On February 24, 1955 Steve Jobs was born to biological parents Abdulfattah "John" Jandali and Joanne Carole Schieble. Once Steve was born, Paul and Clara Jobs jumped on the opportunity to adopt. Schieble had wanted adoptive parents for Steve that had been college educated and after hearing that Paul and Clara were only high school graduates, “she balked and only agreed to complete the adoption a few months later.” (Blumenthal, pg.8). A few years later, Paul and Clara had decided to adopt a sister for Steve, Patricia. From the beginning Steve was known to be difficult and he had “earned” himself a few trips to the emergency room because of his curiosity. While Steve and Patty were still young, the family moved to Mountain View, near San Francisco because of a job change for Paul. When Steve was still ‘pre-adolescent’ his father put together a workshop in the garage and taught him how to do basic things like use a hammer. Jobs would talk about his father very fondly , “he spent a lot of time with me … teaching me how to build things, how to take things apart, and how to put things back together” said Jobs about his father. Many people believe that Jobs’ father had a very ‘deep’ impression on Jobs and Jobs says that he “was sort of a genius with hands. He can fix anything and make it work and take any mechanical thing apart and get it back together.”
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During grade school, Jobs was such a smart and interested child that he once said “I really just wanted to do two things, I wanted to read books because I loved reading books and I wanted to go outside and chase butterflies.” Later in his life, once he was old enough to process the idea of adoption and his biological parents, he said “Knowing I was adopted may have made me feel more independent, but I have never felt abandoned, I’ve always felt special. My parents made me feel more special.” As Jobs became more curious and intelligent during middle school, he was experiencing bullying, fights, and he felt as if he wasn’t getting the most out of his education because of other students. He then proposed an ultimatum to his father, “If he had to go back to school there again, he just wouldn’t go.” recalled his father. The Jobs family then moved to a smaller how in Los Altos where jobs would soon be getting other things on his mind.
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At Jobs new school, Cupertino Junior High, he participated in competitive swimming but no team sports. Then, he joined the Hewlett Packard Explorer Club where he used his first computer at the age of 12. At this point, Jobs' father, Paul, was working in a factory where computer parts were made and to him it was clear that Steve had a certain interest in technology. Jobs began 9th grade at Homestead High School in 1968. Homestead High School was where Jobs first began to take computer and electronic classes, in where he met his good friend, Bill Fernandez. Bill would spend many of his evenings with his neighbor, Steve Wozniak in his garage helping him to build computers. The first computer that they had built was called the Cream Soda Computer because of the amount of cream soda consumed while building it and it only held about 256 typed characters, or roughly one sentence. One day, after noticing that both Jobs and Wozniak had such passion for electronics and a prank every once in a while, Bill Fernandez introduced Steve to Steve.
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Jobs and Jobs instantly hit it off and respected one another's knowledge and maturity. Wozniak was appreciated and looked up to by Jobs and Wozniak stated, “Steve got it right away. And I liked him. He was kind of skinny and wiry and full of energy.” The two would soon become close friends and bond over the music of Bob Dylan together. While Jobs was finishing high school, Wozniak had created a ‘blue box’ which, if blown correctly, could hit just the right frequency to take over a long distance phone call. They realized that these boxes were so successful that they started to sell them, and they made quite the profit. Jobs then finished off high school with a more rebellious attitude and didn’t have as much dedication to his schoolwork like he had in the past.
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Once the fall came around again, Jobs decided to attend Reed College, a liberal arts school for free thinkers. The first semester hit Jobs pretty hard as he would complain to Wozniak, “They are making me take all of the courses when all I want to do is take dance to meet girls.” Jobs soon began to question if college was the right choice for him, “There was a constant flow of intellectual questioning about the truth of life,” said Jobs. Steve was getting bad grades and living a ‘hipster’ life style (being the only people on campus not to wear shoes to class) and his parents were not fans of paying all the tuition if it wasn’t being used to its full potential. Jobs then dropped out of college after his first semester and later said to Stanford graduates, “it was one of the best decisions I had ever made.”
Living in his parents basement, all that Steve knew he wanted to do was travel. But he didn’t have a job or any money. He was hired by Atari after seeing a help-wanted ad in his parents newspaper. Jobs got to fulfill his travel dreams by traveling to Germany, Switzerland, and India with Atari. While he was in India, he went on a spiritual journey with Kottke and says that his experience in India taught him “the power of intuition and experiential wisdom.” For the next year or so, he balanced life in Silicon Valley with his job at Atari and auditing a few Stanford physics classes, with his ‘unusual’ life in Oregon with his college friends.
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