Introduction:

Our lives were changed when a young man had the desire to “have a thousand songs in his pocket,” “a phone that people would love.” (Lasseter) He is a perfect example of determination and faith. Jobs was an insecure, hippie kid that reinvented himself as a technological visionary and changed the world. (Goodell) Jobs was adopted and faced many insecurities due to it. His mother, Joanne Schieble, was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin who got involved with a Syrian student named Ab-dulfattah Jandali. When Schieble found out she was pregnant, her father objected to her marrying Syrian. (Goodell) His mother up and left and moved to San Francisco to have her baby so she could avoid the shame. (Goodell) Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24^th, 1955 and was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. (Goodell) They didn’t know that their adopted baby would turn out to turn Apple into the most valued company in the world. He did. Worth an estimated $342 billion, Apple did and still is changing our lives today. (Goodell) At a time when software was the model, he built hardware. (Goodell) At a time when everyone focused on the macro, he focused on the micro and although he didn’t do anything first, he always did it best. (Goodell) As most know, he gave us the ability to do almost anything with the touch of a finger. One of Jobs co-workers, Bono, quotes, “He’s the Bob Dylan of machines. He’s the Elvis of the hardware-software dialectic.” (Goodell) 

Sources: Steve Jobs: Entrepreneur and Inventor, by John Lasseter, The Steve Jobs Nobody Know, by Jeff Goodell 

Childhood: Entry 1

Paul Jobs and his son

Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco, California. He was born into insecurity because at birth, his unwed biological parents gave him up for adoption.  His mother was still in school and his father was a Syrian. Instead of bringing embarrassment to the family, they thought it was best to give him up. Throughout his story, he has a rather bitter personality with a short temper. It’s easy to understand that the bitterness all stemmed from his childhood when his parents gave him up. A couple named Paul and Sarah Jobs raised him as an infant in Mountain View. This area became known as Silicon Valley in the early 1950s after the sprouting of a myriad of semi-conductor companies. As a result, young Steve Jobs grew up in a neighborhood of engineers working on electronics and other gizmos in their garages on weekends. This shaped his interest in the field as he grew up.  His parents didn’t have very much money and once when a teacher asked him a question in class, he responded by saying, “Why are we so broke?” He was a temperament kid from the start. He jammed bobby pins into an electric outlet and burned his hand once. He had to have his stomach pumped after he drank ant poison. “He was so difficult as a child,” his mother said. She even said that by the time he was two years old, she and her husband felt like they had made a mistake and wanted to return him.  

Sources: allaboutSteveJobs.com, Encyclopedia Britannica-Steve Jobs

Childhood: Entry 2

Jobs later skipped the fifth grade and went straight to middle school in Crittenden after the move. It was a rough time in Steve’s life because the other students gave him a hard time about his adoption. They often asked him, “didn’t your mother love you?” Because of the rough times he faced, he told his parents he would not be returning to Crittenden at age 11. Paul and Clara apparently understood and moved their family to Los Altos, a town a few miles away that had a better educational program. In this town, everything was different. There were no stuffy traditions and no cultural baggage. You could be whoever and whatever you set out to be. When Steve was 14, he was introduced to an older kid named Steve Wozniak. Steve Wozniak was building a small computer board that he had named the Cream Soda Computer. Wozniak later recalled that it was hard for him to explain to people exactly what kind of design stuff he worked on. But he said Jobs understood and got it immediately. The two boys went on to experiment with different things such as blue boxes, used to mimic the tones used by phone operators and one of the earliest forms of hacking. At that time in his life, Jobs realized he had an interest in technology. Later, the boys sold the blue boxes on the campus at the University of California. They found themeselves at the forefront of an idustry on the verge of an explosion. They eventually gave up the entrepreneurship for fear of getting busted but Jobs later said that without blue boxes, there would be no Apple.

Sources: EBSCOhost: The Steve Jobs Nobody Know: by Jeff Goodell, Encyclopedia Britannica-Steve Jobs

Childhood: Entry 3

When he was 17, he met a girl named Chrisann Brennan who was a year younger than him in Homestead High School. They developed a big, messy, teen romance and began taking LSD together at school and discussing books they read. Brennan explained how much Jobs was affected by his adoption and how much he discussed a book about how mothers and fathers would fail to love their children. She said that using LSD wasn’t just a way for Jobs to live a better life. She said that it was a way for him to deal with the pain of his parents abandoning him. Later the couple moved to a cabin in the mountains but Steve left Chrisann to keep his parents promise to his birth parents of sending him to college. He enrolled at Reed, a private school in Oregon, but dropped out by the end of the first semester. “I couldn’t see the value in it,” said Jobs. “I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.” He chose to end his college career and just hope for the best. He didn’t leave Reed campus immediately though. He hung around and audited a class in calligraphy.

Sources: EBSCOhost: The Steve Jobs Nobody Know, allaboutSteveJobs.com

Childhood: Reflection

The childhood of Steve Jobs really surprised me when I searched it in depth. It’s remarkable to read about someone that had it so rough and dropped out of college but later went on to change the world and become one of the world’s greatest technological visionaries. I can’t say that I can relate to his childhood or think of anyone I’ve known that can relate to it but it truly did inspire me. It really makes me consider the type of life I want to have when I’m older and encourages me to be whatever I want to be. I don’t think Jobs was necessarily trying to take the easy way out by dropping out of college but rather realizing that college wasn’t for him and knowing he could succeed anyway. I’m not saying that dropping out is the way to go but he really is a perfect example of faith and determination. I would imagine that his decision to drop out made his road a lot harder. Without an education, life isn’t easy and I am sure that made his career a battle. While reading and researching his childhood, I did have a lot of questions. I didn’t understand how a social outcast with absolutely no confidence would make it. Then later on, Jeff Goodell explained how Steve knew exactly what he wanted and was going to get it. He told his friend that someday he would be a millionaire and from then on I started to realize what a little bit of determination could do.

Apple: Entry 1

The company’s name, Apple, comes from an apple farm in Oregon that Jobs visited. The world never would have guessed that two boys building a homemade computer in a garage would be the start of a billion dollar business. Wozniak was apparently the brains and Jobs was the back bone. Jobs encouraged Wozniak to finish his projects and found parts needed for the job at rock-bottom prices. Jobs knew he wanted to build a business and was somewhat desperate. He didn’t have money and he needed it. “By building affordable, personal computers and putting one on every desk, in every hand, I’m giving people power. They don’t have to go through the high priests of mainframe-they can access information themselves. They can steal fire from the mountain. And this is going to inspire far more change than any nonprofit,” said Steve. His attitude was right and Apple took off. By the time he was 24, he was worth $10 million and a year later, he was worth even more: more than $100 million. According to friends, Jobs changed as Apple advanced. He apparently started treating people around him badly and his temper grew shorter. He had Brennan in his life and the two were living together. Just as Apple began to become a huge success, Brennan became pregnant and Steve pushed her completely out of his life. He didn’t even provide her with any financial help. He was offended when Brennan mentioned giving the baby up for adoption or having an abortion and he pressured her friends to talk to her and persuade her not to.

Sources: The Steve Jobs Nobody Know, by Jeff Goodell, Steve Jobs: by Walter Isaacson

Apple: Entry 2

When Apple continued to grow, it became clear that Steve was incapable of controlling the company. Instead of having the instincts of an adult, he had those of an adolescent. He continued to work, though. After seeing a prototype of a mouse and desktop icons during a visit to Xerox PARC, a research center in Palo Alto, Jobs walked away convinced that all computers would one day operate on such a model. He couldn’t get top management at Apple to get on the same page as him so he simply hijacked a team working on another project and they worked in a hidden building. The team worked hard but Jobs wasn’t exactly appreciative. Sometimes the group would work on something all night just to come in the next day and hear Steve tell them it sucked. He became well known for his ability to humiliate others. However, he had a goal in mind and he wouldn’t stop until he reached it. He wanted a Macintosh built and he wanted it to be the coolest machine possible. The Mac was launched in 1984 and the world saw Jobs as the showman. The computer was a huge success and sold more than a million units, transforming the computer industry. Steve increasingly became unable to control the company he had created though. He recruited the CEO of Pepsi, John Sculley, to lend a hand but he had a problem sharing power with him. The nasty edge to his controlling personality wasn’t necessary and it hindered him more than it helped him. However, at times it was a good thing. Polite leaders who take care to avoid hurting others are generally not as effective at forcing change. Many of the people he drove the hardest and abused most will confess that in the end, he did get them to do things they never thought possible. (Steve Jobs: by Walter Isaacson) But, Sculley was apparently the more experienced executive and the two men clashed constantly. Jobs had power issues.  Apple was forced to choose between a rebel hot head and an experienced adult and Jobs was tossed overboard when he was 30.

Sources: The Steve Jobs Nobody Know, by Jeff Goodell, Steve Jobs: by Walter Isaacson

http://gizmodo.com/5867409/a-very-rare-video-of-steve-jobs-telling-the-history-of-apple

Apple: Entry 3

Steve at Apple

“What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating,” said Steve about his release from Apple. The central trauma of his life was being given up as a child and now he had been kicked out of the company he had founded. He was young, handsome, rich, and lost at this point in his life and he didn’t know what to do with himself. On his time away, he took off to Italy to travel and talk about personal computers to the Soviet Union. He eventually got in touch with his biological mother and discovered that he had a sister. The two met and became fast friends. After about a year, Jobs came up with a comeback plan. He was going to get revenge on the ones at Apple that tossed him out and was going to show them. He was going to build “the perfect company,” and it was going to design desktop supercomputers with unheard-of speed and the name of the company would be named NeXT. However, it didn’t succeed like Steve wanted it to. It produced strikingly distinctive object but was way too expensive for the market. Consumers still bought NeXT computers and called them “the most beautiful machines ever built,” but it was clear that the company wouldn’t make it. However, when Jobs met a young woman named Laurene Powell, his life turned around. Laurene was a tall, blonde, Jersey girl studying for an MBA who heard Jobs speak at Standford after he was booted out of Apple. In 1991, the two were married and went on to have 3 children. Steve became a completely different person according to family and friends. “He had sweetness to him, a contemplative quality,” they said. In 1986, Jobs became CEO of a little company called Pixar. He turned the graphics division into an animation studio, cut a deal with Disney for distribution, and picked up the company for nearly $5 million. When the company went public, Jobs was sitting on stock worth $1.1 billion. He suddenly looked like a genius again. In the meantime, Apple was struggling. He didn’t like seeing what he created going down so he staged a comeback and convinced the board into buying NeXT’s software for $400 million and use it for Apple’s future system which turned out to be OS X. Jobs was finally back in charge and made a turn-around for the company. 

Sources: The Steve Jobs Nobody Know, by Jeff Goodell, Steve Jobs: by Walter Isaacson

Apple: Reflection

Looking back on the creation of Apple and Steve’s accomplishments and downfalls, I began to create a very clear visual of his personality and character. Some of his true colors seemed to come out but I believe that a lot of his bitterness and control issues came from his past. One of his friends stated that Jobs speculated to him that his drive came from a deep desire to prove that his parents were wrong to give him up and I believe that is where most of his problems stemmed from. Apple was the one thing Steve Jobs had in his life that he created and got the credit for. After reading, I got the impression that the company was like his security blanket. He had been adopted and therefore he didn’t have anyone in his life that was truly his. But Apple was and I believe he tried so hard to make it as successful as he possibly could to prove he was worth something, despite his parents giving him up.

Death: Entry 1

Steve Jobs kept on with his accomplishments. He didn’t just stop once he had finished a task. He wanted to go farther every time. In 2001, the iPod was launched and by 2003, he had introduced the Windows version of iTunes, which made him the most influential man in the record history. However, in 2004, Jobs was hit hard with the news that he had pancreatic cancer. Most people that get pancreatic cancer are dead within a few months but Steve got lucky. The neuroendocrine tumor was slow growing in his body, giving him more time to undergo treatment. This type of cancer occurs in the pancreas but two-thirds of its tumors develop in other parts of the body. The cancer arises from different cells, is treated differently, and has different symptoms. Despite his illness, Steve knew he had to keep on doing his job though. After he was diagnosed, the iPhone and iPad were released, which were two of Apple’s most innovative and successful products. Through his sickness, others noticed his change in personality. He was definitely a lot thinner and weaker, but he finally had a compassion for others. His friends say he didn’t seem so arrogant at that point in his life and actually cared. One of his friends, Larry Brilliant, became close to Jobs during this time. Larry said Steve called him out of the blue one time and talked and asked about his 24 year old son who had cancer also. Larry said Steve would talk to his son through the chemo, telling him, “If I can make it through this, so can you.”

Sources: Steve Jobs Nobody Know, by Jeff Goodell, Steve Jobs's cancer: HJarvard Health Letter

Jobs with the iMac

Death: Entry 2

In January 2010, the iPad was launched. Steve worked through his presentation onstage even though he was weak and had a hard time carrying on a conversation. A friend said Jobs wasn’t worried about Apples future; he knew that would be fine. “I just want to live long enough to see my kids graduate from high school,” said Steve. Jeff Goodell had a talk with Jobs just a short time after he had gotten the news of his diagnosis. Goodell explains how narrow he finally realized Steve’s life had been. No one really knows how much success had cost him. Steve was just so focused on one thing and so desperate to make it work. In the talk that they had, Goodell asked him if he had any regrets about his life. “Sure,” Steve said. “Personal things. Things that have to do with family.” As his illness worsened, he could see his life narrowing even further. He didn’t go out at night, didn’t accept awards, gave no speeches, and attended no parties. Instead, he hung out with his family at their home in Palo Alto and studied about cancer. One of his doctors said that Steve knew more about cancer than any oncologist. According to another friend, jobs came very close to death twice over the summer. He even gathered his family around him both times and prepared them for goodbye but he pulled through it. Only a few people were able to see him in his final days and his good friend that left for the last time said, “it did not feel like goodbye.”

Steve's health worsening

Sources: Steve Jobs Cover Story: Nobody Know. By: Jeff Goodell,

Death: Entry 3

Steve’s goal was to see his son graduate and he made a deal with God that he really wanted to be there for it. His son, Reed, adored his father. Once he found out he had cancer, he started working summers in a Stanford oncology lab doing DNA sequencing to find genetic markers for colon cancer. For a little while in his life, the cancer left his body. He could always tell when it was reappearing again because he would lose his appetite and begin to feel pains through-out his body. Doctors would do tests and detect nothing but a short time later they discovered it was no longer in remission. Depression came along with his cancer. He became tearful, dramatic, and morose and whined to others that he was about to die. He took a medical leave in 2011 from Apple and his health became public. By July 2011, his cancer had spread to his bones and other parts of his body and his doctors were having trouble finding targeted drugs that could beat it back. As his health continued to deteriorate, he slowly began to face the truth: he would not be returning to Apple as CEO so he knew it was a waste to resign. He had a hard time deciding how to make the transition of giving up his title but he wrote a letter and at the end he said, “I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.” He wanted to continue doing things he liked and working on new products even though he was ill. So that’s just what he did. “I’ve had a very lucky career, a very lucky life, and I’ve done all I can do,” said Jobs. On Wednesday, October 5^th, he died at age 56 at home surrounded by his family.

Steve and wife Laurene

Sources: Steve Jobs: By Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs Cover Story: Nobody Know: Rolling Stones. By: Jeff Goodell 

Death: Reflection

After I finished reading Steve Jobs’ complete life story and his death, I really felt sad. A man that had built one of the world’s greatest things lost his life to cancer at such an early age. However, after reading about his death, I really do believe he reinvented himself into a better person. By the end of his life, he had a compassion and kindness that he had never had before. I can’t say that he lived his life completely the right way because he definitely didn’t. But after understanding the way he changed at the end of his life, I believe he just needed the right people in his life and he didn’t have those to start off with. Everyone started noticing a difference when he met Laurene and they had their children. I believe by the time he settled with his family, he was a changed man. He could look back on his life and probably be angry and bitter about a few things but he could also look back on it and know that he got the job done, was a hard worker, and went from nothing to everything. I believe he was quite satisfied. 

Conclusion

Steve Jobs has and is still touching the lives of people all around the world today. His story is amazing to read because despite all of the hardships he faced, he did what he said he was going to do: become a millionaire. He had a dream and he wouldn’t stop until it was lived out. To summarize his life, one could say he was adopted at birth and the disappointment of his parents giving him up followed him for the rest of his life. He dropped out of college after 6 months and he and a friend named Stephen Wozniak created the first Apple computer in a garage. Apple blossomed into what is now known as one of the world’s greatest mule-national corporations. Jobs was later fired from the company that he had founded and went away for awhile to help turn a company named Pixar into a billion dollar corporation and found a new company he called NeXT. When Apple started to struggle, he went back and took the company to the top again, for the second time. One of the main focuses of his life was his bitter personality and his work ethic. However, he always got the job done and most of his hot headedness all was linked to his insecurities from his birth parents giving him up for adoption as a small child. There was a reason Steve was the way he was but throughout his life, he learned things the hard way and eventually turned his life around when he surrounded himself with the right kind of people. Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011 due to pancreatic cancer. 

Sources: The Steve Jobs Nobody Know, by Jeff Goodell, Steve Jobs: by Walter Isaacson

Works Cited

All about Steve Jobs.com. 15 March 2012 <allaboutSteveJobs.com>.

Goodell, Jeff. "The Steve Jobs Nobody Know (cover story)." Rolling Stone 2012: 36-45.

Lasseter, John. "Steve Jobs." Time 26 December 2011: 126-128.

"Steve Jobs." 2012. Encyclopedia Britannica. 26 March 2012 <http://school.eb.com/all/comptons/article>.

"Steve Job's Cancer." Harvard Health Letter (2012): 1-3.