Steve Jobs was the natural-born son of John Jandali and Joanne Schieble. Jandali was a teaching assistant from Syria and Joanne was a Catholic girl from Wisconsin whose parents disapproved of her relationship with a Muslim. Unable to wed, they gave their baby up for adoption and baby Steve was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs of San Francisco, California. Paul Jobs was an engine technician turned car mechanic, and he introduced Steve to the world of engineering and design, instilling in him many of the principles of good design that are so characteristic of Apple products.
Still, Jobs struggled at times with the circumstances surrounding his birth, and he expressed mixed emotions about both sets of his parents. “Abandoned. Chosen. Special. Those concepts became part of who Jobs was and how he regarded himself.”
The Jobs family soon moved south of San Francisco to Palo Alto, right as the Silicon Valley technology boom was getting under way. There, Steve went to school where he was often bored and bemused by authority. He frequently found himself in trouble for pulling pranks but his parents never punished him for his shenanigans and they challenged his school to keep him engaged. According to Steve, the only time that Paul Jobs ever got mad was later in high school, when he discovered that Steve was experimenting with marijuana and LSD. It was in high school that Steve began realizing that while he had a head for electronics and technical design, he also possessed a keen aesthetic sense and a deep appreciation for music and art.
Chapter 2: Odd Couple: The Two Steves
Steve Wozniak preceded Jobs at Homestead High School by five years, and was a talented and accomplished computer technician by the time he met Jobs in the garage of a mutual friend. There, they began their storied friendship based on their mutual love of computers, pranks and Bob Dylan bootlegs.
Their first project together involved building a