40 Facts You Never Knew About Steve Jobs

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Facts You Never Knew About Steve Jobs

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

  1. He was not born a millionaire
  2. He was adopted
  3. His father was one of his biggest inspirations
  4. 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
  5. He only met his biological sister when he was 27
  6. His sister is famous author Mona Simpson
  7. He was half Arab, his father was Syrian and his mother was American
  8. He was a college dropout
  9. His GPA was only 2.65
  10. He was always fascinated by technology and books
  11. Furthermore, he had a passion for calligraphy
  12. He only listened to music that aligned with his beliefs
  13. During his lifetime, he owned close to 100 pairs of Levi jeans and wore this together with is signature black turtleneck shirt
  14. As a teenager, his dream was to become a Buddhist monk
  15. 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
  16. Luckily, he intervened in the script of Toy Story, changing the character of Woody from a bad guy to a good one
  17. He considered buying Yahoo
  18. His annual salary was $1
  19. He was a pescatarian
  20. As an inventor, he had around 300 patents under his name
  21. He rarely showered and tended to walk around barefoot
  22. Initially, he denied paternity of his daughter, Lisa
  23. He wasn’t a philanthropist
  24. In 1993, he held a spot on Fortune’s list of America’s Toughest Bosses
  25. He never learned how to code
  26. Despite the industry he worked in, he had an intense dislike for PCs
  27. He never put license plates on his cars
  28. He often parked in spots reserved for the handicapped
  29. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page considered Steve Jobs their mentor
  30. He made Google change the yellow gradient in its ‘O’
  31. When Google entered the phone market with its Android devices, Jobs felt betrayed and stated that they had stolen some features of the iPhone
  32. He considered his experimentation with LSD to be one of the most important things in his life
  33. He was one of the youngest people to make it to the Forbes list
  34. His signature was inside every original Macintosh
  35. He didn’t like firing people, especially after he had kids
  36. 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
  37. After nine months, he did, however, opt for the surgery. Many believe the delay was major factor in his eventual decline
  38. He turned down a liver transplant from Tim Cook
  39. He is buried in an unmarked grave
  40. 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.

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