1. He had a humble beginning
In April 1, 1976, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and administrative overseer Ronald Wayne, founded and operated Apple Computer Company from Steve's bedroom at 2066 Crist Drive in Los Altos, California, which later got moved to the garage. To raise money to build their first batch of circuit boards, Jobs sold his old Volkswagen van, while Wozniak sold his HP scientific calculator. Later that year, Jobs and Wozniak sold 50 fully assembled units of the Apple I to a computer retailer called Paul Terrell, for $500 each, and made a total of 200 computers later on. One of Jobs' neighbours recalled him greeting his clients from his garage barefoot, with underwear hanging out and with a hippie-like attitude.
2. He pursued his passions
Steve Jobs went to Reed College in 1972 where he eventually dropped out after one semester, but continued to attend a class in calligraphy from a teacher called Robert Palladino. In a 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University, Steve recalled having a pretty messed-up college life - sleeping on the floor in his friends' dorm rooms, returning Coke bottles for money, and getting free meals from the local Hare Krishna temple. In that same speech, the Apple co-founder also mentioned that although he had dropped out of college, he really loved his calligraphy class and that the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts if not for that one class. Apple became extremely popular for their multiple, unique font designs and colour matches, making them one of the revolutionary graphic interface designers of the technological age.
3. He travelled and learned new things
Just before Steve found Apple in 1976, he travelled to India to seek spiritual enlightenment from a Hindu Guru. After 7 months, Jobs returned to the US and became a practitioner of Zen Buddhism through the Zen master Kobun Chino Otogawa. At this time, Steve had also shaved his head, wore traditional Indian clothing, and experimented with psychedelics, which he later considered as one of the most important things that he did in his life. Coming home from India, Steve Jobs learned engaging in lengthy meditation practices, which brought him to maintaining a lifelong appreciation for Zen and peace.
4. He wasn't always into electronics
In 1970, Steve Jobs developed interests in both music and literature, and read a lot of Shakespeare and Plato. In his high school years, Jobs helped a friend put on a light show for their school's Avant-garden Jazz program, instead of joining the electronics club. Jobs has been described by his classmates as kind of a brain and kind of a hippie but was too intellectual for the hippies, and was smart enough to be a nerd, but wasn't nerdy. In his senior year, Steve Jobs was taking English classes at Stanford, and was working on an underground movie project with his then girlfriend Chrisann Brennan, instead of inventing something at the electronics club, or competing at science events.
5. His best friend was helping him
In 1971, Jobs and Wozniak worked on a low-cost digital blue box which generated tones similar to that of a telephone that allowed them free long-distance calls. The huge profit that they made from selling these boxes, planted the seed in Jobs' mind that electronics could really be both fun and profitable. In an interview in 1994, Steve Jobs said that had it not been for Wozniak's blue boxes, there wouldn't have been an Apple today, and that it showed them at that time that they could take on large companies and beat them. When Jobs worked for Atari, Inc in Los Gatos California in 1974, Wozniak designed a version of the classic video game Pong and gave the board to Jobs, allowing him to be accepted to work at Atari. On April 1, 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded and incorporated Apple at Los Altos, California.
6. He always anticipated the future
In 1981, Steve Jobs conceptualized the production of the Macintosh or Mac, a new computer desktop that operates with a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Steve realized the limitless potential of the Mac computer, when he saw the commercial of a mouse-driven graphical user interface of another computer, the Xerox Alto in 1979. On January 24, 1984, an emotional Steve Jobs first introduced Macintosh to the world at Apple's annual shareholders meeting, to which Andy Hertzfeld, Jobs' Macintosh engineer, described the event as "pandemonium". At present, Apple revealed that there are now nearly 100 million active Mac users in the world, which has brought the company great success, along with it's other market share strength products - the iPhone and the iPad.
7. He was a master of persuasion
Jobs was praised and at the same time criticized for his quintessential skill for persuasion and salesmanship, a trait which has been described by Bud Tribble, one of his employees, as the reality distortion field. Steve Jobs turned simple product launches into art form, and was an expert showman at building expectations in the audience before a grand reveal, including faking an exit only to turn back and present the most exciting feature of the product, which has driven audiences crazy and constantly excited. In June 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone, the first ever multi-touch display full screen cellular phone, which started the revolutionary era of smart phones. Steve Jobs' ability to convince not only himself, but his company of his vision, has enabled Apple to fully overhaul the entire cellular phone industry, with the introduction of mobile apps, video calls, and a more optimised and smart browsing experience.
8. He never gave up
In 1985, John Sculley, the former president of Pepsi, who Steve Jobs had just invited to serve as CEO of Apple two years ago, had decided to reorganize the company and remove Steve Jobs entirely. On September 1985, Jobs submitted a letter of resignation to the Apple Board, along with five additional senior Apple employees, giving John Sculley full control of the company. Although, losing Apple was devastating to Steve, he went on to create another great computer company called NeXT Inc., and invested on Lucasfilm's computer graphics division, now called Pixar, to which he would become the executive producer for the future Pixar and Disney partnership from 1995. In 1996, Steve, returned to Apple and became interim CEO when the company decided to buy NeXT for $427 million.
9. He built Apple, then rebuilt it again
When Apple finally purchased NeXT in 1996, Steve Jobs was officially back in the game and brought back life to the sinking company by introducing the iMac, which significantly increased Apple's sales due to it's appealing design and powerful branding. Jobs also created new and exciting digital appliances, introducing the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, iTunes store and and ventured into the world of consumer electronics and music distribution. By 2006, Apple's market capitalization was higher than Dell Computer, and was trading at $80 per share from $6 in 2003. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the company had just lost $1.04 billion and was only 90 days from being insolvent, which Jobs managed to turn around after the company earned a $309 million profit a year later.
10. He focused on simplicity and design
Steve Jobs had an obsessive desire for perfection and had always set the trend for innovation and style at the forefront of the information technology industry. At the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007, he quoted ice hockey player Wayne Gretzy: "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been". Steve said this has been what they were trying to do at Apple since the very beginning, and will continue to do so in the future. Steve had always mandated his employees to focus more on simplicity, design and convenience, which has made Apple develop the best smartphones and personal computers in the world for home use.
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