He quit his College,Came India on a Spiritual Journey, quit drugs and founded one of the biggest companies – Apple

Note:  I write this few month after writing below article. Sai showed me a dream saying when ever I write about individuals, its good but they have both positives and negatives in their life. We must take only the positive aspects which I have wrote. Further, the information I wrote may not be right in perfect sense. Anyway, I wish to keep this article as it since its goal is to inspire you.Thanks – Venkat

Sairam friends,

I never get enough of Sai. If I wish to write about Shirdi Sai Baba all my life, I could but I am trying to pressure myself to think hard on what I can write. To me,Writings must come from God and if I force it to come, it gets unnatural. Divinity in me is essential in order to inspire people to take the path of Devotion. So at times, I find it better about other people, places and idea I am inspired with.

Today, I am going to write about Steve Jobs, Founder of Apple Inc . I tried to compile various articles and information on Wikipedia about Life of Steve Jobs. Note that I wrote it in hurry remembering a Documentary I saw yesterday. So if I had done some mistakes in facts, apologies for that.

Steve Jobs

Steven Paul “Steve” Jobs was born to Abdulfattah John Jandali and Joanne Carole and adopted by Paul Reinhold Jobs (1922–1993) and Clara Jobs (1924–1986).  Years later Later, when asked about his “adoptive parents”, Jobs replied emphatically that Paul and Clara Jobs “were my parents.”

He stated in his authorized biography that they “were my parents 1,000%

Steve jobs

Father’s first Lessons – Creating a Man who would revolutionize the world

The Jobs family moved from San Francisco to Mountain View, California when Jobs was five years old.  Paul worked as a mechanic and a carpenter, and taught his son rudimentary electronics and how to work with his hands.

Paul showed Steve how to work on electronics in the family garage, demonstrating to his son how to take apart and rebuild electronics such as radios and televisions. As a result, he became interested in and developed a hobby of technical tinkering.

Clara was an accountant who taught him to read before he went to school. Clara Jobs had been a payroll clerk in a high-tech firms in what became known as Silicon Valley.

Steve Jobs at School – Playing pranks on his friends

As many children did, Jobs too was never too much interested in Formal Schooling. Jobs’ youth was riddled with frustrations over formal schooling. At Monta Loma Elementary school in Mountain View, he frequently played pranks on others. Though school officials recommended that he skip two grades on account of his test scores, his parents elected for him only to skip one grade.

Quit College but continued to Learn – Slept on Floor and had weekly free meals at the Local Hare Krishna Temple

Steve Jobs completed his high school graduation in 972 and enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Reed being an expensive college his parents could not afford his education. They were spending most of their savings on their sons education and finally Jobs decided to quit.

Steve Jobs dropped out of College in six month but continued to attend creative classes including a class he loved about Calligraphy. He continued auditing classes at Reed while sleeping on the floor in friends’ dorm rooms.

Steve Jobs enjoyed the meals Krishna devotees offered in Temple

In his famous 2005 commencement speech to Stanford University, Jobs said of his time at Reed:

“It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5 cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.”

Steve Jobs first Job

In late 1973, Jobs took a job as a technician at Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California. Atari’s co-founder Nolan Bushnell described him as “difficult but valuable”, pointing out that

“he was very often the smartest guy in the room, and he would let people know that.”

Came to India on a Spiritual Journey – Learns Meditation

Many people in India  itself doesn’t know its value. No matter how westernized we get, You have the secret of Life in India. If  your Spiritual quest ends up with a Good Guru who lived in Ancient India, you are sure to learn life better and lead a meaningful life. This is what happened to Steve Jobs too.

Jobs travelled to India in mid-1974 to visit Neem Karoli Baba at his Kainchi Ashram with a Reed College friend (and, later, an early Apple employee), Daniel Kottke, in search of spiritual enlightenment.

When they got to the Neem Karoli ashram, it was almost deserted as Neem Karoli Baba had died in September 1973. Then they made a long trek up a dry riverbed to an ashram of Hariakhan Baba. In India, they spent a lot of time on bus rides from Delhi to Uttar Pradesh and back, then up to Himachal Pradesh and back.

After staying for seven months, Jobs left India and returned to the US ahead of Daniel Kottke. Jobs had changed his appearance; his head was shaved and he wore traditional Indian clothing.

The Economic Times article reads as below

Soon, he had swapped his jeans and T-shirts for lungis as he set out from Delhi for the Himalayas. Along the way, Jobs and Kottke slept in abandoned buildings and survived on local food.

While he was searching for Neem Karoli Baba, Jobs chanced upon a mendicant who laughed uproariously at the sight of him, led him up a mountain path, dunked his head in a pond at the top of the mountain and shaved his head.

Jobs and Kottke then set off to meet one Harikan Baba, but came away unimpressed. On the way back, while sleeping in a dry creek bed, they were trapped in a fierce thunderstorm.

As Kottke narrates in ‘iCon’,

“I remember us praying to any god that could hear us, ‘Dear God, if I ever get through this, I’ll be a good person, I promise’.”

Having picked up lice and dysentry, the two set off to see Tibet, but contracted scabies near Manali. Worse, Kottke’s traveller’s cheques got stolen, which ended their trip.

“The hot, uncomfortable summer made Jobs question many illusions he had nursed about India. He found India far poorer than he had imagined and was struck by the incongruity between the country’s condition and its airs of holiness,” author Michael Moritz wrote in Jobs’ biography, as he was quoted as saying in his biography, ‘The Little Kingdom — The Private Story of Apple Computer’.

However, Jobs retained his interest in spirituality.

Experiments with Drugs only to Quit it Later

During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, later calling his LSD experiences “one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life”. I specifically wanted to write this because people who are addicted to drugs or any bad habits must realize its important to come out of it so that you can achieve something in life and make the world a better place to live in.

Loved Zen Meditation

He also became a serious practitioner of Zen Buddhism, engaged in lengthy meditation retreats at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the oldest Sōtō Zen monastery in the US.  He considered taking up monastic residence at Eihei-ji in Japan, and maintained a lifelong appreciation for Zen.Jobs would later say that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not fully relate to his thinking.

Founded one of the biggest companies – Apple Computer

Steve Jobs and two of his friends Created Apple Computer in a Garage of his house and realized they can sell it to big market. Before he was just 25 years old, Steve earned Millions of Dollars and was the Man who introduced Mouse to Computers. Unfortunately, Steve dint got the kind of market expected. Seems he used to ask “Why won’t everyone in the world come and buy Mac computers?”

The rise of Microsoft too had started and gradually Steve Jobs was asked to quit from the same company he founded.

I want to tell this to all Sai devotees to never loose heart when what you deserve has not be given for you. Imagine a man who was thrown out of the Company he created even if it has earned billions of dollars just because he was failing recently. And he was thrown away from the Very person he Made as CEO.

In a speech Jobs gave at Stanford University in 2005, he said being fired from Apple was the best thing that could have happened to him;

“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” And he added, “I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.

Steve Jobs on Mahatma Gandhi

Steve Jobs was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and had a portrait of Gandhi in one of his rooms in early days

Steve was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and here are his quotes

“Mohandas Gandhi is my choice for the Person of the Century because he showed us the way out of the destructive side of our human nature.”

“Gandhi demonstrated that we can force change and justice through moral acts of aggression instead of physical acts of aggression. Never has our species needed this wisdom more”

– Steve Jobs

NeXT Computer

Jobs founded NeXT Inc. in 1985 after his resignation with $7 million.It dint perform so great due to competition from IBM and its cost but technologically advanced.

Apple during this time was growing and Steve didn’t like it doing well without him. He could not accept it. Years later Apple did fail to accomplish itself as a Market Leader.

Pixar and Disney

In 1986, Jobs bought The Graphics Group from Lucasfilm’s computer graphics division for the price of $10 million, $5 million of which was given to the company as capital

The first film produced by the partnership, Toy Story (1995), with Jobs credited as executive producer, brought fame and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released. The Man thrown out from Apple is now a Hollywood Billionaire.

Return to Apple

In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $427 million. The deal was finalized in late 1996,bringing Jobs back to the company he co-founded. Jobs became de facto chief after then-CEO Gil Amelio was ousted in July 1997.

iMac, ipod and iPhone

Steve Jobs as CEO said “Apple was a Ship with a hole and my duty was to take it fast towards a direction” and he did it.

Steve Jobs realized people would like to enjoy music in a hard drive they can carry any where. He had a Vision and he made it the worlds most admired gadget of that time.

With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company made forays into consumer electronics and music distribution.

On June 29, 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell phone, which also included the features of an iPod and, with its own mobile browser, revolutionized the mobile browsing scene. While stimulating innovation, Jobs also reminded his employees that “real artists ship”

Here is a man who revolutionized the way Music is listened to, The man who was a Star in the minds of people around the world. For the first time in Human history, people waited in ques to buy the new release of Gadget – iPhone.

In 2003, Jobs found he had pancreatic cancer. In a conference he tells, I was offered a organ from a youth who met with a accident. Thanks to his generosity for i am alive now and we all must be generous.

When Steve Jobs passed away, people around the world shed tears for him for he touched our live one way or other.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs

It seems Bill Gates had met him multiple times to request him to work on Software for Mac too. Steve believed Apple will be the first to introduce menu based computer software. Before that Microsoft launched Windows 1 in 1985.
Seems Steve was yelling at everyone and also to Bill gates saying he had trusted him but Gates was cool and said he perceived it differently. He wants to create software that would work on all computers but Steve disagreed.

When Bill Gates was interviewed about what he thinks of Steve Jobs he said they met during sometime and spoke about lots of things, about companies and stuff and also….

“How lucky we are for having blessed with wonderful wife”

….I mean they felt happy for their family God blessed them with.

You see, this is the reason , I keep praying Sai to bless me with a Good wife because no matter how big a failure or success in your life, Having a Wife you would feel really peace in your innermost soul matters a lot.

Anyway, Steve Jobs no matter how hard he was as an CEO to his Employees as some critics says,  really has lived a meaningful life. There are critics who say that he wasn’t as charitable as other Rich men of his time were  we have to take the good side of everyone, get inspired and apply it in our life to grow. There’s another issue of pressure faced by employees of the original manufacturer of Apple products in China( Our prayers to these people.).

What matters about the life of Steve Jobs is that he has always worked to make life of people better with his innovations. There are youngsters who get into bad habits, bad relationship even when they have little money and loose focus in their Goal. Make sure money never change you as a human being and keep working hard to achieve your good goals.

Steve Jobs Book

In his 2005 Stanford university speech, Steve says as below

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish”

I am too late to start for work now and my Mom is scolding me…So i shall continue this article later

One thing i wanna tell you is that people who fail in life never accepted their failures to heart. Who could imagine Steve Jobs will be thrown out of Apple and then come back to change the way the world perceives Technology and Entertainment.

Never Give up and Never worry that Sai din’t help you. People who were successful always had accepted failures and continued to strive hard and think smart and remained Honest for a better life and to make the world a better place.

Be determined and Sai will show you a way some day

Love

Venkat