Steve Jobs Trivia: Interesting Facts about the Apple Icon

Steve Jobs is no more. But he has left so much behind for us. Among other things, there are memories of his extraordinary life. A number of facts about Steve Jobs are extremely interesting. Here is a compilation of some interesting trivia about Steve Jobs, the technology genius, founder of Apple Inc. and creator of some magnificent gadgets!

People remebering Steve Jobs

1. Steve’s car did not display license plates. The car was a silver colored 2008 Mercedes SL 55 AMG. [tweet]
2. In 1983, Steve Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple’s CEO, asking, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” [tweet]
3. Steve had a surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his pancreas in 2004. [tweet]
4. Steve bought the computer graphics division of LucasFilm from George Lucas. LucasFilm was later renamed Pixar. [tweet]
5. Steve was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. Paul Jobs was a machinist for a laser manufacturer. Clara Jobs was an accountant. [tweet]
6. At the age of 27 Steve came to know about his biologically parents and that he had a biological sister named Mona Simpson. [tweet]
7. Mona Simpson, sister of Steve Jobs, is a novelist of repute. [tweet]
8. The authorized biography of Steve Jobs is titled as “iSteve: The Book of Jobs.” authored by Walter Isaacson. [tweet]
9. Steve Jobs was a Democrat. [tweet]
10. Steve Jobs named an Apple computer after his daughter, Lisa. [tweet]
11. Steve was a member of the Board of Directors of The Walt Disney Company. [tweet]
12. Steve Jobs earned only $1 a year as CEO of Apple. [tweet]
13. In 2010, Forbes estimated his net wealth at $8.3 billion. [tweet]
14. A 1999 film Pirates of Silicon Valley was based on rivalry between Jobs and Bill Gates. Character of Jobs was portrayed by Noah Wyle. [tweet]
15. On November 27, 2007, Jobs was named the most powerful person in business by Fortune Magazine. [tweet]
16. Along with Steve Wozniak and Mike Markkula; he co-founded Apple in 1976. [tweet]
17. In 2005, he was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Executives Branch). [tweet]
18. Steve backpacked around India with a Reed College friend. He later became his Apple’s first employee. [tweet]
19. In 1974, he worked with Atari, a video games manufacturer. He wanted to save money for a spiritual retreat to India. [tweet]
20. His biological parents were Abdulfattah John Jandali and Joanne Schieble (later Simpson). [tweet]
21. His biological father Jandali is a Syrian Muslim immigrant to the USA Jandali works at the University of Nevada as a professor of political science. [tweet]
22. Steve’s biological mother Joanne Schieble was an American graduate student of a Swiss and German ancestry. Schieble became a speech language therapist. [tweet]
23. Steve never talked to his biological father, Jandali. However, he invited Schieble to a few events. [tweet]
24. Steve was a pescetarian –that is he ate fish but no other meat. [tweet]
25. In April 2009, Jobs underwent a liver transplant. [tweet]
26. On November 5, 2009, Jobs was named the CEO of the decade by Fortune Magazine. [tweet]
27. He was featured in four film productions about the history of personal computing: The Machine that Changed the World (1992), Triumph of the Nerds (1996), Nerds 2.0.1 (1998), Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999). [tweet]
28. In 1972, Jobs dropped out of Reed College and was very poor. He used to sleep on the floor in friends’ rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple. [tweet]
29. He usually wore a black long-sleeved mock turtleneck made by St. Croix, Levi’s 501 blue jeans, and New Balance 991 sneakers. [tweet]
30. In 1985, Apple CEO Sculley relieved Jobs of his duties as head of the Macintosh division due to an internal power struggle. [tweet]
31. After leaving Apple, Jobs founded NeXT Computer in 1985 with $7 million. [tweet]
32. Steve traveled to India along with a Reed College friend, named Daniel Kottke in search of spirituality. Later Daniel Kottke became the first employee of Apple. [tweet]
33. In India, Steve Jobs visited the Neem Karoli Baba. [tweet]
34. In India, Steve became a Buddhist and shaved his head. [tweet]
35. Back in USA, Jobs again joined Atari. Atari had a video game circuit board and wanted to minimize number of chips on the board. The company offered Jobs $100 for every chip he would remove from the board keeping the functionality intact. Jobs delegated this task to his friend Wozniak with a payment of $50 per chip. Wozniak incredibly removed 50 chips and made a design that was too tight to be manufactured on assembly line. Jobs told Wozniak that Atari paid only $700 instead of $5,000 and paid Wozniak $350 as his share.

Tech Giants, including Steve Jobs, at a dinner with President Barack Obama. Photograph: White House; Source: Mashable

So, these were some facts about Steve Jobs. His life’s journey was made of several paths and phases. From being dirt poor, Jobs went on to become one of the most powerful person in the world!

Please let me know if you have any more interesting information about Steve Jobs. I will update the list. Thank you!