55 Fun Facts About Steve Jobs

With whom did Jobs co-found Apple Computer Company in 1976?

Steve Wozniak designed the Apple I and offered it to his employer five times, only to be turned down, so he and Jobs started a business to sell it.

Which Apple ad campaign, launched after Jobs returned in 1997, saluted 'the crazy ones'?

Think Different's TV ad was narrated by Richard Dreyfuss, though Jobs recorded his own version, which Apple played at its memorial for him in 2011.

What company did Jobs found in 1985 immediately after leaving Apple?

Apple bought NeXT for over $400 million in 1997, bringing Jobs back.

In which city was Jobs born in February 1955?

San Francisco is where his birth mother, an unmarried University of Wisconsin student, travelled to give birth and arrange a closed adoption.

Abdulfattah Jandali, who fathered Jobs, was born to wealthy parents in which country?

Syria was Jandali's homeland; he met Jobs's mother at the University of Wisconsin, but her father opposed the relationship because Jandali was Muslim.

What did Paul and Clara Jobs promise Steve's birth mother in order to keep him?

To pay for his college tuition: his birth mother had wanted college graduates to adopt him, and neither Paul nor Clara Jobs had a degree.

Which company gave a young Jobs a summer job after he cold-called its co-founder asking for spare parts?

Hewlett-Packard co-founder Bill Hewlett, whose number was in the phone book, gave him the parts and a summer job assembling frequency counters.

What illegal device did Jobs and his future co-founder build and sell before Apple?

Blue boxes for free calls were sold for profit, and Jobs later said that without them 'there wouldn't have been an Apple'.

Which Portland, Oregon, school did Jobs attend for a single semester in 1972?

Reed College is where he met Daniel Kottke, who later trekked through India with him and became one of Apple's first employees.

Which audited college course did Jobs credit for the Mac's typefaces and spaced fonts?

Calligraphy gave the Mac its multiple typefaces, Jobs said, 'and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.'

Where did Jobs get free weekly meals while sleeping on friends' floors after dropping out?

A Hare Krishna temple gave him free weekly meals, and he returned Coke bottles to scrape together food money.

Which video game company hired Jobs as a technician in 1974?

Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell called him 'difficult but valuable', and later turned down Jobs's offer of a third of Apple for $50,000.

Which tech founder did Jobs advise to visit the Indian ashram he'd visited in 1974?

Mark Zuckerberg made the trip in 2008 while Facebook was struggling; Jobs had arrived in 1974 to find guru Neem Karoli Baba already dead.

Which branch of Buddhism did Jobs practise under the master Kobun Chino Otogawa?

Zen teacher Kōbun Chino Otogawa went on to preside over Jobs's 1991 wedding to Laurene Powell.

Which Pong-inspired arcade game did Bushnell ask Jobs to build with as few chips as possible?

Breakout's chip-saving design earned a $5,000 bonus, which Jobs kept secret from his friend, paying him only a few hundred dollars.

Who was the third co-founder of Apple, who stayed only briefly?

Ronald Wayne drafted Apple's partnership agreement, then sold his 10% stake back for $800 less than two weeks later.

What did Jobs sell to fund the first batch of Apple I boards?

His Volkswagen van fetched $1,500, and a local store's order for 50 assembled computers soon put Apple in business.

Which semi-retired Intel manager provided Apple's early funding and brought in investor Arthur Rock?

Mike Markkula backed Apple's 1977 incorporation with his own money and a Bank of America credit line, and later served as its CEO.

Which Apple computer did Jobs want built with just two expansion slots before his co-founder insisted on eight?

The Apple II got eight slots after a heated argument in which his partner told Jobs to 'go get himself another computer'.

Which 1983 Apple computer was named after Jobs's daughter, though the company claimed it was an acronym?

Lisa's official cover story was 'Local Integrated Software Architecture', but Jobs later admitted the truth to his biographer.

What did Time magazine name its 'Machine of the Year' for 1982?

The personal computer took the title in Time's January 1983 issue, which also reported Jobs disputing a paternity test that put the odds at 94.1 percent.

Which Pepsi executive did Jobs lure to Apple in 1983 with the 'selling sugared water' line?

John Sculley took the job; two years later, after Jobs tried to oust him, Apple's executives sided with Sculley and stripped Jobs of his duties.

Who directed Apple's famous '1984' Super Bowl commercial for the Macintosh?

Ridley Scott, fresh from Blade Runner, directed it, but Apple's board hated the ad so much that the company asked its agency to sell back the airtime.

Jobs called which ER star to praise his performance as Jobs in the 1999 TV film Pirates of Silicon Valley?

Noah Wyle got the call; Jobs thought the film 'mean-spirited' but said Wyle had done his homework on his mannerisms.

Which early Apple employee conceived the Macintosh project before Jobs took it over in 1981?

Jef Raskin named the project after his favourite apple, the McIntosh, and left the team after Jobs took it over.

Soon after returning in 1997, Jobs announced a $150 million investment in Apple from which longtime rival?

Microsoft also agreed to keep making Office for the Mac for five years and to settle its patent disputes with Apple.

Which billionaire invested heavily in Jobs's post-Apple computer company when it was running out of money?

Ross Perot paid $20 million for 16% of the company after seeing it in a 1986 PBS documentary.

What did Tim Berners-Lee invent in 1990 on a computer from Jobs's post-Apple company?

The World Wide Web's first web server and browser ran on that machine, though its maker sold only about 50,000 computers in all.

What was the first feature film Pixar produced with Disney, with Jobs credited as executive producer?

Toy Story was the first entirely computer-animated feature film, and its success turned Pixar into a leading animation studio.

After Pixar's talks with Michael Eisner collapsed, which new Disney CEO bought Jobs's Pixar in 2006?

Bob Iger closed the $7.4 billion all-stock deal, which made Jobs the largest individual shareholder in Disney.

Which Apple CEO was ousted in July 1997, making Jobs de facto chief on his return?

Gil Amelio was ousted after about 500 days, a stint he later recounted in his book On the Firing Line.

Which handheld product line did Jobs kill in 1998 to refocus Apple?

The Newton's error-prone handwriting recognition had been mocked on The Simpsons and in Doonesbury before Jobs discontinued it.

What colour plastic clad the first iMac in 1998?

Bondi Blue was inspired by a piece of greenish-blue beach glass, and the iMac also dropped the floppy drive for USB ports.

What did Michael Dell say in 1997 he'd do if he ran Apple?

Shut it down, return the money: when Apple's market value passed Dell's in January 2006, Jobs emailed staff that Michael Dell 'wasn't perfect at predicting the future'.

Which designer made the black mock turtlenecks Jobs wore as his everyday uniform?

Issey Miyake got the job after Jobs admired the uniforms he had designed for Sony's factories; Jobs said Miyake made him 'like a hundred of them.'

Which phrase did Apple's Bud Tribble coin in 1981 for Jobs's power to convince people of almost anything?

The reality distortion field, borrowed from Star Trek, meant that in Jobs's presence reality was malleable, which made realistic schedules hard.

Which ice hockey player did Jobs quote at the end of his January 2007 keynote unveiling the iPhone?

Wayne Gretzky's line 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been' was, Jobs said, what Apple had always tried to do.

Which slogan launched the first iPod in 2001?

'1,000 songs in your pocket' sold a 5 GB player built around a tiny 1.8-inch hard drive.

What type of cancer was Jobs diagnosed with in 2003?

A pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour is a rarer, less aggressive type, yet Jobs resisted his doctors' advice for nine months in favour of alternative medicine.

Which colleague offered Jobs part of his own liver in 2009, an offer Jobs angrily refused?

Tim Cook shared Jobs's rare blood type, but Jobs yelled, 'I'll never let you do that. I'll never do that.'

Which news service mistakenly published a 2,500-word obituary of Jobs in August 2008?

Bloomberg's error led Jobs to paraphrase Mark Twain at a September 2008 keynote: 'The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.'

Where did Jobs marry Laurene Powell in March 1991?

The Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite hosted about 50 guests; the vegan wedding cake was shaped like Half Dome, and the day ended with a hike and a snowball fight.

Which novelist turned out to be Jobs's biological sister, whom he met as an adult?

Mona Simpson hadn't known she had a brother until their birth mother arranged for them to meet; she later fictionalised the search for their father in The Lost Father.

Which writer did Jobs ask to write his authorized biography, published 19 days after his death?

Walter Isaacson, biographer of Franklin and Einstein, drew on more than 40 interviews, and Jobs waived the right to read the book before publication.

According to his sister, what were Jobs's last words?

'Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.' were his final words, his sister said in her eulogy; he died at home in Palo Alto on October 5, 2011.

What 'farewell gift' did every guest receive at Jobs's memorial at Stanford?

A copy of Autobiography of a Yogi was each guest's parting gift from the service, where cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed.

Which 2010 billionaires' philanthropy campaign by Buffett and Gates did Jobs decline to join?

The Giving Pledge went unsigned by Jobs, who kept his charity private and scrapped Apple's philanthropy programmes on his return, though he gave $50 million to Stanford hospital.

Which president posthumously awarded Jobs the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022?

Joe Biden made the award in 2022; back in 1985, Ronald Reagan had given Jobs and his co-founder the National Medal of Technology.

Which actor earned an Oscar nomination for playing Jobs in Aaron Sorkin's 2015 film Steve Jobs?

Michael Fassbender won the role after Christian Bale and Leonardo DiCaprio had both been in talks to play Jobs.

Which actor played Jobs in the 2013 biopic Jobs, which closed that year's Sundance Film Festival?

Ashton Kutcher's performance drew mixed but positive notices, while critics gave the film itself a thumbs down.

Which Xerox PARC computer, seen by Jobs in 1979, inspired the Mac's mouse-driven interface?

The Alto's mouse-driven desktop excited Jobs most, and in exchange for the visits Xerox got to buy $1 million of Apple's pre-IPO stock.

Which company supplied the first iPhone's glass screen after Jobs's keys scratched the plastic prototype?

Corning revived a shelved toughened glass, later called Gorilla Glass, and it went into commercial use with the iPhone's June 2007 launch.

At which event in 2000 did Jobs drop 'interim' from his CEO title, joking he would be the 'iCEO'?

Macworld Expo in 2000 is where he made it permanent, more than two years after the board named him interim chief executive.

In which city did Jobs undergo a liver transplant in April 2009?

Memphis's Methodist University Hospital did the transplant, and his prognosis afterwards was described as 'excellent'.

Jobs built Apple's retail stores with Ron Johnson, whom Apple hired away from which retailer in 2000?

Target lost its merchandising vice president Ron Johnson to Apple in 2000, and the first two Apple Stores opened the following year.