Remembering Steve Jobs on his 71st birthday

Fifteen years after his death, Steve Jobs is still continually quoted, sometimes criticized, but always seen as creating the ethos of Apple. On what would have been his 71st birthday, this is how he shaped Apple — and the world.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, and brought up by his adoptive parents, Paul and Clara Jobs. While he would later dismiss the idea that the circumstances of his adoption had any influence on him, he was born straight into a dispute over a deal, and startling signs of his later strengths and weaknesses were there from his early years.

Delaying the adoption

His mother, Joanne Schieble, had wanted him to be adopted by a college-educated couple, but that didn't happen. She and his father, Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, had left their home in Wisconsin specifically so that Jobs would be born in San Francisco — where an adoption was arranged.

The arrangement was made by what Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson calls "a kindly doctor," but there was a problem. Jobs was a boy. The lawyer and his wife who had arranged to adopt him, decided they wanted a girl instead, and so pulled out of the deal.

This doctor found an alternative couple, but Jobs's mother reportedly held out for weeks after the birth, refusing to sign the necessary paperwork. She ostensibly did so because Paul and Clara Jobs were not college-educated, but there was another reason.

In truth, Schieble and Jandali did not actually want to give up their son. Her Wisconsin family had objected to the idea of their marrying, but her father was ill. She held on to the paperwork as long as possible in the hope that he would die, and she would be able to marry Jandali.

Her father did die — and she did marry Jandali — but not until after she had finally signed the adoption papers. Schieble made it a condition of the adoption that Paul and Clara Jobs would open a college fund for the boy.

In later life, both friends and colleagues of Steve Jobs would put some of his more difficult behavior down to how he had been adopted, and that this had made him feel abandoned.

Andy Hertzfeld, co-developer of the Mac, is one of those who attributed Jobs's occasional cruelty to this. "That goes back to being abandoned at birth," he told Isaacson. "The real underlying problem was the theme of abandonment in Steve's life."

Ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan, gave the same reason for why Jobs originally denied being the father of their child, Lisa Brennan-Jobs. "He who is abandoned is an abandoner," she said.

Jobs himself vehemently denied this throughout his life, however, calling Paul and Clara Jobs "my parents 1,000%."

Family pressures

He still wasn't above putting his adoptive parents under pressure, although they were hardly easy on themselves, either. While they were saving for his college fund, they also moved house to get him into a better school.

Consequently, Steve Jobs grew up in a single-storey ranch house at 2066 Crist Drive in Los Altos, California, which put him in the Cupertino school district. And was just four miles from where he would eventually found Apple Park.

It would be at Homestead High School there that he would first start meeting up with Steve Wozniak, and would begin making more connections within Silicon Valley.

But it was college that may have been more key. This time it was his choice of where he wanted to go, and it was an expensive one. Steve Jobs insisted on going to Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and he insisted on it despite the fees being difficult for his family.

However, in what may have been an early example of his total determination on one route, followed by an about-face, and insistence on a different idea, Jobs then dropped out of Reed College.

He later said that this was in part because of the financial strain on his family, that he hadn't felt right making them spend all their money. But it was also because he didn't like the classes.

And in what is surely an early example of his ability to get people to do what he wanted, Jobs persuaded Reed College to let him carry on there. He had no mandated classes, yet he was allowed to continue living on campus, and was actively encouraged to drop in to any class he was interested in.

Despite Jobs saying he didn't like spending his family's money, it's not actually clear whether Reed College was being entirely altruistic. The college may just have figured that as long as Jobs's family kept paying, he could do what he liked.

Nature and nurture

Whether his adoption did or didn't cause feelings of abandonment, and whether his "reality distortion field" did or didn't begin at Reed College, one thing certainly started there.

It was because he could take any class he wanted, that Steve Jobs sat in on ones about calligraphy and typography.

He was already reading, he said, "more outside of just science and technology," and by this stage was steeped both in computing and the liberal arts.

You can't pin down a man's life to how he was born, and what he studied. However, you can trace the Macintosh and the whole of Apple to the combination of nature and nurture that Steve Jobs was exposed to in his early years. And on his 68th birthday, for one example, Tim Cook acknowledged this aspect of his friend in a tweet.

Reality distortion field

Jobs did have the ability to talk most people around to his way of thinking. That was true if he later totally reversed his position, or even if his arguments didn't really stand up.

This ability famously became known as his reality distortion field. But he was not immune to a distorted view of reality, especially regarding his own health.

According to biographer Isaacson, Jobs refused surgery for the pancreatic cancer he had developed. He didn't want his body "violated in that way," and it took nine months for his wife Laurene Powell Jobs to convince him.

During those months, he tried alternative therapies, including spending $100,000 on having his DNA sequenced.

Jobs later said that he regretted putting off the operation, but that wasn't how he put it to employees when he finally had it done.

In 2004, when he was 49, Jobs revealed that he had undergone cancer surgery. He emailed Apple employees saying that the surgery had successfully removed the cancer, and he would not need further treatment.

"PS," he added, "I'm sending this from my hospital bed using my 17-inch PowerBook and an Airport Express."

Stanford Commencement Speech

Jobs famously gave a particularly moving speech at Stanford University in 2005, and while he again said that his operation had gone well, he did reflect on death. Rather than being about his illness, he said he thought had thought about it since he was 17 and read a quote about living each day as if it were your last.

"It made an impression on me," he said. "Since then, for the past 33 years, I've looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, if today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?"

"Whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row," he continued, "I know I need to change something."

Leaving Apple

Steve Jobs had taken medical leave from Apple for that 2004, with Tim Cook becoming acting CEO. But then in 2009, Jobs had to leave again.

For at least a couple of years before then, there had been questions about his health, chiefly because of his gaunt appearance. In 2008, Bloomberg inadvertently published his obituary.

Later that year, he acknowledged that mistake and the interest in his health, at an iPod event in September. "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," he said.

He kept up the line about being fine in 2009, with a memo to staff on January 5 saying that his extreme weight loss was due to a "hormone imbalance" that was being treated. However, nine days later, he announced he was taking another leave of absence.

"I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community," Jobs wrote in another memo to staff. "Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well."

"In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought," he continued.

Tim Cook again took over during this absence, but Jobs did make public appearances. His last was to present plans to the Cupertino city council for what would become Apple Park.

That was on June 8, 2011, and on August 20 that year, Steve Jobs finally stepped down as Apple CEO.

"As far as my successor goes," he wrote to Apple's board about his departure, "I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple."

Steve Jobs died at approximately 3:00 P.M. Pacific Time on October 5, 2011, at his home in Palo Alto. The immediate cause of death was reported as respiratory arrest, but the underlying cause was "metastatic pancreas neuroendocrine tumor."

Later that day, his wife Laurene Powell Jobs issued a statement.

Steve died peacefully today surrounded by his family.

In his public life, Steve was known as a visionary; in his private life, he cherished his family. We are thankful to the many people who have shared their wishes and prayers during the last year of Steve's illness; a website will be provided for those who wish to offer tributes and memories.

We are grateful for the support and kindness of those who share our feelings for Steve. We know many of you will mourn with us, and we ask that you respect our privacy during our time of grief.

In 2022, Powell Jobs, together with Tim Cook and Jony Ive, launched the Steve Jobs Archive to celebrate his life and impact on the world.