Steve Jobs: 65 fun facts about the entrepreneur

There is no question of Steve Jobs’ legacy as an exploitative entrepreneur in the modern world. His contribution has had an impact to this day on the way we see and use technology as well as the underdevelopment of labor laws in many third world countries.

On October 5th, it was 10 years since Steve Jobs left us. Victim of pancreatic cancer, he died at the ripe old age of 56 years old and is always remembered by Apple every year.

Much is known about his life, but there are many interesting facts about his trajectory, which resulted in some of the most well-known devices of current days: the iPhones.

Therefore, we have prepared a list with 65 fun facts about his life so that you can be surprised about the interesting facts of the founder of Apple.

• 1. Steve Jobs’ biological father is Abdulfattah John Jandali, a Syrian born into a Muslim family.
• 2. Jandali was the son of a millionaire and attended college at the University of Wisconsin, where he met Joanne Carole Schieble, who would later become the mother of Steve Jobs.
• 3. Jandali and Joanne had to give the baby up for adoption because Joanne’s father did not agree with their marriage. The reason was that Jandali was Syrian.
• 4. Steve Jobs told his official biographer that Joanne’s father threatened to “cut Joanne completely” if she insisted on pursuing the relationship.
• 5. Joanne was a teacher and became pregnant in 1954. She was 23 years old when she gave birth to Jobs.
• 6. Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco.
• 7. An interesting fact is that, in an interview, Jandali said that he never talked directly with his son and that they didn’t even know each other, but that he always sent emails on birthdays to Jobs.
• 8. At the time, there was a strong stigma about having and raising a child out of wedlock as a single mother. Since abortions were illegal, adoption was the only option left for Jobs’ mother.
• 9. Joanne was in the care of a doctor who protected single mothers, delivered their babies, and discreetly arranged adoptions.
• 10. After the birth, Jandali and Joanne wanted Jobs’ adoptive parents to have higher education, and one couple was selected, but who later gave up and adopted a girl.
• 11. A couple of workers ended up choosing the baby for adoption, this couple were Paul Jobs and Clara Hagopian Jobs. The fact is, none of them had graduated from college, which is why Joanne refused to sign the adoption papers.
• 12. Joanne even took the case to court to try to place her baby in another family and only consented to release the baby to Paul and Clara after they promised he would go to college. An ironic fact is that Jobs never finished college.
• 13. It was then that in 1955, when Jobs was still a newborn, Paul and Clara named Steve Jobs by the name we know.
• 14. Paul and Clara were engaged for ten days, after which they married. Clara was the daughter of Armenian immigrants and grew up in San Francisco.
• 15. Jobs had a sister, Patty Jobs, who was also adopted and they moved to Mountain View in 1961.
• 16. Living in Mountain View, Paul rebuilt used cars in the garage, which had a strong influence on the design concept that helped the founder of Apple in the future.
• 17. It was during the 60s that Jobs began to fall in love with the world of electronics.
• 18. During his teenage years, Steve had no friendships with boys his own age and preferred to make friends with engineers who lived in the area.
• 19. When he was in sixth grade, Steve asked his parents to move. The reason was that he was being labeled “strange and lonely” at the school he attended. After that, he and his family moved to Los Alto.
• 20. It was in Los Altos that Steve met Steve Wozniak, an expert in creating programs and integrated circuits, who would later co-found Apple.
• 21. During eighth grade, Jobs met and attended the Hewlett-Packard Explorer Club.
• 22. While still in high school, Jobs and Wozniak created the “Blue Box”, a device that hacked the phone book and allowed people to make calls without paying extra for it. The two marketed the product for $100 dollars.
• 23. To test the Blue Box, Jobs and Wozniak called the Vatican and asked to speak to the Pope and also to various other places in the world.
• 24. During college, he started experimenting with drugs like LSD’s. Years later, he claimed that this was “one of the two or three most important things I’ve done in my life.”
• 25. During his college stint, Jobs began walking barefoot and practicing a vegan diet because he erroneously believed that dieting would eliminate the need to shower.
• 26. His first job was as a video game designer at Atari, where he developed a game improvement in just 4 days.
• 27. After a trip to the east, Steve Jobs returns to Atari and creates a version of the Pond Game, along with Wozniak, who worked at HP.
• 28. The first official product was created in 1975, by Wozniak.
• 29. In 1976, “Apple Computer Inc.” was founded with the sole purpose of launching the Apple I, which cost $666.66.
• 30. Ronald Wayne was the third founder of Apple, who was responsible for creating the first logo. Wayne sold his stake for $800 within weeks of the company’s launch.
• 31. Jobs claimed that he named his company by the name “Apple” because it would put them at an advantage, coming before “Atari” in the phone book.
• 32. While working at Atari, Jobs was transferred to the night shift due to complaints about his hygiene.
• 33. In his first big demonstration as an entrepreneur, Jobs sold a batch of Apple I computers, and the sale generated $25,000.
• 34. After his first major achievement in sales of the Apple I, he installed Apple’s first headquarters in his own garage in Los Altos.
• 35. Steve Jobs got a $250,000 credit to devise Apple’s second product, The “Apple II,” which sold 6 million units over a sixteen-year period.
• 36. Jobs had a daughter, Lisa Brennan, at age 23, whose paternity he denied for years. After Lisa’s mother spent years of financial hardship with her daughter, Jobs recognized Lisa as his legitimate daughter, and stated that before he “didn’t want to be a father.”
• 37. Jobs conceived a project called the “Apple Lisa” and it took years to admit that he had named the computer after his daughter, even though it had been obvious since its launch.
• 38. The Macintosh launch (the first version of the Mac we know today) was one of the biggest milestones in the history of computing. Jobs designed the computer to “present himself” to the audience with an electronic voice that said:
  “Hello, I am Macintosh. It sure is great to get out of that bag!
  Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I’d like to share with you a maxim I thought of the first time I met an IBM mainframe: Never trust a computer that you can’t lift!
  Obviously, I can talk, but right now I’d like to sit back and listen. So it is with considerable pride that I introduce a man who has been like a father to me… Steve Jobs!”
• 39. At the end of the Apple Macintosh presentation, there are reports of jumps, punches in the air, and five minutes of continuous applause.
• 40. In 1985, Steve Jobs was kicked out of his own company by the board, which at the time said they had different views than Jobs.
• 41. He even signed up as a civilian astronaut to fly the Space Shuttle after being kicked out of Apple.
• 42. Steve was famous for being difficult and demanding. So much so that in 1993, he held a spot on Fortune’s list of America’s toughest bosses.
• 43. Outside of Apple, Jobs founded NeXT and bought a future animation studio, the famous Pixar. The acquisition cost him $10 million.
• 44. In 1995 Pixar would release the first computerized feature film in history, Toy Story, which is considered a milestone in the history of digital animation.
• 45. In 1996, Apple urgently needed a new Operating System and, ironically, the only option they found was to buy NeXT and bring Jobs back into the company.
• 46. In the 1980s and 1990s, Jobs was not sympathetic to journalists and the media, and he went out of his way to maintain control of the public’s impression of Apple. He even sued Nicholas Ciarelli, who revealed in his blog rumors and secret details about Apple’s upcoming products.
• 47. Steve returned to Apple as CEO in 1997 and donated Apple’s first computers to Stanford University. For him, this was his way of leaving the past and embracing the future of the company, which at the time was in serious trouble.
• 48. To this day, iPhone ads display the time as 9:41, the time Steve Jobs revealed it at its 2007 launch.
• 49. Jobs had an entire team dedicated to studying the experience of packaging that became Apple’s trademark and then replicated by other brands.
• 50. As an adult, Jobs ended up reuniting with one of his biological sisters, Mona Simpson, becoming very close to her. Both had a lot in common.
• 51. Steve Wozniak stated that Jobs never learned to code and did not make a line of programming in any product released by Apple.
• 52. Mona Simpson was a writer and wrote the book that inspired the film Anywhere But Here which tells the story of a mother and daughter seeking success in Beverly Hills. She stated that the film is dedicated to Steve Jobs.
• 53. Jobs is listed as the principal inventor or co-inventor of 346 US technology patents, with the majority being design patents. Since his death, he has received 141 new patents.
• 54. Jobs drove a Mercedes for years without putting up a license plate. The explanation is that in California there is a rule that, if the car is new, the owner has up to six months to get the license plate. So he only changed cars of the identical model every six months.
• 55. Jobs mentored Sergey Brin and Larry Page during the founding of Google and even shared some of his advisers with the Google duo.
• 56. Apple was ranked first on the Fortune list of America’s Most Admired Companies.
• 57. As one of the many inconsiderate things he was notorious for doing, in every company where he was employed, Steve Jobs parked his cars in handicapped spaces.
• 58. His secretary was once late for work, and Steve tossed her a Jaguar key and said, “Don’t be late anymore.”
• 59. When introduced to the first prototype of the iPod, Steve threw it into an aquarium and used the air bubbles to prove that there was empty space and that it could be smaller.
• 60. When diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, Jobs decided not to follow the path recommended by the doctor that would be immediate operation. However, he began an alternative medicine regimen, including a vegan diet, acupuncture, and herbal remedies, and sometimes he consulted with a medium, dying not so long after, as expected.
• 61. Jobs was a Lutheran, but as a young man, he immersed himself in Eastern religions and took long periods to study the Buddhist religion.
• 62. The Bible, Steve Jobs biography, and The Hunger Games are the best-selling Kindle books of all time.
• 63. When Jobs passed away, Apple, Microsoft, and Disney (including Disneyland and Disney World), in an act of mourning, hoisted their flags with half-mast.
• 64. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had a balanced relationship between rivalry and friendship. Just before he died, the two met and, although Jobs was too weak to speak, they talked for a long time.
• 65. In his honor, his death day, October 16, 2011, was declared by California Governor Jerry Brown as “Steve Jobs Day”.

Did you like to learn a little more about Steve Jobs?

Steve Jobs was an undeniable figure in the recent history of humanity and modern technology and today we all share directly or indirectly in the inventions for which he acquired the rights.

Let us know in the comments how you see your contributions and your expectations about the future of technological innovations to come. And don’t forget to learn all about iOS 15 and how to add a shortcut to the iPhone homescreen!