Early Life
Steve Jobs was born in 1955 and adopted shortly after. He grew up in California’s Silicon Valley before it was Silicon Valley surrounded by engineers, tinkerers, and garages full of parts.
He was smart, curious, and difficult. School bored him. Authority annoyed him.
Jobs enrolled at Reed College but dropped out after six months. Tuition didn’t feel worth it. Learning did. He stayed on campus anyway, sleeping on friends’ floors and auditing classes that interested him like calligraphy, which later shaped Apple’s obsession with typography and design.
The Toughest Years
In 1976, Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak built the first Apple computer in a garage. Apple grew fast too fast.
By 30, Jobs was worth over $200 million. He was also reckless. His management style clashed with employees and executives. In 1985, the board made a brutal decision: Steve Jobs was fired from the company he founded.
Publicly, it looked like failure. Privately, it crushed him. Apple went on without him. Jobs walked away unsure if he’d ever build anything meaningful again.
The Major Breakthrough
After Apple, Jobs founded NeXT, a computer company aimed at universities. The hardware didn’t sell well, but the software was powerful. At the same time, he bought a small animation studio from George Lucas Pixar.
For years, Pixar struggled. Then Toy Story was released in 1995. It became a massive hit and turned Pixar into a powerhouse.
Meanwhile, Apple was failing products were bloated, the brand was lost, and sales were declining. In 1997, Apple bought NeXT for its software. With that deal, Steve Jobs returned.
Reaping the Rewards
Jobs cut relentlessly. Dozens of products were killed. Focus returned.
Then came the hits: iMac. iPod. iTunes. iPhone. iPad.
Jobs didn’t invent most of the technology but he obsessed over simplicity, design, and user experience. Apple stopped being a computer company and became a cultural force.
By the time Jobs stepped down as CEO in 2011, Apple was the most valuable company in the world. His personal net worth was around $10 billion, largely from Pixar and Apple stock but his real legacy was the standard he set for products and storytelling.
Lessons You Can Steal
Focus beats talent. Cutting distractions mattered more than adding features.
Taste is a skill. Jobs trained himself to recognize what felt right.
Failure can reset you. Being fired forced his best work.
Build end to end. Control the product, the story, and the experience.
Care deeply or don’t bother. Indifference never made anything great.
