On October 5, 2011, the world lost one of the truly iconic innovators of the modern era. Credited with ushering in the age of the modern, affordable, and user-friendly home computers as well as numerous revolutionary and indispensable electronic gadgets, Jobs was a visionary to the very end. In her eulogy of him, his sister, Mona Simpson, said that Jobs had been looking at members of his family in his final moments gathered around his bed when he gazed past them and said, “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow,” before peacefully passing. For Jobs, who for decades provoked similar words of astonishment from countless millions, the meaning of these last words will serve as an almost mystical topic of discussion for his legions of worshippers. But who was this man? What forces drove him to work himself and all others about him to near-constant collapse?
By now most are aware that Steve Jobs was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs and grew up in California in comfortable circumstances. As a young adult, Jobs did unknowingly ran into his biologic father at a restaurant that his biologic father owned. Years later, however, Jobs would refuse all overtures by this man to establish any form of contact or relationship. Jobs clearly had a chip on his shoulder, and some speculate that Jobs subconsciously spent much of his energy and life trying to prove the error of this abandonment. His adoptive father was a talented machinist and a nurturing figure in his life. Jobs would point to their time spent taking apart and reassembling electronic devices in the garage as being very formative.
Jobs was an indifferent student, however, and dropped out of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, after only six months, never earning a college degree. After bumming about India in search of spiritual enlightenment, he returned to the States and together with Steven Wozniak, a brilliant computer engineer, formed Apple Computers in 1976. Jobs was just 21 at the time. It is tempting to say that the rest is history, but this is a history that the intensely private Jobs went to great lengths to keep secret.
Much of Jobs’s past is actually quite unflattering, to say the least. In 1978, Jobs fathered a daughter with his then girlfriend, Chris Ann Brennan, but then denied paternity and responsibility, even going so far as to claim that he was sterile. Jobs was already a multimillionaire at the time. His rants, tirades, and general inflexibility are legendary and played a significant part in his being forced out of Apple by the Board in 1985. He likened himself to hockey great Wayne Gretsky, who once famously said that he would head for that area on the ice not where the puck was but where it would soon be. Jobs believed in his talent and intuition. His purchase of an animation company, which later became the hugely successful Pixar Animation Studios, is fully in keeping with this extraordinary gift. Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 and is widely credited with revitalizing the company.
The years did little to soften his abrasive personality and management style, however, and his “my way or the highway” management style would commonly lead him to insist on deadlines that were absolutely impossible to meet. Some would say that he asked no more of others than he did himself, though, and his closest acquaintances suggest that he was very sensitive to criticism and was quite poor at receiving the same.
In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a rare but operable form of pancreatic cancer. He delayed surgery for nearly a year’s time while he pursued a holistic treatment approach. True to form, Jobs revealed very little of his illness and in fact fed the public misleading information about the severity of his illness – perhaps for fear of its effect on his personal fortune should Apple stock tumble on news of his poor health? Jobs marched to his own beat, and in one interesting and revealing anecdote mentioned that he would lease a new, same model car every six months because he didn’t like the notion of having to display a license plate (California law allows a six-month grace period for new cars prior to requiring a license plate).
In the end, Jobs would soften appreciably and even express some regret over a few of his decisions. To many this awakening was too little too late, however.