Today marks 14 years since the world lost one of its most transformative visionaries. On October 5, 2011, Steve Jobs passed away at his home in Palo Alto, California, at the age of 56. His death came just one day after Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S and introduced Siri to the world — a poignant reminder that even in his final moments, Jobs was pushing the boundaries of what technology could achieve.
Let’s be honest — if you were to write Steve Jobs’ origin story, publishers might reject it as too far-fetched. Born in San Francisco on February 24, 1955, to 22-year-old graduate student Joanne Schieble and Syrian-born Ph.D. candidate Abdulfattah Jandali, Steve’s life began with a plot twist that would shape everything that followed. When Schieble’s family threatened to cut off financial support over her relationship with the Muslim graduate student, she made the difficult decision to place her son for adoption.
The first prospective parents backed out when they learned the baby was a boy — they wanted a girl. Enter Paul and Clara Jobs, a machinist and bookkeeper who had been struggling with infertility. Here’s where it gets interesting: Schieble initially refused to consent to the adoption because the Jobs weren’t college-educated, which was her one requirement. Only after Paul and Clara promised to send the boy to college did she finally agree.
My parents made me feel special, Jobs would later reflect, adamantly rejecting any notion that his adoption created abandonment issues. To those who are always suggesting his adoptive parents weren’t his real parents, he was crystal clear: They were my parents. 1000%.
In 1976, working out of the Jobs family garage in Los Altos, Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer. But this wasn’t just another tech startup story. Jobs possessed something rare — the ability to see not just what technology could do, but what it should feel like. While Wozniak was the engineering genius, Jobs understood that computers needed to be more than functional; they needed to be human.
The Apple II, launched in 1977, became one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputers. But Jobs was just getting started. In 1979, he visited Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center and witnessed something that would change computing forever — the graphical user interface with a mouse. While Xerox failed to recognize its commercial potential, Jobs immediately grasped what this meant for the future.
Jobs didn’t just create products; he created experiences. His design philosophy was deceptively simple yet profoundly complex: Design isn’t just what it looks like and feels like — design is how it works. This wasn’t about making things look pretty; it was about making technology disappear so that users could focus on what they wanted to accomplish.
Take the original iPod’s interface. While competitors were cramming features and buttons onto their devices, Jobs insisted on the elegant scroll wheel. The marketing wasn’t about technical specifications — it was about 1,000 songs in your pocket. He understood that people don’t buy gigabytes; they buy the ability to carry their entire music collection wherever they go.
Perhaps no speech better captures Jobs’ philosophy than his 2005 Stanford commencement address, viewed over 120 million times and considered one of the most influential speeches in history. Speaking to graduates, he shared three stories from his life, including one about dropping out of Reed College but dropping in on a calligraphy class that seemed utterly impractical at the time.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life, he explained about learning typography. But ten years later, when designing the first Macintosh, that seemingly useless knowledge became the foundation for the first computer with beautiful typography. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
This wasn’t just career advice — it was a life philosophy. Jobs understood that innovation often comes from unexpected places, from following curiosity rather than predetermined paths.
In 1985, after a power struggle with Apple’s board, Jobs was essentially fired from the company he co-founded. Lesser individuals might have retreated, but Jobs saw this as an opportunity to start over. He founded NeXT, developing computers for higher education and business markets, and purchased the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, transforming it into Pixar Animation Studios.
Pixar’s first film, Toy Story (1995), revolutionized entertainment by proving that computer animation could tell deeply human stories. Under Jobs’ leadership, Pixar became a powerhouse, eventually selling to Disney for $7.4 billion in 2006.
When Apple acquired NeXT in 1997, Jobs returned to a company on the brink of bankruptcy. What followed was perhaps the greatest corporate turnaround in business history. The Think Different campaign wasn’t just advertising — it was a mission statement. Jobs streamlined operations, eliminated redundant products, and focused on what Apple did best: creating tools that amplified human capability.
The products that emerged from Jobs’ second tenure at Apple didn’t just succeed — they redefined entire industries. The iMac made personal computers approachable again. The iPod transformed how we consume music. The iPhone, unveiled in 2007, wasn’t just a phone — it was a powerful computer that fit in your pocket, combining communication, entertainment, and internet access in an elegant device that changed how we interact with technology.
Each product reflected Jobs’ core belief that technology should serve humanity, not the other way around. He obsessed over details others ignored—the weight of a device, the sound it made when starting up, even the inside of computers that users would never see. This attention to detail wasn’t vanity; it was respect for the people who would use these tools every day.
For all his technological achievements, Jobs never lost sight of the human element. In his Stanford speech, he spoke candidly about his cancer diagnosis and what it taught him about mortality: Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
His final words, according to his sister Mona Simpson, were simply: “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow” — perhaps the perfect summary of a life spent in constant amazement at what was possible.
Fourteen years later, Jobs’ influence extends far beyond the devices in our pockets. His emphasis on design thinking — placing human needs at the center of innovation—has become standard practice across industries. Companies worldwide have adopted his philosophy that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, that form and function are inseparable, and that great products should feel almost magical to use.
Apple CEO Tim Cook continues to honor Jobs’ memory, recently posting: Steve saw the future as a bright and boundless place, lit the path forward, and inspired us to follow. We miss you, my friend”. Cook maintains Jobs’ preserved office at Apple’s former headquarters, explaining: “From him emanates our values and our DNA.
As we remember Steve Jobs today, perhaps his most powerful legacy isn’t any single product or company — it’s the belief that we can think differently about the world around us. His life reminds us that the dots we’re collecting today through our curiosity and passion will connect in ways we can’t yet imagine.
Jobs once said he wanted to put a ding in the universe. Looking at how profoundly he changed the way we communicate, create, and connect with each other, it’s safe to say he succeeded beyond even his ambitious dreams. In a world increasingly dominated by technology, his vision of making that technology more human remains as relevant today as it was in that garage in Los Altos nearly five decades ago.
Stay hungry. Stay foolish. These weren’t just parting words to Stanford graduates — they were an invitation to approach life with the same curiosity and courage that transformed a college dropout into one of history’s most influential innovators. Fourteen years later, that invitation remains as compelling as ever.
May Steven Paul Jobs — February 24, 1955 to October 5, 2011 — continue to rest in peace.