Early Life & Education

Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco on 24 February 1955, to two university students, Joanne Carole Schieble and Syrian born Abdulfattah "John" Jandali (Arabic: عبدالفتاح جندلي‎), who were both unmarried at the time.^[14] He was adopted at birth by Paul Reinhold Jobs (1922–1993) and Clara Jobs (1924–1986). Clara's maiden name was Hagopian.^[15] When asked about his "adoptive parents," Jobs replied emphatically that Paul and Clara Jobs "were my parents."^[16] He later stated in his authorized biography that they "were my parents 1,000%."^[17] His biological parents subsequently married (December 1955), had a second child Mona Simpson in 1957, and divorced in 1962.^[17]

The Jobs family moved from San Francisco to Mountain View, California when Steve was five years old.^[1][2] Paul and Clara later adopted a daughter, Patti. Paul Jobs, a machinist for a company that made lasers, taught his son rudimentary electronics and how to work with his hands.^[1] Clara was an accountant,^[16] who taught him to read before he went to school.^[1] Clara Jobs had been a payroll clerk for Varian Associates, one of the first high-tech firms in what became known as Silicon Valley.^[18]

Jobs attended Monta Loma Elementary, Mountain View, Cupertino Junior High and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California.^[2] He frequented after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California, and was later hired there, working with Steve Wozniak as a summer employee.^[19] Following high school graduation in 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester,^[20] he continued auditing classes at Reed, while sleeping on the floor in friends' rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple.^[21] Jobs later said, "If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts."^[21]