Steve Jobs, anecdotes and little-known facts

This extraordinary figure who put technology in the hand of everyone wanted to change the world. And did it.

One employee of the night shift (1974)

In May 1974 he was hired as an electronics by Atari. A very free enterprise where employees were allowed to do what they wanted, as long as the work was done.
Al Alcorn, seeing a young bearded man, shabbily dressed, smelly and seemed more interested in acid (LSD) than anything else, wondered if he should call the police or give an interview. But the enthusiasm of Jobs decides he to hire him as a technician to correct integrated circuits.
Nolan Bushnell, the owner of Atari, the first manufacturer of consoles (he later moved successfully in restoration) thought Jobs, who was 18 years old, was bright, curious and aggressive.

Jobs was actually angry with many other employees. He was felt rough, they disapproved his lack of hygiene and bizarre way of eating. He was used to mock others and say there were idiots (something that has never changed).
However, Bushnell wanted to keep him and found a solution: create a overnight team. He was the only employee in the team!

He gets a job as an electronics without knowing anything about it (1974)

Fate depends on the people you meet, this is particularly true for Jobs.
What his boss at Atari did not know is that Jobs knew very little about electronics. It was his friend Steve Wozniak who had to work at night and did the work for him.

That's when this well known story was going when Wozniak reduced the number of chip sets for the breakout game from 100 to 46. Jobs makes him believe they have won $700 that he shares with him. In fact he had won $5000. Wozniak did not blame him because when he learned that, they had together earned millions.

In 1976, after returning from India, Jobs and Woz built the Apple I and Apple II and it will be the beginning of the Apple adventure. Wozniak again was dealing in electronics and software, Jobs mainly motivated him. His sense of marketing will make the success of the company.

A girl named Lisa (1978)

Lisa Brennan-Jobs

He is co-owner of Apple and already rich (and in the list of millionaires in Forbes), when Chris-Ann Brennan, an ex-girlfriend tells him he is a father, but he did not want to hear about it. They meet in 1972 and the relationship lasted until 1978.
To get him to recognize his paternity, she assigned him to justice. It came with documents to prove that he was sterile and therefore can not be the father. At this time, DNA is not used, and he could not really be sure he was the father.
However, two years later he changed his mind. He further provided support to his daughter, Lisa and fund her studies. Lisa became a journalist.

In 1980, Apple introduced the Lisa, the first commercial computer with a graphical interface.

Steve Jobs was only the third of a visionary (1979)

A reporter from The Wall Street Journal, Brent Schlender, recorded many interview of Steve Jobs. In the recording he admits some things that were not very well known and some that decrease its image as a visionary.

It was during his visit to Xerox at Menlo Park he discovered the GUI, which then makes the success of the Macintosh. But in fact he had been shown three things. Besides the GUI and mouse, there was object-oriented programming. And also the beginning of the Internet: a network of employees who work together by communicating by email internally.

He ignored the two last innovations, whose he did not see the benefit then, only fascinated by the GUI.

Jobs and stupid ideas (1981)

When you submit him a new idea, said Bud Tribble, a project manager, he will tell you it's stupid. But a week later, he goes to you and show you a brilliant idea he had just had.
In fact it is the one you had previously submitted.
(Ref Distortion Field in The Original Macintosh).

Steve Jobs and the first portable (1981)

A day Adam Osborne, inventor of the laptop, came proudly to present the 12 kg device with a 5-inch screen, he just invented, to the team working on the Mac. He pretentiously claims that this device would outsell the Apple II and Mac combined.
When he came back to the office, Jobs phones him but he was not there and his secretary asked him if he wanted to leave a message, he said that:
"This is my message. Tell Adam that he is an asshole."

The future proven he was absolutely right. (Ref The Original Macintosh).

Steve Jobs et l'équipe du Mac

The Macintosh was near to be called Bicycle (1983)

This idea came to Jobs in a meeting. He made the recognition that man is slower than most animals, but on a bicycle he exceeds all. The computer is like a bicycle for the mind, he said.
Following that was announced to the engineers that the name of the project, called Macinthosh, was changed and it will be called Bicycle.
But due to their reluctance to use the new name, this change has been abandoned.
(Ref: The Original Macintosh).

Jobs and the astronomer Carl Sagan (1984)

A model of Mac was given code name Carl Sagan, which was not liked by the famous astronomer because the previous model was code-named "Piltdown Man", which was a hoax.
This caused a trial and the astronomer lost it.
Apple however changed the name that becomes BHA, for Butt-Head Astronomer. New trial. Also lost by Sagan.
Apple changed the name again to LAW, Lawers Are Wimps.
This time, Carl Sagan threw in the towel and the computer became the Power Mac 7100.

He met his biological father without knowing (1985)

This happened in the 80. Like many others, he often went in a small but popular Mediterranean cuisine restaurant, whose owner, with whom he sometimes spoke is named Abdulfattah "John" Jandali.
Jandali knew that he had Steve Jobs in his restaurant, but what he did not know is that he was his father and Jobs did not know it too.
Steve Jobs discovered his father later and some bad things about him:

When I searched for my birth mother, I was also looking to my father. I did not like what I learned about it.

He asks his mother to reveal nothing and will never have any contact with Jandali.

Mona Simpson gets a Friend (1985)

Mona Simpson was raised in poverty by his mother divorced from his father. She wanted to become a journalist and worked for a small local paper, using an old typewriter. She knew nothing about computers.
She always wanted to know his father, whom she knew only that he was of Syrian origin and settled in the United States. She imagined him rich, like a movie actor and that he would help them deal with financial difficulties.
And frankly, when she had the opportunity to meet him and that then she became aware that he has then changed address and phone number, she thought it would be a sort of spy. ..
That is when he learned she had a brother, he was working in computers, he was rich and wanted to meet her. Since then, the boy always dressed in jeans has never left her and became her best friend.

Source: Eulogy of Steve Jobs. Published in the New York Times.

Jobs and François Mitterrand (1985)

French president Mitterrand invited him to dinner with Wozniak, Jobs was served a dish of tripes he really did not like. He was not a vegetarian at that time but the food seemed strange.
Discreetly he emptied the contents of his plate in a flower pot.

It multiplied the value of Pixar by 700 (1986-2006)

Besides the visionary talents, we can not doubt the capabilities of managers of Jobs even after the failure of Next, relative failure in fact, since this allowed him to take the direction of Apple in 1997 and make it a leading IT company.

In 1986, two years after being sidelined from Apple, he bought from Lucasfilm the computer animation company The Graphics Group. He renamed it Pixar. In collaboration with Disney, he had many successes, that include Toy Story and Nemo. In 2006 he sold Pixar to Disney for $ 7.4 billion. It became the largest shareholder of Disney because the amount was paid in shares.

Revenge is a dish that is eaten cold (1990)

Jean-Louis Gassee writes this in an article on MondayNote. Steve Jobs did not forget that the French contributed to his dismissal from his post at Apple in 1984. In 1990 it was Gassee's turn to have to leave Apple. He then receives a phone call from Steve Jobs who asks him how he feel to be fired.

(A few days later, Jobs called him agan to propose him a partnership he refused).

How he takes control of Apple (1997)

We believe that it is faith in Steve Jobs and his capabilities that prompted the board to appoint him CEO to replace Gil Amelio. Amelio had meeting with Jobs and then bought Next, the Jobs'enterprise, in February 2007 and that made Jobs returning at Apple.

Under the direction of Gil Amelio, the firm gradually lost its market value. And in June 26, 1997, a shareholder has sold 1.5 millon actions at once, which drove down the action even more and prompted the Board to react. The board then get persuaded by Steve Jobs that it should fire Amelio, and appoint him in his place.
We learned then that the mysterious shareholder who had driven down prices by selling 1.5 million shares was none other than Steve Jobs himself!

In 2005 a man discovers he is his father

It is in reading a newspaper that Mr Jandali, of Syrian origin, learns that he was the biological father of Jobs. While he was studying in the United States in 1955, he had a child with an American, Joanne Schieble. His father opposed their mariage, then the child was given to adoption to the Jobs who sacrificied their savings to fund his studies (he leave them early). After the death of the father of Joanne, the Jandali married her and they leave to Syria. That will end in divorce after they had a daughter, Mona Simpson, who became a writer.
John Jandali has always maintained that if it had depended on him, he never gave Steve up for adoption. But he totally ignored her daughter after the divorce, so it is doubtful. She has since refused all contact with him, like Steve, who investigated to find his biological parents, but had a relationship only with his mother and sister.

Since then, Mr. Jandali has sent many emails to Jobs that were all unanswered. Only shortly before his death, when he sent a single sentence: "I hope your health improves," he received this reply: "Thanks. Steve."

Jobs and mobiles (2006)

It is George Bodenheimer, the president of ESPN, the sports media, who tells. While attending a meeting in Orlando, he was phoning from his mobile in the hall, he meets Steve Jobs and decides to introduce itself. "I'm George Bodenheimer, I run ESPN."
Jobs looks at him and said simply: "Your phone is the dumbest fucking idea I have ever heard."
Then he turns and walks away.

Jobs' emails (2011)

Hollie, a young girl from Melbourne was suffering from vision problems that made her life very difficult, but a tablet that can enlarge texts by spreading two fingers changed her life, and she sent an email to Steve Jobs to thank him. And he answered ...

Thanks for sharing your experience with me. Do you mind if I read your email to a group of our top 100 leaders at Apple?
Thanks, Steve

Because it often responded to emails from journalists or ordinary users.

On his sick bed, he wants one to redo the oxygen mask (2011)

Jobs' perfectionism was actually sick. He discussed with his wife 15 days about the design and their respective qualities before choosing a washing machine. He run through 67 nurses who did not suit him.
When the doctor, while he was dying, put an oxygen mask on his face, he took off it and complained that the design was ugly. He then asked that several models were made for one can choose one. (Source: Biography by Isaacson).

Products that Jobs wanted to run (2012 and after)

It is unclear whether his successors will create them and turn them into commercial successes. Jobs had several projects that his death will prevent him to achieve.
The new TV. It has native access to all the accessories that can complement it, like a hard drive for recording and Blu-Ray. According to the method of Apple, everything must be simple and intuitive to use.
The e-book. We do not know too much he wanted to do but he wanted to save the publishing industry with a new type of product that may be free, easy to produce, and running on iPad.

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