2.2B Active Devices · 4 Industries Transformed · 1 More Thing
February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011 · San Francisco, California
He was adopted. He dropped out of college. He started Apple in a garage, got fired from it, and came back to build the most valuable company on earth. He didn't invent the computer, the phone, or the music player. He just made you want one.
Six acts. One man who believed that technology should be beautiful, and proved it to the world.
A kid from a blue-collar family in Mountain View who dropped acid, dropped out of college, and found his calling.
Born to Joanne Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali — a graduate student and a Syrian immigrant — and adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, a mechanic and an accountant. Steve grew up in Mountain View, California, surrounded by the nascent Silicon Valley. His father Paul taught him to build things with his hands and care about craftsmanship even in the parts you couldn't see. Steve attended Reed College for one semester, then dropped out but kept auditing classes — including a calligraphy course that would later inspire the Macintosh's typography. He traveled to India seeking spiritual enlightenment, practiced Zen Buddhism, worked at Atari, and met Steve Wozniak.
They started in a garage with $1,300. Four years later, Apple was worth $1.8 billion. Then the board fired him.
On April 1, 1976, Jobs and Wozniak founded Apple Computer. The Apple II became the first mass-market personal computer and made them both millionaires. The Macintosh launched in 1984 with the iconic "1984" Super Bowl ad — the most famous commercial ever made. But the Mac's sales disappointed. Jobs was impossible to work with — brilliant, cruel, and unwilling to compromise. The board sided with CEO John Sculley. On September 17, 1985, Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, the company he founded in his parents' garage.
He started NeXT. He bought Pixar. He grew up. The wilderness years made him the leader Apple needed.
Jobs founded NeXT Computer and bought Pixar from Lucasfilm for $10 million. NeXT built beautiful machines that almost nobody bought — but its operating system would become the foundation of macOS. Pixar nearly bankrupted Jobs before Toy Story saved everything. The first fully computer-animated feature film grossed $373 million. Jobs took Pixar public on November 29, 1995 — the same week the stock made him a billionaire. Meanwhile, Apple was dying. They'd tried and failed with Newton, Copland, and a dozen CEOs. In December 1996, Apple bought NeXT for $427 million. Steve Jobs was back.
Apple was 90 days from bankruptcy. He killed 70% of the product line, launched the iMac, and changed the world four times.
Jobs returned to an Apple that was bleeding $1 billion a year. He cut the product line from 350 products to 10. He launched "Think Different." He unveiled the iMac in 1998 — translucent, colorful, and unlike anything in computing. Then came the trifecta that redefined modern life: iPod (2001), iTunes Store (2003), and iPhone (2007). Each one destroyed an existing industry and created a new one. The iPod killed the CD. iTunes killed record stores. The iPhone killed everything — flip phones, PDAs, GPS devices, point-and-shoot cameras, and the entire concept of being disconnected.
He was dying. He knew it. He launched the iPad, built Apple Park, and prepared the company to outlast him.
Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003. He initially tried to treat it with diet and alternative medicine — a decision many believe cost him years. He had surgery in 2004, a liver transplant in 2009, and continued working through it all. The iPad launched in 2010, creating the tablet market. He designed Apple Park — the spaceship campus — as his architectural legacy. On August 24, 2011, he resigned as CEO. On October 5, 2011, at 3:00 PM, Steve Jobs died at home with his family. His last words, according to his sister Mona Simpson: "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow."
Partners, rivals, victims, and the people who made insanely great things under impossible pressure.
He made beautiful things. He made people cry. Both facts are equally well documented.
First-person accounts, technical analyses, fact-checks, and scene pitches from 356 contributors.
You carry his legacy in your pocket. Now help tell his story.