe v. Wade and the Fight for Reproductive Rights .

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Steve jobs: the man who thought different, feiwel & friends, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Square Fish; 1st edition (February 14, 2012)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 125001445X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250014450
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 12 - 18 years
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1110L
• Grade level ‏ : ‎ 2 - 7
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.9 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.45 x 0.85 x 8.2 inches
• #3 in Teen & Young Adult Inventions
• #5 in Teen & Young Adult Science & Technology Biographies
• #263 in Biographies of Business & Industrial Professionals

About the author

Karen blumenthal.

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