Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco, California, on February 24, 1955, to Joanne Carole Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali (Arabic: عبد الفتاح الجندلي).[2] His cousin, Bassma Al Jandaly, maintains that his birth name was Abdul Lateef Jandali.[3] He was adopted by Clara (née Hagopian) and Paul Reinhold Jobs.[2]

Abdulfattah "John" Jandali was born and raised in an Arab Muslim household in Homs, Syria. As an undergraduate at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, he was a student activist and was imprisoned for his political activities.[4] He pursued a PhD at the University of Wisconsin, where he met Joanne Schieble, an American Catholic of German and Swiss descent.[4][5] Both of the same age, Jandali was a doctoral candidate and a teaching assistant for a course Schieble was taking.[6] Novelist Mona Simpson, Jobs's biological sister, noted that Schieble's Catholic parents were unhappy that their daughter was with a Muslim.[7] Jobs's biographer Walter Isaacson states that Schieble's dying father "threatened to disown her if she wed Abdulfattah",[6] so they remained an unmarried couple.[5]

Paul Jobs was a Coast Guard mechanic.[8] After leaving the Coast Guard, he married Clara Hagopian, an American of Armenian descent, in 1946.[9] An ectopic pregnancy led them to consider adoption in 1955.[8][9][10] Hagopian's parents were survivors of the Armenian genocide.[11]

Schieble became pregnant with Jobs in 1954, when she and Jandali spent the summer with his family in Homs. According to Jandali, Schieble deliberately did not involve him in the process: "Without telling me, Joanne upped and left to move to San Francisco to have the baby without anyone knowing, including me."[13]

Schieble gave birth to Jobs in San Francisco on February 24, 1955, and chose an adoptive couple for him that was "Catholic, well-educated, and wealthy",[14][15] but the couple later changed their minds.[14] He was then placed with Paul and Clara Jobs, who lacked wealth and college education, and Schieble refused to sign the adoption papers.[16] She asked the court to find a different family,[14] but consented when Paul and Clara pledged to fund his college education.[17]

In his youth, his parents took him to a Lutheran church.[18] When he was in high school, Clara admitted to his girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan, that she "was too frightened to love [Steve] for the first six months of his life … I was scared they were going to take him away from me. Even after we won the case, Steve was so difficult a child that by the time he was two I felt we had made a mistake. I wanted to return him." When Chrisann shared this comment with Steve, he stated that he was already aware,[14] and later said he had been deeply loved and indulged by Paul and Clara. Many years later, Jobs's wife Laurene also noted that "he felt he had been really blessed by having the two of them as parents."[19] Jobs would "bristle" when Paul and Clara were referred to as his “adoptive parents”, and he regarded them as his parents “1,000%”. Jobs referred to his biological parents as "my sperm and egg bank. That's not harsh, it's just the way it was, a sperm bank thing, nothing more."[8]

In February 1974, Jobs returned to his parents' home in Los Altos and began looking for a job.[53] He was soon hired by Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California, as a technician.[53][54] Back in 1973, Steve Wozniak designed his own version of the classic video game Pong and gave its electronics board to Jobs. According to Wozniak, Atari only hired Jobs because he took the board down to the company, and they thought that he had built it himself.[55] Atari's cofounder Nolan Bushnell later described him as "difficult but valuable", pointing out that "he was very often the smartest guy in the room, and he would let people know that."[56]

During this period, Jobs and Brennan remained involved with each other while continuing to see other people. By early 1974, Jobs was living what Brennan describes as a “simple life” in a Los Gatos cabin, working at Atari, and saving money for his impending trip to India.

Jobs traveled to India in mid-1974[57] to visit Neem Karoli Baba[58] at his Kainchi ashram with his Reed friend (and eventual Apple employee) Daniel Kottke, searching for spiritual enlightenment. When they got to the Neem Karoli ashram, it was almost deserted because Neem Karoli Baba had died in September 1973. Then they made a long trek up a dry riverbed to an ashram of Haidakhan Babaji.[54]

After seven months, Jobs left India[59] and returned to the US ahead of Daniel Kottke.[54] Jobs had changed his appearance; his head was shaved, and he wore traditional Indian clothing.[60][61] During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, later calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life".[62][63] He spent a period at the All One Farm, a commune in Oregon that was owned by Robert Friedland. Brennan joined him there for a period.

During this time period, Jobs and Brennan both became practitioners of Zen Buddhism through the Zen master Kōbun Chino Otogawa. Jobs was living in his parents' backyard toolshed, which he had converted into a bedroom. Jobs engaged in lengthy meditation retreats at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the oldest Sōtō Zen monastery in the US.[64] He considered taking up monastic residence at Eihei-ji in Japan, and maintained a lifelong appreciation for Zen.[65]

In mid-1975, after returning to Atari, Jobs was assigned to create a circuit board for the arcade video game Breakout.[66] According to Bushnell, Atari offered $100 (equivalent to about $500 in 2021) for each TTL chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little specialized knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari engineers, Wozniak reduced the TTL count to 46, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line.[67] According to Wozniak, Jobs told him that Atari paid them only $700 (instead of the actual $5,000), and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.[68] Wozniak did not learn about the actual bonus until ten years later, but said that if Jobs had told him about it and explained that he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.[69]

Jobs and Wozniak attended meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club in 1975, which was a stepping stone to the development and marketing of the first Apple computer.[15]

By March 1976, Wozniak completed the basic design of the Apple I computer and showed it to Jobs, who suggested that they sell it; Wozniak was at first skeptical of the idea but later agreed.[70] In April of that same year, Jobs, Wozniak, and administrative overseer Ronald Wayne founded Apple Computer Company (now called Apple Inc.) as a business partnership in Jobs's parents' Crist Drive home on April 1, 1976. The operation originally started in Jobs's bedroom and later moved to the garage.[71][72] Wayne stayed briefly, leaving Jobs and Wozniak as the active primary cofounders of the company.[73] The two decided on the name "Apple" after Jobs returned from the All One Farm commune in Oregon and told Wozniak about his time in the farm's apple orchard.[74] Jobs originally planned to produce bare printed circuit boards of the Apple I and sell them to computer hobbyists for $50 (equivalent to about $240 in 2021) each. To fund the first batch, Wozniak sold his HP scientific calculator and Jobs sold his Volkswagen van.[75][76] Later that year, computer retailer Paul Terrell purchased 50 fully assembled Apple I units for $500 each.[77][78] Eventually about 200 Apple I computers were produced in total.[79]

External image
Jobs and Steve Wozniak with an Apple I circuit board, c. 1976.

A neighbor on Crist Drive recalled Jobs as an odd individual who would greet his clients “with his underwear hanging out, barefoot and hippie-like”. Another neighbor, Larry Waterland, who had just earned his PhD in chemical engineering at Stanford, recalled dismissing Jobs's budding business compared to the established industry of giant mainframe computers with big decks of punchcards: “Steve took me over to the garage. He had a circuit board with a chip on it, a DuMont TV set, a Panasonic cassette tape deck and a keyboard. He said, 'This is an Apple computer.' I said, 'You've got to be joking.' I dismissed the whole idea.” Jobs's friend from Reed College and India, Daniel Kottke, recalled that as an early Apple employee, he “was the only person who worked in the garage … Woz would show up once a week with his latest code. Steve Jobs didn't get his hands dirty in that sense.” Kottke also stated that much of the early work took place in Jobs's kitchen, where he spent hours on the phone trying to find investors for the company.[32]

They received funding from a then-semi-retired Intel product marketing manager and engineer Mike Markkula.[80] Scott McNealy, one of the cofounders of Sun Microsystems, said that Jobs broke a "glass age ceiling" in Silicon Valley because he'd created a very successful company at a young age.[42] Markkula brought Apple to the attention of Arthur Rock, which after looking at the crowded Apple booth at the Home Brew Computer Show, started with a $60,000 investment and went on the Apple board.[81] Jobs was not pleased when Markkula recruited Mike Scott from National Semiconductor in February 1977 to serve as the first president and CEO of Apple.[82][83]

After Brennan returned from her own journey to India, she and Jobs fell in love again, as Brennan noted changes in him that she attributes to Kobun (whom she was also still following). It was also at this time that Jobs displayed a prototype Apple I computer for Brennan and his parents in their living room. Brennan notes a shift in this time period, where the two main influences on Jobs were Apple Inc. and Kobun. By early 1977, she and Jobs would spend time together at her home at Duveneck Ranch in Los Altos, which served as a hostel and environmental education center.

In April 1977, Jobs and Wozniak introduced the Apple II at the West Coast Computer Faire.[84] It is the first consumer product to have been sold by Apple Computer. Primarily designed by Wozniak, Jobs oversaw the development of its unusual case and Rod Holt developed the unique power supply.[85] During the design stage, Jobs argued that the Apple II should have two expansion slots, while Wozniak wanted eight. After a heated argument, Wozniak threatened that Jobs should "go get himself another computer". They later agreed on eight slots.[86] The Apple II became one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products in the world.[87]

As Jobs became more successful with his new company, his relationship with Brennan grew more complex. In 1977, the success of Apple was now a part of their relationship, and Brennan, Daniel Kottke, and Jobs moved into a house near the Apple office in Cupertino. Brennan eventually took a position in the shipping department at Apple.[88] Brennan's relationship with Jobs deteriorated as his position with Apple grew, and she began to consider ending the relationship. In October 1977, Brennan was approached by Rod Holt, who asked her to take "a paid apprenticeship designing blueprints for the Apples". Both Holt and Jobs believed that it would be a good position for her, given her artistic abilities. Holt was particularly eager that she take the position, and puzzled by her ambivalence toward it. Brennan's decision, however, was overshadowed by the fact that she realized she was pregnant, and that Jobs was the father. It took her a few days to tell Jobs, whose face, according to Brennan, “turned ugly” at the news. At the same time, according to Brennan, at the beginning of her third trimester, Jobs said to her: "I never wanted to ask that you get an abortion. I just didn't want to do that." He also refused to discuss the pregnancy with her.[89] Brennan turned down the internship and decided to leave Apple. She stated that Jobs told her "If you give up this baby for adoption, you will be sorry" and "I am never going to help you." According to Brennan, Jobs "started to seed people with the notion that I slept around, and he was infertile, which meant that this could not be his child." A few weeks before she was due to give birth, Brennan was invited to deliver her baby at the All One Farm. She accepted the offer. When Jobs was 23 (the same age as his biological parents when they had him)[89] Brennan gave birth to her baby, Lisa Brennan, on May 17, 1978.[90] Jobs went there for the birth after he was contacted by Robert Friedland, their mutual friend and the farm owner. While distant, Jobs worked with her on a name for the baby, which they discussed while sitting in the fields on a blanket. Brennan suggested the name "Lisa" which Jobs also liked and notes that Jobs was very attached to the name “Lisa” while he "was also publicly denying paternity". She would discover later that during this time, Jobs was preparing to unveil a new kind of computer that he wanted to give a female name (his first choice was “Claire” after St. Clare). She stated that she never gave him permission to use the baby's name for a computer and he hid the plans from her. Jobs worked with his team to come up with the phrase, "Local Integrated Software Architecture" as an alternative explanation for the Apple Lisa.[91] Decades later, however, Jobs admitted to his biographer Walter Isaacson that "obviously, it was named for my daughter".[92]

When Jobs denied paternity, a DNA test established him as Lisa's father. It required him to pay Brennan $385 (equivalent to about $1,000 in 2021) monthly in addition to returning the welfare money she had received. Jobs paid her $500 (equivalent to about $1,400 in 2021) monthly at the time when Apple went public and made him a millionaire. Later, Brennan agreed to interview with Michael Moritz for Time magazine for its Time Person of the Year special, released on January 3, 1983, in which she discussed her relationship with Jobs. Rather than name Jobs the Person of the Year, the magazine named the generic personal computer the "Machine of the Year".[93] In the issue, Jobs questioned the reliability of the paternity test, which stated that the "probability of paternity for Jobs, Steven... is 94.1%".[94] He responded by arguing that "28% of the male population of the United States could be the father". Time also noted that "the baby girl and the machine on which Apple has placed so much hope for the future share the same name: Lisa".[94]

In 1978, at age 23, Jobs was worth over $1 million (equivalent to $4.15 million in 2021). By age 25, his net worth grew to an estimated $250 million (equivalent to $745 million in 2021).[95] He was also one of the youngest "people ever to make the Forbes list of the nation's richest people—and one of only a handful to have done it themselves, without inherited wealth".[26]

In 1982, Jobs bought an apartment on the top two floors of The San Remo, a Manhattan building with a politically progressive reputation. Although he never lived there,[96] he spent years renovating it thanks to I. M. Pei. In 2003, he sold it to U2 singer Bono.

In 1983, Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple's CEO, asking, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?"[97]

In 1984, Jobs bought the Jackling House and estate, and resided there for a decade. Thereafter, he leased it out for several years until 2000 when he stopped maintaining the house, allowing weathering to degrade it. In 2004, Jobs received permission from the town of Woodside to demolish the house to build a smaller, contemporary styled one. After a few years in court, the house was finally demolished in 2011, a few months before he died.[98]

Macintosh prototype from c. 1981 at the Computer History Museum; Jobs with the Apple Macintosh, January 1984

Jobs took over development of the Macintosh in 1981, from early Apple employee Jef Raskin, who had conceived the project. Wozniak and Raskin had heavily influenced the early program, and Wozniak was on leave during this time due to an airplane crash earlier that year.[99][100][101] On January 22, 1984, Apple aired a Super Bowl television commercial titled "1984", which ended with the words: "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984."[102] On January 24, 1984, an emotional Jobs introduced the Macintosh to a wildly enthusiastic audience at Apple's annual shareholders meeting held in the Flint Auditorium at De Anza College.[103][104] Macintosh engineer Andy Hertzfeld described the scene as "pandemonium".[105] The Macintosh was inspired by the Lisa (in turn inspired by Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface),[106][107] and it was widely acclaimed by the media with strong initial sales.[108][109] However, its low performance and limited range of available software led to a rapid sales decline in the second half of 1984.[108][109][110]

External video
The Machine That Changed The World, The Paperback Computer; Interview with Steve Jobs, 1990, 50:08, May 14, 1990, WGBH Media Library & Archives[111]

Sculley's and Jobs's respective visions for the company greatly differed. Sculley favored open architecture computers like the Apple II, targeting education, small business, and home markets less vulnerable to IBM. Jobs wanted the company to focus on the closed architecture Macintosh as a business alternative to the IBM PC. President and CEO Sculley had little control over chairman of the board Jobs's Macintosh division; it and the Apple II division operated like separate companies, duplicating services.[112] Although its products provided 85% of Apple's sales in early 1985, the company's January 1985 annual meeting did not mention the Apple II division or employees. Many left, including Wozniak, who stated that the company had "been going in the wrong direction for the last five years" and sold most of his stock.[113] Though frustrated with the company's and Jobs's dismissal of the Apple II in favor of the Macintosh, Wozniak left amicably and remained an honorary employee of Apple, maintaining a lifelong friendship with Jobs.[114][115][116]

Jobs with software developer Wendell Brown in 1984

By early 1985, the Macintosh's failure to defeat the IBM PC became clear,[108][109] and it strengthened Sculley's position in the company. In May 1985, Sculley—encouraged by Arthur Rock—decided to reorganize Apple, and proposed a plan to the board that would remove Jobs from the Macintosh group and put him in charge of "New Product Development". This move would effectively render Jobs powerless within Apple.[26] In response, Jobs then developed a plan to get rid of Sculley and take over Apple. However, Jobs was confronted after the plan was leaked, and he said that he would leave Apple. The Board declined his resignation and asked him to reconsider. Sculley also told Jobs that he had all of the votes needed to go ahead with the reorganization. A few months later, on September 17, 1985, Jobs submitted a letter of resignation to the Apple Board. Five additional senior Apple employees also resigned and joined Jobs in his new venture, NeXT.[26]

The Macintosh's struggle continued after Jobs left Apple. Though marketed and received in fanfare, the expensive Macintosh was hard to sell.[117]^{: 308–309} In 1985, Bill Gates's then-developing company, Microsoft, threatened to stop developing Mac applications unless it was granted "a license for the Mac operating system software. Microsoft was developing its graphical user interface ... for DOS, which it was calling Windows and didn't want Apple to sue over the similarities between the Windows GUI and the Mac interface."[117]^: 321 Sculley granted Microsoft the license which later led to problems for Apple.[117]^: 321 In addition, cheap IBM PC clones that ran Microsoft software and had a graphical user interface began to appear. Although the Macintosh preceded the clones, it was far more expensive, so "through the late 1980s, the Windows user interface was getting better and better and was thus taking increasingly more share from Apple".[117]^: 322 Windows-based IBM-PC clones also led to the development of additional GUIs such as IBM's TopView or Digital Research's GEM,[117]^: 322 and thus "the graphical user interface was beginning to be taken for granted, undermining the most apparent advantage of the Mac...it seemed clear as the 1980s wound down that Apple couldn't go it alone indefinitely against the whole IBM-clone market."[117]^: 322

Following his resignation from Apple in 1985, Jobs founded NeXT Inc.[118] with $7 million. A year later he was running out of money, and he sought venture capital with no product on the horizon. Eventually, Jobs attracted the attention of billionaire Ross Perot, who invested heavily in the company.[119] The NeXT computer was shown to the world in what was considered Jobs's comeback event,[120] a lavish invitation-only gala launch event[121] that was described as a multimedia extravaganza.[122] The celebration was held at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, California, on Wednesday, October 12, 1988. Steve Wozniak said in a 2013 interview that while Jobs was at NeXT he was "really getting his head together".[99]

NeXT workstations were first released in 1990 and priced at $9,999 (equivalent to about $21,000 in 2021). Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced and designed for the education sector, but was largely dismissed as cost-prohibitive.[123] The NeXT workstation was known for its technical strengths, chief among them its object-oriented software development system. Jobs marketed NeXT products to the financial, scientific, and academic community, highlighting its innovative, experimental new technologies, such as the Mach kernel, the digital signal processor chip, and the built-in Ethernet port. Making use of a NeXT computer, English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1990 at CERN in Switzerland.[124]

The revised, second generation NeXTcube was released in 1990. Jobs touted it as the first "interpersonal" computer that would replace the personal computer. With its innovative NeXTMail multimedia email system, NeXTcube could share voice, image, graphics, and video in email for the first time. "Interpersonal computing is going to revolutionize human communications and groupwork", Jobs told reporters.[125] Jobs ran NeXT with an obsession for aesthetic perfection, as evidenced by the development of and attention to NeXTcube's magnesium case.[126] This put considerable strain on NeXT's hardware division, and in 1993, after having sold only 50,000 machines, NeXT transitioned fully to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel.[127] The company reported its first yearly profit of $1.03 million in 1994.[128] In 1996, NeXT Software, Inc. released WebObjects, a framework for Web application development. After NeXT was acquired by Apple Inc. in 1997, WebObjects was used to build and run the Apple Store,[127] MobileMe services, and the iTunes Store.

External video
Presentation by Jobs on the future of computer-animated films, March 31, 1998, C-SPAN

In 1986, Jobs funded the spinout of The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division for the price of $10 million, $5 million of which was given to the company as capital and $5 million of which was paid to Lucasfilm for technology rights.[129]

The first film produced by Pixar with its Disney partnership, Toy Story (1995), with Jobs credited as executive producer,[130] brought financial success and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released. Over the course of Jobs's life, under Pixar's creative chief John Lasseter, the company produced box-office hits A Bug's Life (1998); Toy Story 2 (1999); Monsters, Inc. (2001); Finding Nemo (2003); The Incredibles (2004); Cars (2006); Ratatouille (2007); WALL-E (2008); Up (2009); Toy Story 3 (2010); and Cars 2 (2011). Brave (2012), Pixar's first film to be produced since Jobs's death, honored him with a tribute for his contributions to the studio.[131] Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, Toy Story 3 and Brave each received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, an award introduced in 2001.[132][133]

In 2003 and 2004, as Pixar's contract with Disney was running out, Jobs and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner tried but failed to negotiate a new partnership,[134] and in January 2004, Jobs announced that he would never deal with Disney again.[135] Pixar would seek a new partner to distribute its films after its contract expired.

In October 2005, Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney, and Iger quickly worked to mend relations with Jobs and Pixar. On January 24, 2006, Jobs and Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. When the deal closed, Jobs became The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with approximately seven percent of the company's stock.[136] Jobs's holdings in Disney far exceeded those of Eisner, who holds 1.7%, and of Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who until his 2009 death held about 1% of the company's stock and whose criticisms of Eisner—especially that he soured Disney's relationship with Pixar—accelerated Eisner's ousting. Upon completion of the merger, Jobs received 7% of Disney shares, and joined the board of directors as the largest individual shareholder.[136][137][138] Upon Jobs's death his shares in Disney were transferred to the Steven P. Jobs Trust led by Laurene Jobs.[139]

After Jobs's death, Iger recalled in 2019 that many warned him about Jobs, “that he would bully me and everyone else”. Iger wrote, “Who wouldn't want Steve Jobs to have influence over how a company is run?", and that as an active Disney board member “he rarely created trouble for me. Not but rarely”. He speculated that they would have seriously considered merging Disney and Apple had Jobs lived.[135] Floyd Norman, of Pixar, described Jobs as a "mature, mellow individual” who never interfered with the creative process of the filmmakers.[140] In early June 2014, Pixar cofounder and Walt Disney Animation Studios President Ed Catmull revealed that Jobs once advised him to "just explain it to them until they understand” in disagreements. Catmull released the book Creativity, Inc. in 2014, in which he recounts numerous experiences of working with Jobs. Regarding his own manner of dealing with Jobs, Catmull writes:[141]

In all the 26 years with Steve, Steve and I never had one of these loud verbal arguments, and it's not my nature to do that. … but we did disagree fairly frequently about things. … I would say something to him and he would immediately shoot it down because he could think faster than I could. … I would then wait a week … I'd call him up, and I give my counterargument to what he had said, and he'd immediately shoot it down. So I had to wait another week, and occasionally this went on for months. But ultimately one of three things happened. About a third of the time he said, "Oh, I get it, you're right." And that was the end of it. And it was another third of the time in which [I'd] say, "Actually I think he is right." The other third of the time, where we didn't reach consensus, he just let me do it my way, never said anything more about it.[142]

Jobs onstage at Macworld Conference & Expo, San Francisco, January 11, 2005

In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $400 million. The deal was finalized in February 1997, bringing Jobs back to the company he had cofounded.[143] Jobs became de facto chief after then-CEO Gil Amelio was ousted in July 1997. He was formally named interim chief executive on September 16.[144] In March 1998, to concentrate Apple's efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs terminated several projects, such as Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, “afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened. The reality was that Jobs's summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company."[145] Jobs changed the licensing program for Macintosh clones, making it too costly for the manufacturers to continue making machines.

With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company's technology found its way into Apple products, most notably NeXTSTEP, which evolved into Mac OS X. Under Jobs's guidance, the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac and other new products; since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs officially dropped the "interim" modifier from his title at Apple and became permanent CEO.[146] Jobs quipped at the time that he would be using the title "iCEO".[147]

The company subsequently branched out, introducing and improving upon other digital appliances. With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company made forays into consumer electronics and music distribution. On June 29, 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell phone, which also included the features of an iPod and, with its own mobile browser, revolutionized the mobile browsing scene. While nurturing open-ended innovation, Jobs also reminded his employees that "real artists ship".[148]

Jobs had a public war of words with Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, starting in 1987, when Jobs first criticized Dell for making "un-innovative beige boxes".[149] On October 6, 1997, at a Gartner Symposium, when Dell was asked what he would do if he ran the then-troubled Apple Computer company, he said: "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”[150] Then, in 2006, Jobs emailed all employees when Apple's market capitalization rose above Dell's. It read:

Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.[151]

Jobs was both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the "reality distortion field" and was particularly evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as "Stevenotes") at Macworld Expos and at Apple Worldwide Developers Conferences.[152]

Jobs usually went to work wearing a black long-sleeved mock turtleneck made by Issey Miyake, Levi's 501 blue jeans, and New Balance 991 sneakers.[153][154] Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson "...he came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style."[153]

Jobs was a board member at Gap Inc. from 1999 to 2002.[155]

Jobs and Bill Gates at the fifth D: All Things Digital conference (D5) in May 2007

In 2001, Jobs was granted stock options in the amount of 7.5 million shares of Apple with an exercise price of $18.30. It was alleged that the options had been backdated, and that the exercise price should have been $21.10. It was further alleged that Jobs had thereby incurred taxable income of $20,000,000 that he did not report, and that Apple overstated its earnings by that same amount. As a result, Jobs potentially faced a number of criminal charges and civil penalties. The case was the subject of active criminal and civil government investigations,[156] though an independent internal Apple investigation completed on December 29, 2006, found that Jobs was unaware of these issues and that the options granted to him were returned without being exercised in 2003.[157]

In 2005, Jobs responded to criticism of Apple's poor recycling programs for e-waste in the US by lashing out at environmental and other advocates at Apple's annual meeting in Cupertino in April. A few weeks later, Apple announced it would take back iPods for free at its retail stores. The Computer TakeBack Campaign responded by flying a banner from a plane over the Stanford University graduation at which Jobs was the commencement speaker. The banner read "Steve, don't be a mini-player—recycle all e-waste."

In 2006, he further expanded Apple's recycling programs to any US customer who buys a new Mac. This program includes shipping and "environmentally friendly disposal" of their old systems.[158] The success of Apple's unique products and services provided several years of stable financial returns, propelling Apple to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company in 2011.[159]

Jobs was perceived as a demanding perfectionist[160][161] who always aspired to position his businesses and their products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting innovation and style trends. He summed up this self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007, by quoting ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky:

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. Since the very, very beginning. And we always will.[162]

Jobs demonstrating the iPhone 4 to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on June 23, 2010

On July 1, 2008, a $7 billion class action suit was filed against several members of the Apple board of directors for revenue lost because of alleged securities fraud.[163][164]

In a 2011 interview with biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs revealed that he had met with US President Barack Obama, complained about the nation's shortage of software engineers, and told Obama that he was "headed for a one-term presidency".[165] Jobs proposed that any foreign student who got an engineering degree at a US university should automatically be offered a green card. After the meeting, Jobs commented, "The president is very smart, but he kept explaining to us reasons why things can't get done . . . . It infuriates me."[165]

On January 17, 2011, a year and a half after Jobs returned to work following the liver transplant, Apple announced that he had been granted a medical leave of absence. Jobs announced his leave in a letter to employees, stating his decision was made "so he could focus on his health". As it did at the time of his 2009 medical leave, Apple announced that Tim Cook would run day-to-day operations and that Jobs would continue to be involved in major strategic decisions at the company.[203][204] While on leave, Jobs appeared at the iPad 2 launch event on March 2, the WWDC keynote introducing iCloud on June 6, and before the Cupertino City Council on June 7.[205]

On August 24, 2011, Jobs announced his resignation as Apple's CEO, writing to the board, "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."[206] Jobs became chairman of the board and named Tim Cook as his successor as CEO.[207][208] Jobs continued to work for Apple until the day before his death six weeks later.[209][210][211]

Flags flying at half-staff outside Apple HQ in Cupertino, on the evening of Jobs's death

Jobs died at his Palo Alto, California, home around 3 p.m. (PDT) on October 5, 2011, due to complications from a relapse of his previously treated islet-cell pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor,[15][212][213] which resulted in respiratory arrest.[214] He had lost consciousness the day before and died with his wife, children, and sisters at his side.[215] His sister, Mona Simpson, described his death thus: "Steve's final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times. Before embarking, he'd looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life's partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them. Steve's final words were: 'Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.'" He then lost consciousness and died several hours later.[215] A small private funeral was held on October 7, 2011, the details of which, out of respect for Jobs's family, were not made public.[216]

Apple[217] and Pixar each issued announcements of his death.[218] Apple announced on the same day that they had no plans for a public service, but were encouraging "well-wishers" to send their remembrance messages to an email address created to receive such messages.[219] Apple and Microsoft both flew their flags at half-staff throughout their respective headquarters and campuses.[220][221]

Bob Iger ordered all Disney properties, including Walt Disney World and Disneyland, to fly their flags at half-staff from October 6 to 12, 2011.[222] For two weeks following his death, Apple displayed on its corporate Web site a simple page that showed Jobs's name and lifespan next to his grayscale portrait.[223][224][225] On October 19, 2011, Apple employees held a private memorial service for Jobs on the Apple campus in Cupertino. It was attended by Jobs's widow, Laurene, and by Tim Cook, Bill Campbell, Norah Jones, Al Gore, and Coldplay. Some of Apple's retail stores closed briefly so employees could attend the memorial. A video of the service was uploaded to Apple's website.[226]

California Governor Jerry Brown declared Sunday, October 16, 2011, to be "Steve Jobs Day".[227] On that day, an invitation-only memorial was held at Stanford University. Those in attendance included Apple and other tech company executives, members of the media, celebrities, politicians, and family and close friends of Jobs. Bono, Yo-Yo Ma, and Joan Baez performed at the service, which lasted longer than an hour. The service was highly secured, with guards at all of the university's gates, and a helicopter overhead from an area news station.[228][229] Each attendee was given a small brown box as a "farewell gift" from Jobs, containing a copy of the Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.[230]

Childhood friend and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak,[231] former owner of what would become Pixar, George Lucas,[232] former rival, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates,[233] and President Barack Obama[234] all offered statements in response to his death.

At his request, Jobs was buried in an unmarked grave at Alta Mesa Memorial Park, the only nonsectarian cemetery in Palo Alto.[235][236]

Although entirely designed by Steve Wozniak, Jobs had the idea of selling the desktop computer, which led to the formation of Apple Computer in 1976. Both Jobs and Wozniak constructed several of the Apple I prototypes by hand, funded by selling some of their belongings. Eventually, 200 units were produced.[79]

An Apple II with an external modem, designed primarily by Wozniak

The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products,[87] designed primarily by Wozniak, and Jobs oversaw the development of the Apple II's unusual case[250] and Rod Holt developed the unique power supply.[85] It was introduced in 1977 at the West Coast Computer Faire by Jobs and Wozniak as the first consumer product sold by Apple.

The Lisa is a personal computer developed by Apple from 1978 and sold in the early 1980s. It is the first personal computer with a graphical user interface for business users.[251] The Lisa sold poorly, at 100,000 units.[252]

In 1982, after Jobs was forced out of the Lisa project,[253] he took over the Macintosh project, adding inspiration from Lisa. The final Lisa 2/10 was modified and sold as the Macintosh XL.[254]

Jobs holding up a MacBook Air at the MacWorld Conference & Expo in 2008

Once he joined the Macintosh team, Jobs took over the project after Wozniak had experienced a traumatic airplane accident and temporarily left the company.[99] Jobs launched the Macintosh on January 24, 1984, as the first mass-market personal computer featuring an integral graphical user interface and mouse.[255] This first model was later renamed to Macintosh 128k among the prolific series. Since 1998, Apple has phased out the Macintosh name in favor of "Mac", though the product family has been nicknamed "Mac" or "the Mac" since inception. The Macintosh was introduced by a US$1.5 million Ridley Scott television commercial, "1984".[256] It aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984, received as a "watershed event"[257] and a "masterpiece".[258] Regis McKenna called the ad "more successful than the Mac itself".[259] It uses an unnamed heroine to represent the coming of the Macintosh (indicated by a Picasso-style picture of the computer on her white tank top) to save humanity from the conformity of IBM's domination of the computer industry. The ad alludes to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which describes a dystopian future ruled by a televised "Big Brother."[260][261]

The Macintosh, however, was expensive, which hindered its ability to be competitive in a market already dominated by the Commodore 64 for consumers, and the IBM Personal Computer and its accompanying clone market for businesses.[262] Macintosh systems still found success in education and desktop publishing and kept Apple as the second-largest PC manufacturer for the next decade.

After Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985, he started NeXT, a workstation computer company. The NeXT Computer was introduced in 1988 at a lavish launch event. Using the NeXT Computer, Tim Berners-Lee created the world's first web browser, the WorldWideWeb. The NeXT Computer's operating system, named NeXTSTEP, begat Darwin, which is now the foundation of most of Apple's products such as Macintosh's macOS and iPhone's iOS.[263][264]

The original iMac, introduced in 1998, was the first consumer-facing Apple product to debut under Jobs's return.

Apple iMac G3 was introduced in 1998 and its innovative design was directly the result of Jobs's return to Apple. Apple boasted "the back of our computer looks better than the front of anyone else's."[265] Described as "cartoonlike", the first iMac, clad in Bondi Blue plastic, was unlike any personal computer that came before. In 1999, Apple introduced the Graphite gray Apple iMac and since has varied the shape, color and size considerably while maintaining the all-in-one design. Design ideas were intended to create a connection with the user such as the handle and a "breathing" light effect when the computer went to sleep.[266] The Apple iMac sold for $1,299 at that time. The iMac also featured forward-thinking changes, such as eschewing the floppy disk drive and moving exclusively to USB for connecting peripherals. This latter change resulted, through the iMac's success, in the interface being popularized among third-party peripheral makers—as evidenced by the fact that many early USB peripherals were made of translucent plastic (to match the iMac design).[267]

iTunes is a media player, media library, online radio broadcaster, and mobile device management application developed by Apple. It is used to play, download, and organize digital audio and video (as well as other types of media available on the iTunes Store) on personal computers running the macOS and Microsoft Windows operating systems. The iTunes Store is also available on the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad.

Through the iTunes Store, users can purchase and download music, music videos, television shows, audiobooks, podcasts, movies, and movie rentals in some countries, and ringtones, available on the iPhone and iPod Touch (fourth generation onward). Application software for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch can be downloaded from the App Store.

The first generation of iPod was released October 23, 2001. The major innovation of the iPod was its small size achieved by using a 1.8" hard drive compared to the 2.5" drives common to players at that time. The capacity of the first generation iPod ranged from 5 GB to 10 GB.[268] The iPod sold for US$399 and more than 100,000 iPods were sold before the end of 2001. The introduction of the iPod resulted in Apple becoming a major player in the music industry.[269] Also, the iPod's success prepared the way for the iTunes music store and the iPhone.[270] After the first few generations of iPod, Apple released the touchscreen iPod Touch, the reduced-size iPod Mini and iPod Nano, and the screenless iPod Shuffle in the following years.[269]

Apple began work on the first iPhone in 2005 and the first iPhone was released on June 29, 2007. The iPhone created such a sensation that a survey indicated six out of ten Americans were aware of its release. Time declared it "Invention of the Year" for 2007 and included it in the All-TIME 100 Gadgets list in 2010, in the category of Communication.[271] The completed iPhone had multimedia capabilities and functioned as a quad-band touch screen smartphone. A year later, the iPhone 3G was released in July 2008 with three key features: support for GPS, 3G data and tri-band UMTS/HSDPA. In June 2009, the iPhone 3GS, whose improvements included voice control, a better camera, and a faster processor, was introduced by Phil Schiller.[272] The iPhone 4 was thinner than previous models, had a five megapixel camera capable of recording video in 720p HD, and added a secondary front-facing camera for video calls.[273] A major feature of the iPhone 4S, introduced in October 2011, was Siri, a virtual assistant capable of voice recognition.[274]

Jobs introducing the iPad in San Francisco on January 27, 2010

The iPad is an iOS-based line of tablet computers designed and marketed by Apple. The first iPad was released on April 3, 2010. The user interface is built around the device's multi-touch screen, including a virtual keyboard. The iPad includes built-in Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity on select models. As of April 2015, more than 250 million iPads have been sold.[275]

In 1989, Jobs first met his future wife, Laurene Powell, when he gave a lecture at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she was a student. Soon after the event, he stated that Laurene "was right there in the front row in the lecture hall, and I couldn't take my eyes off of her ... kept losing my train of thought, and started feeling a little giddy."[19] After the lecture, he met her in the parking lot and invited her out to dinner. From that point forward, they were together, with a few minor exceptions, for the rest of his life.[19]

Jobs proposed on New Year's Day 1990 with "a fistful of freshly picked wildflowers".[19] They married on March 18, 1991, in a Buddhist ceremony at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park.[19] Fifty people, including Jobs's father, Paul, and his sister Mona, attended. The ceremony was conducted by Jobs's guru, Kobun Chino Otogawa. The vegan wedding cake was in the shape of Yosemite's Half Dome, and the wedding ended with a hike and Laurene's brothers' snowball fight. Jobs reportedly said to Mona: "You see, Mona [...], Laurene is descended from Joe Namath, and we're descended from John Muir."[276]

Jobs's and Powell's first child, Reed, was born in September 1991.[277] Jobs's father, Paul, died a year and a half later, on March 5, 1993. Jobs's childhood home remains a tourist attraction and is currently owned by his stepmother (Paul's second wife), Marilyn Jobs.[278]

Jobs and Powell had two more children, Erin, born in August 1995, and Eve, born in 1998.[277] The family lived in Palo Alto, California.[279] A journalist who grew up locally remembered him as owning the house with "the scariest [Halloween] decorations in Palo Alto ... I don't remember seeing him. I was busy being terrified."[280]

Although a billionaire, Jobs made it known that, like Bill Gates, he had stipulated that most of his monetary fortune would not be left to his children.[281][282] Both men had limited their children's access, age appropriate, to social media, computer games, and the Internet.[283][284]

Chrisann Brennan notes that after Jobs was forced out of Apple, "he apologized many times over for his behavior" towards her and Lisa. She said Jobs "said that he never took responsibility when he should have, and that he was sorry".[285] By this time, Jobs had developed a strong relationship with Lisa and when she was nine, Jobs had her name on her birth certificate changed from "Lisa Brennan" to "Lisa Brennan-Jobs".[14] Jobs and Brennan developed a working relationship to co-parent Lisa, a change which Brennan credits to the influence of his newly found biological sister, Mona Simpson, who worked to repair the relationship between Lisa and Jobs.[14] Jobs had found Mona after first finding his birth mother, Joanne Schieble Simpson, shortly after he left Apple.[286]

Jobs did not contact his birth family during his adoptive mother Clara's lifetime, however. He would later tell his official biographer Walter Isaacson: "I never wanted [Paul and Clara] to feel like I didn't consider them my parents, because they were totally my parents [...] I loved them so much that I never wanted them to know of my search, and I even had reporters keep it quiet when any of them found out."[286] However, in 1986, when Jobs was 31, Clara was diagnosed with lung cancer. He began to spend a great deal of time with her and learned more details about her background and his adoption, information that motivated him to find his biological mother. Jobs found on his birth certificate the name of the San Francisco doctor to whom Schieble had turned when she was pregnant. Although the doctor did not help Jobs while he was alive, he left a letter for Jobs to be opened upon his death. As he died soon afterwards, Jobs was given the letter which stated that "his mother had been an unmarried graduate student from Wisconsin named Joanne Schieble."[286]

Jobs only contacted Schieble after Clara died in early 1986 and after he received permission from his father, Paul. In addition, out of respect for Paul, he asked the media not to report on his search.[287] Jobs stated that he was motivated to find his birth mother out of both curiosity and a need "to see if she was okay and to thank her, because I'm glad I didn't end up as an abortion. She was twenty-three and she went through a lot to have me."[288] Schieble was emotional during their first meeting (though she wasn't familiar with the history of Apple or Jobs's role in it) and told him that she had been pressured into signing the adoption papers. She said that she regretted giving him up and repeatedly apologized to him for it. Jobs and Schieble would develop a friendly relationship throughout the rest of his life and would spend Christmas together.[289]

During this first visit, Schieble told Jobs that he had a sister, Mona, who was not aware that she had a brother.[288] Schieble then arranged for them to meet in New York where Mona worked. Her first impression of Jobs was that "he was totally straightforward and lovely, just a normal and sweet guy."[290] Simpson and Jobs then went for a long walk to get to know each other.[290] Jobs later told his biographer that "Mona was not completely thrilled at first to have me in her life and have her mother so emotionally affectionate toward me ... As we got to know each other, we became really good friends, and she is my family. I don't know what I'd do without her. I can't imagine a better sister. My adopted sister, Patty, and I were never close."[290]

Jobs then learned his family history. Six months after he was given up for adoption, Schieble's father died, she wed Jandali, and they had a daughter, Mona.[4][291] Jandali states that after finishing his PhD he returned to Syria to work, and then Schieble left him.[4] They divorced in 1962[20] and he said then he lost contact with Mona for a time:

I also bear the responsibility for being away from my daughter when she was four years old, as her mother divorced me when I went to Syria, but we got back in touch after 10 years. We lost touch again when her mother moved and I didn't know where she was, but since 10 years ago we've been in constant contact, and I see her three times a year. I organized a trip for her last year to visit Syria and Lebanon and she went with a relative from Florida.[4]

A few years later, Schieble married an ice skating teacher, George Simpson. Mona Jandali took her stepfather's last name, as Mona Simpson. In 1970, after divorcing her second husband, Schieble took Mona to Los Angeles and raised her alone.[291]

When Simpson found that their father, Abdulfattah Jandali, was living in Sacramento, California, Jobs had no interest in meeting him as he believed Jandali didn't treat his children well[292] and allegedly because of finding a Seattle Times article about Jandali's abandonment of his students on a trip to Egypt in 1974.[5] Simpson went to Sacramento alone and met Jandali, who worked in a small restaurant. They spoke for several hours, and he told her that he had left teaching for the restaurant business. He said he and Schieble had given another child away for adoption but that "we'll never see that baby again. That baby's gone." He said he once managed a Mediterranean restaurant near San Jose and that "all of the successful technology people used to come there. Even Steve Jobs ... oh yeah, he used to come in, and he was a sweet guy and a big tipper." At the request of Jobs, Simpson did not tell Jandali that she had met his son.[293]

After hearing about the visit, Jobs recalled that "it was amazing ... I had been to that restaurant a few times, and I remember meeting the owner. He was Syrian. Balding. We shook hands." However, Jobs still did not want to meet Jandali because "I was a wealthy man by then, and I didn't trust him not to try to blackmail me or go to the press about it ... I asked Mona not to tell him about me."[293] Jandali later discovered his relationship to Jobs through an online blog. He then contacted Simpson and asked "what is this thing about Steve Jobs?" Simpson told him that it was true and later commented, "My father is thoughtful and a beautiful storyteller, but he is very, very passive ... He never contacted Steve." Because Simpson herself researched her Syrian roots and began to meet the family, she assumed that Jobs would eventually want to meet their father, but he never did. Jobs also never showed an interest in his Syrian heritage or the Middle East. Simpson fictionalized the search for their father in her 1992 novel The Lost Father.[289] Malek Jandali is their cousin.[294]

Jobs's views and actions on philanthropy and charity are a public mystery.[295] He maintained privacy over his occasional few such actions which were publicly known. He has been a key figure in public discussions about societal obligations of the wealthy and powerful. Through his career, the media investigated and criticized him and Apple as unusually and inexplicably mysterious or absent among powerful leaders and especially billionaires. His name is absent from the Million Dollar List of all large global philanthropy.[296] Some have speculated about his possible secret role in large anonymous donations.[295]

Mark Vermilion, former charitable leader for Joan Baez, Apple, and Jobs, attributed Jobs's lifelong minimization of direct charity to his perfectionism and limited time. Jobs, Vermilion, and supporters said over the years that corporate products were Jobs's superior contributions to culture and society instead of direct charity.[296] In 1985, Jobs said, "You know, my main reaction to this money thing is that it’s humorous, all the attention to it, because it’s hardly the most insightful or valuable thing that’s happened to me."[295]

Shortly after leaving Apple, he formed the charitable Steven P. Jobs Foundation, led by Mark Vermilion, hired away from Apple's community leadership. Jobs wanted a focus on nutrition and vegetarianism but Vermilion wanted social entrepreneurship. That year, Jobs soon launched NeXT and closed the foundation with no results. Upon his 1997 return to Apple, Jobs optimized the failing company to the core, such as eliminating all philanthropic programs, never to be restored. In 2007, Stanford Social Innovation Review magazine listed Apple among "America’s least philanthropic companies". A few months after another unflattering news report, Apple started a program to match employees' charitable gifts.[296] Jobs has declined to sign The Giving Pledge, launched in 2010 by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates for fellow billionaires.[296][295] He donated $50 million to Stanford hospital and contributed to efforts to cure AIDS.[297] Bono reported "tens of millions of dollars" given by Apple while Jobs was CEO, to AIDS and HIV relief programs in Africa, which inspired other companies to join.[296]

• Isaacson, Walter (2011). Steve Jobs. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781451648546.
• Isaacson, Walter (2015). Steve Jobs. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781501127625.
• Linzmayer, Owen W. (2004). Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colorful Company. No Starch Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-59327-010-0. Retrieved April 15, 2014.