Steve Jobs

His birth mother had asked for college graduates. When she learned that a machinist and a bookkeeper had taken him she went to court to have him removed, and signed only after Paul and Clara Jobs promised to pay for his college. Paul built a workbench in the garage and gave his son half of it. Jobs skipped fifth grade, was bullied at the next school, and told his parents to move him or he would quit. They spent their savings on a house in Los Altos to reach the Cupertino school district. At 13 he cold-called Bill Hewlett and asked for parts. At 17 he insisted on Reed College, which his parents could not really afford, and dropped out after one semester to audit a calligraphy class.

He and Steve Wozniak founded Apple on April 1, 1976, to sell Wozniak's computer, and the Apple II made them both rich the following year. A 1979 visit to Xerox showed him a mouse and a graphical interface, which produced the failed Lisa and then, on January 24, 1984, the Macintosh. Apple's board forced him out in 1985. He founded NeXT, bought the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm in 1986, renamed it Pixar and released Toy Story in 1995. Apple bought NeXT in 1996 and he was running the company again by 1997. What followed was the iMac, the iPod, the iTunes Store, the iPhone and the iPad, in that order. He sold Pixar to Disney in 2006 and became Disney's largest individual shareholder.

Chrisann Brennan gave birth to a daughter in May 1978 and Jobs denied he was the father. A DNA test put the probability at 94.1 percent. He told Time magazine that 28 percent of the male population of the United States could be the father, and paid 385 dollars a month plus the welfare money the county had given her. He named a computer Lisa, insisted publicly that it stood for Local Integrated Software Architecture, and admitted to his biographer decades later that obviously it was named for his daughter. Three years earlier Atari had paid a 5,000-dollar bonus for a circuit board Wozniak designed for Breakout. Jobs told him the fee was 750 dollars and handed him 375. Wozniak found out ten years later and said he would have given Jobs the money if he had only asked.

He was diagnosed with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor in October 2003 and spent nine months on juice fasts, acupuncture and herbal remedies before agreeing to surgery, a delay he later told his biographer he regretted. Whether it cost him his life is disputed. Barrie Cassileth of Memorial Sloan Kettering said he essentially committed suicide. The cancer researcher David Gorski wrote that the decision probably reduced his odds only modestly. He died at home in Palo Alto on October 5, 2011, six weeks after resigning, and was buried in an unmarked grave. Everyone who came to the Stanford memorial was handed a small brown box holding a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi. The Presidential Medal of Freedom came in 2022.

Steve Jobs's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Apple II invention
  One of the first mass-produced microcomputers, and the machine that paid for everything after 1977
• Macintosh invention
  The first mass-market computer with a graphical interface and a mouse 1984
• Pixar company
  Bought as the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm and sold to Disney in 2006 1986
• iPod invention
  Followed by the iTunes Store in 2003 2001
• Stanford commencement address speech
  The one about the calligraphy class, and about dying 2005
• iPhone invention
  Announced on January 9, 2007 2007

• 1968 aged ~13 Cold-calls Bill Hewlett for parts and is given a summer job He was 13.
• September 1972 aged 17 Enrolls at Reed College and drops out after one semester He kept auditing classes, including calligraphy, and slept on friends' floors.
• Mid-1974 aged ~19 Travels to India looking for a guru who had died the year before He came back with a shaved head and stayed with Zen practice for the rest of his life.
• April 1, 1976 aged 21 Founds Apple with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne
• May 17, 1978 aged 23 His daughter Lisa is born and he denies paternity A DNA test returned 94.1 percent. He named a computer after her and denied that too.
• December 12, 1980 aged 25 Apple goes public on the Nasdaq
• January 24, 1984 aged 28 Introduces the Macintosh at the annual shareholders meeting
• October 2003 aged 48 Diagnosed with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor He refused surgery for nine months and later said he regretted it.
• August 24, 2011 aged 56 Resigns as chief executive of Apple He worked until the day before he died, six weeks later.

• Edwin Land 1909–1991
  Scientist and co-founder of Polaroid who invented instant photography. took as a model
• George Lucas b. 1944
  Filmmaker who created Star Wars and Indiana Jones, later selling Lucasfilm to Disney for over $4 billion. bought Pixar from
• Douglas Engelbart 1925–2013
  Engineer who invented the computer mouse and demonstrated interactive computing in 1968. commercialized his invention
• Walt Disney 1901–1966
  Animator and business magnate who created Mickey Mouse and built the world's largest entertainment empire. sold Pixar into his company
• Tim Cook b. 1960
  CEO of Apple who steered the company to become the world's most valuable after Steve Jobs's death. named his successor
• Warren Buffett b. 1930
  Value investor whose disciplined approach built one of the largest personal fortunes in American history. declined the pledge he launched