10 Intriguing Insights About Steve Jobs

If you're reading this, it's highly likely you've experienced one of the revolutionary products Steve Jobs brought to life. Born on February 24, 1955, the late tech visionary redefined the design and functionality of personal computers.

In 1976, Jobs co-founded Apple, was ousted in 1985, and made a triumphant return as CEO in 1996. He remained the brand's driving force until his passing in 2011 due to neuroendocrine cancer. Without his influence, the technology we rely on today might have taken a vastly different form. The man behind these innovations was as complex as he was brilliant. Here are some lesser-known facts about Steve Jobs.

1. Steve Jobs was adopted at birth.

While Jobs was a prominent public figure, he fiercely guarded his personal life. Adopted at birth, his biological father, Abdulfattah Jandali, was a Syrian immigrant. Jobs rejected Jandali's efforts to connect and initially refused to acknowledge paternity of his daughter, Lisa, for years.

2. Jobs never completed college.

A college degree isn’t always the key to success, as Jobs proved. Hailing from a modest background, he left Reed College after just six months due to financial pressures. Interestingly, Jobs later shared that a calligraphy course he attended at Reed influenced the typography designs in the first Mac computers.

3. Steve Jobs adopted his iconic black turtleneck after his team rejected the idea of a company uniform.

The elegance of Apple’s product design mirrored Jobs’s distinctive style. Most images of Jobs feature him in a black turtleneck, jeans, and sneakers. This wasn’t just any turtleneck—it was crafted by the visionary Japanese designer Issey Miyake.

Jobs’s inspiration for a uniform look came from a visit to Sony’s Tokyo headquarters in the 1980s, where he admired the minimalist employee uniforms designed by Miyake. He was so impressed that he asked Miyake to create uniforms for Apple, but the idea was unpopular among employees. As a compromise, Jobs embraced the Miyake turtleneck as his personal trademark. He owned approximately 100 of them, and though the specific style he wore was discontinued after his passing, Miyake later reintroduced a similar black turtleneck as a tribute to the tech icon’s unexpected influence on fashion.

4. Steve Jobs lacked the technical expertise many might assume he possessed.

Though Jobs revolutionized the tech industry, his colleagues often highlighted his business acumen and creativity over his technical skills. Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Jobs and left in 1985, once remarked, “He didn’t understand technology. He never designed anything as a hardware engineer, nor did he know software. He aspired to be significant, and in his eyes, the significant figures were always the business leaders. That’s what he aimed to become.”

5. A computer from Steve Jobs’s early years recently sold at auction for close to $500,000.

It’s astonishing to think a computer from 1976 could still function today, but Apple’s inaugural desktop, the rare Apple-1 (initially priced at the eerie sum of $666.66), was auctioned at Christie’s in 2019 in fully operational condition. This bulky, quintessentially ’70s machine was purchased by an anonymous bidder for approximately $470,000.

6. Steve Jobs was romantically linked to a music legend of the ’60s.

A decade before marrying Laurene Powell, Jobs had a relationship with folk singer Joan Baez in 1982. He described their bond as “a meaningful connection between two friends who unexpectedly became lovers.”

Baez, famously associated with Bob Dylan and known for her collaborations with him in the ’60s and ’70s, shared a connection with Jobs, who was also a devoted Dylan enthusiast. Jobs and Wozniak initially bonded over their admiration for Dylan, even collecting his bootleg recordings. Jobs finally met his idol in 2004, though the details of their conversation remain a mystery.

7. Steve Jobs explored the use of psychedelic substances.

Like many Baby Boomers, Jobs embraced a countercultural lifestyle in his youth. Alongside his friend and future colleague, Daniel Kottke, he often experimented with LSD during his college years in the ’70s. Kottke referred to them as “monk-wannabes.” Jobs was deeply inspired by Be Here Now, a 1971 book on meditation by spiritual guide Ram Dass, and he practiced Zen Buddhism. The principles of mindfulness from Buddhism are said to have influenced Apple’s minimalist and impactful product designs.

8. Steve Jobs wasn’t entirely sold on the idea of the “Genius Bar.”

Apple stores are celebrated for their sleek, white design and the “Genius Bar” customer support. However, not every aspect of the stores aligned with Jobs’s personal preferences.

In 2000, Apple brought Ron Johnson on board to manage their first retail stores. Johnson conceived the now-iconic Genius Bar, but when he pitched the idea to Jobs, Jobs dismissed it as “idiotic,” adding, “Ron, you might have the right concept, but here’s the issue: I’ve never met a tech-savvy person who can also connect with people. They’re all geeks! You might as well call it the Geek Bar.’”

9. Steve Jobs envisioned the original iPhone primarily as … a phone.

The iPhone revolutionized mobile technology, transforming phones into powerful mini-computers and reducing reliance on traditional calls due to the convenience of texting and social media. Surprisingly, the original iPhone was designed mainly for making calls. During the 2007 product launch, Jobs stated, “We aim to reinvent the phone ... What’s the killer app? It’s making calls. It’s astonishing how difficult it is to make calls on most phones.”

10. Steve Jobs’s final words were reportedly, “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

Jobs didn’t connect with his biological sister, Mona Simpson, until she was in her twenties. Simpson, a renowned novelist, delivered the eulogy at Jobs’s funeral, reflecting on their extraordinary bond and recounting his final days as he battled cancer. During her speech, Simpson shared that her brother passed away peacefully, uttering the heartfelt final words, “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

This article was first published in 2021 and has been revised for 2023.