How Apple got its name, why Steve Jobs wore black turtlenecks and the bizarre interview questions the Apple CEO would ask job candidates: these are just a few of the revelations presented in Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs.
The 571-page book, out October 24, is based on more than a hundred interviews, including over forty with Jobs himself. It presents a riveting, detailed account of Jobs' personal and professional life, from his marriage and drug use to Jobs' take on other tech titans and the way he built Apple.
Reviewers have, thus far, had high praise for the book.
Isaacson's "Steve Jobs" offers up new information about the tech visionary on virtually every page and we've compiled some of the most surprising, must-see tidbits about Jobs in the slideshow below.
How Apple Got Its Name
"Executek," "Matrix," "Personal Computers Inc." were among the names Jobs and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak considered for their company, writes Isaacson.
Jobs proposed "Apple" after returning from a visit to All One Farm where he had helped tend for the apple trees.
"I was on one of my fruitarian diets," Jobs told Isaacson. "I had just come back from the apple farm. It sounded fun, spirited, and not intimidating. Apple took the edge off the word 'computer.'"
Clinton Asked Jobs' Advice On Lewinsky Scandal
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1451648537" target="_hplink">According to Isaacson</a>, during a "late-night phone conversation," President Bill Clinton <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/21/bill-clinton-steve-jobs-lewinsky_n_1025876.html" target="_hplink">asked Jobs</a> how he should deal with the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
"I don't know if you did it, but if so, you've got to tell the country," Jobs told Clinton.
The president was silent on the other end of the line, Isaacson writes.
Why Jobs Wore Black Turtlenecks
<a href="http://gawker.com/5848754" target="_hplink">According to Isaacson, </a>Jobs' signature black turtleneck was initially inspired by a visit in the early '80s to a Sony factory in Japan, where the Apple co-founder noticed that all of the employees wore uniforms.
Jobs liked the concept: he suggested Apple employees might likewise embrace a dress code of sorts and worked with Japanese designer Issey Miyake to design vests for his employees -- who nixed the idea. But Jobs "came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, because of both its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style," writes Isaacson. Jobs, who had befriended Miyake, asked the designer to make him "some of the black turtlenecks that I liked." The designer complied, and Jobs' trademark look was born.
Prior to this, Jobs had favored white shirts and jeans, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/steve-jobs-tech-pioneer_n_999321.html" target="_hplink">former Apple employee Jay Elliot told the Huffington Post.</a>
Jobs Was Disappointed By Obama
Jobs was a supporter of Obama's -- he offered to help the president with his ads for the 2012 campaign -- but <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1451648537" target="_hplink">Jobs told Isaacson</a> he was "disappointed in Obama" who was "having trouble leading because he's reluctant to offend people or piss them off."
"You're headed for a one-term presidency," Jobs told Obama during a forty-five minute meeting between the two men. Jobs argued that the president's administration needed to be more friendly toward business and more aggressive in reforming the nation's education system.
Jobs Refused Potentially Life-Saving Surgery To Treat His Cancer
As Isaacson noted in both his biography and <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7385390n&tag=mncol;lst;1" target="_hplink">during an interview with 60 Minutes</a>, Jobs initially refused to undergo what could have been a life-saving surgery to treat his pancreatic cancer. For months, Jobs instead opted to treat the cancer with other, non-invasive therapies, including unusual diets, herbal remedies, and acupuncture.
"The big thing was that he really was not ready to open his body," Jobs' wife Laurene Powell explained.
Powell did attempt to talk her husband into the surgery.
"The body exists to serve the spirit," she told Jobs.
Jobs Initially Opposed Apps
The thousands of applications available on iTunes have become a defining feature for Apple and have earned developers billions of dollars.
Jobs, however, initially opposed the idea of offering third-party apps.
Art Levinson, a member of Apple's board, recalled phoning Jobs "half a dozen times to lobby for the potential of the apps." Isaacson writes that Jobs "at first quashed the discussion, partly because he felt his team did not have the bandwidth to figure out all the complexities that would be involved in policing third-party app developers."
Jobs Was 'Depressed' By Lukewarm Reaction To iPad
Though iPad has been an unqualified success for Apple, the initial reaction to the tablet was lukewarm at best. People mocked its name, dismissed it as little more than an overgrown iPod touch, and speculated that it could be Apple's second Newton--a big, giant flop.
"I kind of got depressed today. It knocks you back a bit," Jobs told Isaacson the night after he unveiled the iPad.
Jobs' Bizarre Interview Question: 'Are You A Virgin?'
Isaacson writes that Jobs enjoyed asking job candidates "offbeat" questions to test their ability to think on their feet and gauge whether they had the right personality mix to succeed at Apple.
The author recounts how on one occasion, Jobs began peppering a potential hire, who was "too uptight and conventional," with unusual questions -- and even interrupted his answers with "Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble."
"How old were you when you lost your virginity?" Jobs asked. He continued, "Are you a virgin?" adding, "How many times have you taken LSD?"
Jobs: Google 'Wholesale Ripped Us Off'
Isaacson's <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/steve-jobs-google-grand-theft_n_1023111.html" target="_hplink">biography lays bare some of the animosity Jobs</a> reportedly felt toward Google following its launch of Android. Jobs described Android as a "grand theft" that stole from the iPhone.
"Our lawsuit is saying, 'Google you f***ing ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off,'" Jobs told Isaacson in a conversation about a patent lawsuit Apple had filed. "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product."
"I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this," Jobs added.
Video's "Steve Jobs' Impact on Apple" info
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How Apple got its name, why Steve Jobs wore black turtlenecks and the bizarre interview questions the Apple CEO would ask job candidates: these are just a few of the revelations presented in Walter Is...
How Apple got its name, why Steve Jobs wore black turtlenecks and the bizarre interview questions the Apple CEO would ask job candidates: these are just a few of the revelations presented in Walter Is...
Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs reveals intimate details concerning the Apple co-founder's relationships with luminaries ranging from Silicon Valley pioneers and Hollywood celebrities to...
Steve Jobs, who died of pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer earlier this month, did not allow doctors to perform what could have been potentially life-saving surgery for...
"I like living at the intersection of the humanities and technology," Steve Jobs said once. LSD, Bauhaus and Zen Buddhism shaped Apple's pioneering products as...
Escalating lawsuits and barbed comments by executives have dramatized the all-out war between Apple and Google for dominance over mobile devices. But Walter Isaacson's authorized...
"Steve Jobs," the official biography of Apple's legendary co-founder goes on sale October 24. According to a copy of the book obtained by The Huffington...
I got my copy today and th frist chapter I read was the chapter on the iphone and how it came about. It was absolutely fascinating reading, but you only come to one conclusion and that is Apple will never be as innovative and forward thinking without Steve Jobs. In reading this, you realiz there are lots of brilliant people at Apple, but at every turn it was Steve who pushed them and strove them to perfect that design. No one else did that. In the first version the case seemed to take away from the glass of the iphone. It was Steve who noticed that and asked for a redesign. He was never satisfied and that is what everyone else lacks.
WESTFIELD: I got my copy today and th frist chapter I
everyone and their mother was walking around barnes and noble today with this book. the same day i bought my first ipad. i did wonder though, how many people will actually read the book and how many will just shelve it. eyeballing around a 70% tablet reading habit on the subway since arriving back in ny late last month, i can't imagine everyone lugging this big brick around. the book's heft is ironic.
hp_blogger_Chauncey Zalkin: everyone and their mother was walking around barnes and noble
no mention, for weeks now about jobs' homophobia.
why am i not surprised? you're all working so hard to beatify him, but steve was a man with issues, like everyone.
hxjp: no mention, for weeks now about jobs' homophobia. why am
I too am becoming increasingly tired of this deifying of Steve Jobs. Just to set the record straight - Steve jobs did not put the "i" in idea. He did however help put the "P" in purloin.
Rod_Wuetherick: I too am becoming increasingly tired of this deifying of
I am sick as to how the media is elevating Steve Jobs to the likes of great inventors like Edison while ignoring all scientists and researchers who allowed Steve and his company to make billions of dollars. Steve was not an inventor, but a technology visionary and he was a brilliant in his latter years of executing that vision into beautiful crafted and well-engineered products and services. He was also a brilliant marketer, creating a cult(ure) and promising magic to people who otherwise would have no clue about the technology they are using and are willing to hand in hundreds of dollars for that piece of magic and status every year. Not unlike owning brands like Prada or a Jaguar.
I find it amazing that Steve feels Bill Gates is a thief, considering Microsoft did in the 80s and 90s what Apple did in this decade: take to the masses technology that other people have previously done, albeit in a lesser attractive package. Tablets, laptops, mobiles and mobiles with music were not invented by apple. Nor did Apple invent MP3 or MP3 players. They didn't create all technology - they use Intel, Nvidia, Samsung technology.
I am more impressed with people like Mark Shuttleworth, who invested his fortune in creating free projects like Ubuntu, whose O/S kicks in Win7 and OSX Lion in speed and (in my subjective view) aesthetics and functionality, rather than exploit 3rd World labour.
Jose_Coutinho: I am sick as to how the media is elevating
They were NOT his ideas. He was a marketer, and a darned good one, but he did not originate or develop any of the technology he sold. He may have been brilliant and he could sell with a smile, but he was not a genius and he was neither a developer or a technology person. He was merely the face with a big smile and great ideas for getting people to want things.
rlrose328: They were NOT his ideas. He was a marketer, and
While Jobs was into marketing in a big way, it may, surprisingly, not be the bulk of what he did at Apple. Jobs was heavily into technology starting as a kid, and that shows in many, if not most things Apple has produced. He didn't sit at a drafting table and draw up the circuit diagrams (except possibly when he briefly worked at Atari in the mid-1970s), but he knew his way around a circuit diagram, and knew a fair amount about what the chips could do (though Wozniak knew a lot more), and the software too. He said company heads needed to hire people smarter than themselves, but he was plenty smart himself. As for not being a genius, I think a fair examination of his career would show otherwise, as long as one doesn't narrow the definition of genius only to those people who design everything their company produces.
JohnSawyer: While Jobs was into marketing in a big way, it
Someone of Jobs' talent is driven by enormous forces that are hard to contain as a mere mortal. To all of his critics I say: "Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." Einstein, I believe...
builderman55: Someone of Jobs' talent is driven by enormous forces that
I'm not so much a critic as I am a realist... and in the real world, Jobs was a salesman. He did not originate the technology he sold... his developers did. And Apple stole as much tech as he later accused others of doing. While I detest all of that, it's called business. Steve Jobs was a brilliant man who excelled at what he did... I don't deny that. But he was driven by the need to be idolized and idealized, which is not something I strive to emulate. He was a man.
I don't think Jobs wanted to be idolized. He did want to serve as the visible face of Apple, especially once he came back after starting NeXT, but that's different. One of his goals in putting himself forward, was to allow Apple's employees to get their work done without a lot of media attention on them that might have distracted them. I can't recall a single instance during any of his presentations in which he said "I came up with this idea"; instead, a number of times he pointed out that it was the work of Apple employees, and sometimes he shared the stage with a few of them. It's true that he often implied that Apple came up with ideas that they hadn't, but less often than many people think.
JohnSawyer: I don't think Jobs wanted to be idolized. He did
He was a seriously flawed human being, as we all are. But, although his creations have totally saturated our society, he failed to consider the "unintended consequences" which have turned things against many traditional values and made "real life' less valuable.
illinwek: He was a seriously flawed human being, as we all
While my friend set up her elderly mother in a convalescent hospital with Facetime so she could visit with her every night by computer. They lived in different states and my friend couldn't move to be with her mother, could only come every couple of months. Her mother subsequently passed away, but they had talked every night between her daughter's visits.
mairs: While my friend set up her elderly mother in a
The most amazing tid bit of Jobs was his putting this historic disaster of a president in his place at a white house gathering of business leaders, trying to give this historic disaster president a quick lesson on why not to create class warfare and to stop the bashing of business that create the jobs.
and, Jobs turned down the white house offer and made the historic disaster president call him personally for the white house invite
Jobs was very correct telling this historic disaster president.. " you will be a one termer"
we need an American Spring to get this clown out of the white house before the country is so ruined, it might not ever come back
queckie1: The most amazing tid bit of Jobs was his putting
There have been more private sector jobs created under Obama than all the 8 years of Bush combined. Not quite the disaster president you make him out to be.
theveggiedude: There have been more private sector jobs created under Obama
We did, in fact, lose 673,000 private sector jobs under Bush. But the comparison is misleading: It compares a favorable slice of Obama’s tenure to Bush’s eight years in office. In reality, roughly 3 million private sector jobs have disappeared since Obama became president. This information comes from Factcheck.org
rcm2040: We did, in fact, lose 673,000 private sector jobs under
Not hardly. Unemployment was at record lows during the entirety of Bush's presidency. It's at record highs under Obama. I didn't like Bush, but the numbers are there for everyone to read.
imonlyhereforthelaughs: Not hardly. Unemployment was at record lows during the entirety
I sat this AM and listened to ladies of the VIEW make excuses for Jobs. He was a genius (their words) and his being rude and mean was ok. He lived his life this way and took his intelligence to the grave. Nothing, absolutely nothing makes it ok to be rude. He refused to acknowledge his daughter (until he thought it ok) and that is supposedly right, if you are a genius. Please. Glad he didn't fall back on the rest of this country's rude christianity.
kincaid0329: I sat this AM and listened to ladies of the
This is what is wrong with our country today... we deify people who display horrible characteristics and then say it's okay because he did something good. You are the sum of your actions and words, and Steve Jobs didn't exactly put forth the best actions and words. He admitted early on to stealing technology and ideas from others for his company to recreate then sell for huge sums, more than others sold the same technology. Just because the end result was some cool tech doesn't make him a saint in retrospect.
A company that rips off an entire generation, causing them to lose their livelihoods and savings, is filled with bad people. I don't care what church they attend or what causes they support. They are bad people. Period.
rlrose328: This is what is wrong with our country today... we
RT @kaneshow If only we had more like this kid in the world: 9 year-old wins trip to Disney, donates it to family of fallen soldier: http://t.co/i1upfcgA
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The Huffington Post Bianca Bosker First Posted: 10/24/11 03:06 PM ET Updated: 10/25/11 04:52 PM ET