The other side of Jobs

Sam Varghese
Thursday, 06 October 2011 12:37

IT People - People

Under the late Steve Jobs, Apple was known for being fiercely private about its products, plans and ideas.

Anyone who dared to reveal even a rumour about the next line of products was sure to be treated with an iron fist.

This fierce desire for privacy was mirrored in Jobs' own life too; apart from his own family, there is hardly anyone who claims to know him well at a personal level.

There was one occasion, however, when Jobs let his guard down - when he gave the 2005 commencement address at Stanford University on June 12, 2005. (YouTube video here and text here.)

Perhaps he spoke candidly because he had just undergone an operation that was supposed to clear him of the cancerous tumour which had been discovered in his pancreas a year before that. The removal of that threat to life may have made him more conscious of the fact that nobody cheats death.

Whatever the reason, Jobs told the student audience of his early life - how he had been born to a young, unwed, college graduate and put up for adoption, a decision that his biological mother took before he was born, the only fiat being that the couple who took her son should be graduates.

He told how he had been rejected by the lawyer and his wife who were to be his adoptive parents because they suddenly decided they wanted a girl. And of how his parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking if they wanted an unexpected baby boy.

His biological mother refused to sign the adoption papers when she found out that the couple who had taken Steve in were not college graduates. She relented when they promised that they would send him to college.

CONTINUED