Steve Jobs was an incredible entrepreneur, inventor, and business man. Through his intelligence and hard work, he has inspired millions and his company, Apple, continues to grow from strength to strength. Despite his success as an entrepreneur, he – like all of us – had some negative characteristics too. Below, I’ve put together a list of 40 facts you probably didn’t know about Jobs. Can he be deemed a role model in both the corporate and personal worlds? I’ll let you decide…
40 Unknown Facts About The Founder Of Apple
- He was not born a millionaire
- He was adopted
- His father was one of his biggest inspirations
- In the sixth grade, he was bullied for being ‘odd’. He told his parents he would drop out if they didn’t move, so they moved to Los Altos in California
- He only met his biological sister when he was 27
- His sister is famous author Mona Simpson
- He was half Arab, his father was Syrian and his mother was American
- He was a college dropout
- His GPA was only 2.65
- He was always fascinated by technology and books
- Furthermore, he had a passion for calligraphy
- He only listened to music that aligned with his beliefs
- During his lifetime, he owned close to 100 pairs of Levi jeans and wore this together with is signature black turtleneck shirt
- As a teenager, his dream was to become a Buddhist monk
- He was the largest shareholder in The Walt Disney Company after he purchased Pixar for $10 million in 1986 and sold it back in 2006 for $7.4 billion
- Luckily, he intervened in the script of Toy Story, changing the character of Woody from a bad guy to a good one
- He considered buying Yahoo
- His annual salary was $1
- He was a pescatarian
- As an inventor, he had around 300 patents under his name
- He rarely showered and tended to walk around barefoot
- Initially, he denied paternity of his daughter, Lisa
- He wasn’t a philanthropist
- In 1993, he held a spot on Fortune’s list of America’s Toughest Bosses
- He never learned how to code
- Despite the industry he worked in, he had an intense dislike for PCs
- He never put license plates on his cars
- He often parked in spots reserved for the handicapped
- Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page considered Steve Jobs their mentor
- He made Google change the yellow gradient in its ‘O’
- When Google entered the phone market with its Android devices, Jobs felt betrayed and stated that they had stolen some features of the iPhone
- He considered his experimentation with LSD to be one of the most important things in his life
- He was one of the youngest people to make it to the Forbes list
- His signature was inside every original Macintosh
- He didn’t like firing people, especially after he had kids
- He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, but declined surgery and instead subscribed to an alternative-medicine regimen including a vegan diet, acupuncture, and herbal remedies, even consulting a psychic
- After nine months, he did, however, opt for the surgery. Many believe the delay was major factor in his eventual decline
- He turned down a liver transplant from Tim Cook
- He is buried in an unmarked grave
- His last words were “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow” while looking over the shoulders of his family.
“Do What You Love”
One thing we know for sure is that Steve Jobs was passionate about his company and the work that he did. The below video contains the audio of an excerpt from his famous Commencement Address at Stanford in 2005:
The only way to be truly satisfied, is to do what you believe is great work. And, the only way to do great work, is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. And don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. Sometimes, life is going to hit you in the head with a brick, don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going is that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love.
So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something; your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because, believing that the dots will connect down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path. And, that will make all the difference. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your inner voice. And, most important, have the courage to follow your heartland intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Despite his faults, I think it’s safe to say that Steve Jobs remains an inspiration and an iconic business man we will never forget!
Samantha Carvalho is the Chief Marketing Officer of Practice of the Practice. She lives in Cape Town, South Africa, with her husband and kitten. Over and above Practice of the Practice, she is passionate about women empowerment, fashion, and animals.
Click here to outsource your marketing or contact Sam at [email protected].