Who Was Steve Jobs? (5 page)
Read Who Was Steve Jobs? Online
Authors: Pam Pollack,Meg Belviso
Steve had had many girlfriends since Chrisann Brennan. One was the famous folksinger Joan Baez. Dating Joan Baez was especially exciting for Steve because she had once been the girlfriend of one of his favorite singers, Bob Dylan.
But Steve was in his midthirties and had never come close to being married.
Then in 1990, Steve gave a lecture at Stanford University. In the audience was Laurene Powell.
Laurene was a graduate student studying business. Laurene was so pretty that Steve noticed her right away. Afterward, the two got to talking. Like Steve, Laurene didn’t eat meat and was very smart. They exchanged phone numbers. Steve went out into the parking lot to find his car. He had a business meeting that night. But as he was getting into his car, he thought to himself, “If this was my last day on earth, would I rather spend it at a business meeting or with this woman?” He ran across the parking lot and caught up with Laurene.
The two had dinner together. A year later, they were married in Yosemite National Park.
MONA SIMPSON
MONA SIMPSON IS A WELL-KNOWN NOVELIST. SHE MET HER BROTHER, STEVE, WHILE SHE WAS WORKING ON HER FIRST BOOK,
ANYWHERE BUT HERE
. THE BOOK WENT ON TO WIN AN AWARD GIVEN TO NEW WRITERS. IT WAS LATER MADE INTO A MOVIE STARRING SUSAN SARANDON AND NATALIE PORTMAN. MONA DEDICATED THE BOOK TO HER MOTHER AND HER BROTHER, STEVE. ANOTHER ONE OF HER BOOKS WAS CALLED
A REGULAR GUY
. STEVE THOUGHT THE MAIN CHARACTER SEEMED TOO MUCH LIKE HIM. BUT STEVE AND MONA REMAINED CLOSE UNTIL THE END OF HIS LIFE.
Steve and Laurene’s first child, Reed Paul Jobs, was born in September 1991. He was named after Reed College.
Things still weren’t going well at NeXT. But Steve was discovering that life was more than just business. His father, the person he was closest to, died in 1993. Steve had loved the time he spent working on cars with his father. He wanted his children to have happy memories of him, too. His now-teenage daughter, Lisa, came to live with him for the first time. Even if he was never a success again, Steve thought, he would have a happy family life.
STEVE JOBS’S OTHER FATHER
WHEN STEVE JOBS WAS LOOKING FOR HIS BIOLOGICAL MOTHER, HE DECIDED THAT HE DIDN’T WANT TO MEET HIS FATHER. BUT IN FACT, HE HAD ALREADY MET HIM! ABDULFATTAH JANDALI RAN A RESTAURANT IN SILICON VALLEY. STEVE HAD EATEN THERE SEVERAL TIMES. HE HAD MET ABDULFATTAH, BUT NEITHER MAN KNEW THEY WERE RELATED.
LATER ON, MONA SIMPSON MET HER FATHER AFTER MANY YEARS OF NOT SEEING HIM. HE TALKED ABOUT HIS OLD RESTAURANT. HE TOLD MONA THAT IT WAS THE BEST IN THE SILICON VALLEY. “EVERYONE USED TO EAT THERE,” HE SAID. “EVEN STEVE JOBS! HE WAS A GREAT TIPPER!” IT WAS MONA WHO TOLD ABDULFATTAH THAT STEVE WAS HIS SON! HE NEVER SAW STEVE AGAIN, BUT HE WAS PROUD TO HAVE SERVED THE APPLE FOUNDER.
To Infinity and Beyond
Steve Jobs admired anyone who did something new and different. He was a huge fan of George Lucas, the director of the Star Wars movies. In 1980, Steve bought out a theater for a night so that everyone at Apple could see
The Empire Strikes Back
together.
In 1986, Steve finally got to work with Lucas. He became an owner in Lucas’s computer graphics company. Steve named the company Pixar.
Lucas’s company had created a new kind of animation using a computer. Steve hoped to sell this program to animators. But it was too expensive. Artists didn’t think they needed it. Pixar was losing a lot of money. In fact, Steve put more than fifty million dollars of his own money to keep the company going. He only paid himself fifty dollars a year for his salary.
In 1991, Steve laid off most of Pixar’s staff. One person he didn’t lay off was John Lasseter. Lasseter had made a number of short computer-animated films. The films were the best way to show customers what the program could do. Lasseter’s short movies were good—one of them,
Tin Toy
, won an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 1989.