Bob Dylan

Born 1941

Steve always adulated folk singer Bob Dylan, playing his music and singing his lyrics all day in his youth. According to many of his friends, he dated Joan Baez in the 1980s mostly because she was Dylan's ex-girlfriend.

Ansel Adams

1902-1984

Ansel Adams was an American photographer known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West and primarily Yosemite National Park. Steve loves Yosemite and photographs, he put large Adams print in his NeXT office and at home.

Kobun Chino Otogowa

1938-2002

Kobun Chino Otogowa was Steve's zen guru from the Los Altos Zen Center, back in the 1970s. He is credited for telling Steve to start Apple rather than becoming a Zen monk. He was NeXT's official spiritual adviser and married Steve and Laurene in 1991.

Akio Morita

1921-1999

Akio Morita co-founded Sony Corporation with Masaru Ibuka. He is widely acknowledged as the father of the consumer electronics industry, having brought to market the transistor, color TV, Walkman... Steve always found inspiration in him and his company

Thomas Edison

1884-1931

In the early days of Apple, Steve would often talk about Thomas Edison, and how this great American inventor/entrepreneur changed the world with his brilliant devices. He is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory, in Menlo Park, NJ.

Henry Ford

1863-1947

Henry Ford was an American industrialist, who is often credited for democratizing the car in the early 20th century. Steve often spoke of him as a personal hereo of his. He was known for his peculiar views on management and taste ("they can have it any color as long as it's black").

Edwin Land

1909-1991

Edwin Land was an American inventor and entrepreneur, father of the polaroid photograph. Steve idolized him, certainly seeing some of himself in Land (who was fired from his own company as well).

Andy Grove & Bob Noyce

AG: Born 1936 - BN: 1927-1990

Andy Grove and especially Bob Noyce were among those people that Steve both thought of as friends and found inspiration in. Noyce started Intel in 1968 with Gordon Moore, while Steve was 13.

Nolan Bushnell

Born 1943

Nolan Bushnell is the founder of Atari and Steve's first (and only) employer. He is widely regarded as the father of the video game industry. According to Woz, Steve idolized him and took inspiration from him to start Apple.

Regis McKenna

Born ?

Regis McKenna was the marketing guru of Silicon Valley in the 1970s and 1980s. Steve's first marketing efforts were with his company Regis McKenna Inc. His radical approach to marketing deeply inspired Steve — one of his favorite quotes from McKenna is: "the best kind of marketing is education."

John Warnock

Born 1940

John Warnock is a Xerox PARC alumnus, the brilliant inventor of the Postscript language and co-founder of Adobe Systems Inc. This soft-spoken, academic type was a tremendous source of inspiration to Steve in his approach to graphics on computers. They are still good friends today.

Relatives

Laurene Powell-Jobs

Born 1964

Laurene is Steve's wife. He married her in 1991, after meeting her thanks to a speech at the Stanford Graduate Business School, where she was a student. Laurene is a co-founder of College Track, a charity devoted to sending poor kids to college.

Reed, Erin & Eve Jobs

Reed: born 1991; Erin: born 1995; Eve: born 1998

Reed Paul, Erin Siena and Eve are Steve's three children with his wife Laurene. They all live together in Palo Alto. Steve's son was named after his (sort-of) alma mater Reed College, and shares his father's middle name (his grandfather's name).

Lisa Brennan-Jobs

Born 1978

Lisa is Steve's out-of-wedlock daughter with his girlfriend Chris-Ann Brennan. He refused to admit he was her father for a long time, but gave her name to an Apple computer at the same time. She moved in with Steve in the mid-1980s, and graduated from Harvard's school of journalism.

Mona Simpson

Born 1957

Mona is Steve's biological sister. He found her in 1986, when she was already an accomplished writer (Anywhere But Here). They were very close for a long time but it is unknown if it still so, especially since she published A Regular Guy in 1996, which basically told the story of Steve and Lisa.

Apple's early years (1976-1985)

Bill Fernandez

Born 1955?

ill Fernandez is Steve's best friend from high school. He once told him he was the person who had known him the longer since his parents were dead. Bill introduced Steve to Woz in 1969, and was one of Apple's first employees (like many neighborhod kids).

Woz

Born 1950

Steve Wozniak, universally known as Woz, co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs in April 1976. He is the hardware genius behind the Apple I and the Apple II, the world’s first personal computers. He stopped working for the company in 1985 but remains one of Steve’s friends.

Dan Kottke

Born 1954

Dan Kottke was a good friend of Steve from Reed. They traveled together to India in search of enlightenment. He was one of Apple's first employees, back in the garage days. They had a falling-out in 1982, after he talked badly of Steve to Time's Michael Moritz.

Mike Markkula

Born 1942

Mike Markkula was Apple's first investor. A retiree from Intel, he was seduced by Steve's ideas about the future of personal computing, and put his personal money in the company, which he ran in the early 1980s. He approved of Steve's ousting in 1985, thus was asked to leave the board in 1997.

Mike Scott

Born ?

Mike Scott was Apple's president from 1977 to 1981 — he was hired by Mike Markkula. He often had intense arguments with Steve Jobs. Mike had to leave Apple after Black Wednesday, surprise massive lay-offs he organized without warning to "purge the company from incompetent people."

Alan Kay

Born 1940

Alan Kay was a researcher at Xerox PARC when Steve met him in the late 1970s. He is considered one of the fathers of the graphical user interface and object-oriented programming (i.e. he is exceptionally brilliant). He is a good friend of Steve, and he introduced him to the Pixar team in 1985.

John Couch

Born ?

John Couch became head of the Lisa project in 1981, when he was asked to replace Steve who seemed to get out of control from Apple's management. They didn't get along very well of course.

Jef Raskin

1943-2005

Jef Raskin was a brilliant Apple engineer in the 1970s. He started the Macintosh project: he was the one who came up with the name (his favorite apple), put together the first team, and invented the concept of "a computer as easy to use as a toaster." He didn't like Steve, who got rid of him in 1981.

The Mac team

So many names behind these words! In the early 1980s, Steve's whole life revolved around this incredible team that developed Macintosh. Their most prominent members are all among Steve's friends, including Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, Burrell Smith, Bruce Horn, Rod Holt, Randy Wigginton, Susan Kare... and all the NeXT founders.

Lee Clow

Born ?

Lee was working at TBWA\Chiat\Day when Steve met him to work on Macintosh's advertising campaign. He is the creative genius behind Apple's 1984 commercial, which is often hailed as the best commercial of all times. Lee now runs the agency and remains one of Steve's friends.

Mike Murray

Born ?

Mike Muray was in charge of Macintosh's marketing efforts. He worked very closely with Steve Jobs.

John Sculley

Born 1939

Steve hired Sculley from PepsiCo in 1983 to help him run Apple. They got along extremely well for a year or so, but their relationship started deteriorating while Macintosh's performance was underwhelming. They had a corporate fight which ended in Steve's ousting from his company.

Jean-Louis Gassée

Born 1944

A French engineer turned Apple executive, Jean-Louis was instrumental in Steve's ousting from the company in 1985. He left Apple shortly afterwards, and founded Be Inc. Apple was about to buy Be in 1996, before they changed their mind and went for Steve's NeXT instead.

NeXT (1986-1996)

Guy "Bud" Tribble

Born ?

Bud Tribble is a software genius (he is a MD/PhD) who was part of the original Mac team. He left Apple with Steve to found NeXT, where he was head of software. He increasingly disapproved of Steve's priorities and left the company in 1992 to join Microsoft. He is now VP of Software at Apple.

Rich Page

Born ?

Rich Page was a hardware engineer of the original Mac team. He is one of NeXT's co-founders and was in charge of hardware development with George Crow.

George Crow

Born ?

George Crow was a brilliant hardware engineer who belonged to the Mac team. He co-founded NeXT with Steve and was in charge of hardware, together with his co-worker Rich Page.

Dan'l Lewin

Born ?

Dan'l was part of Macintosh's sales/marketing team, and was key to the succes of the Apple University Consortium. He co-founded NeXT where he was head of marketing, until he was replaced by Steve himself in 1989. He left shortly afterwards. He is now an executive at Microsoft.