The new biography on STEVE JOBS comes out today, but some of the revelations in the book have been leaking out before the release. Here are the 16 best ones:
#1.) If he hadn't started Apple, he would've become a poet. Apparently, if Apple hadn't worked out, Jobs was planning to move to PARIS to become a POET.
#2.) He gave up on religion at age 13. When Jobs was 13, he saw pictures in "Life" magazine of starving children in Africa. He asked his Sunday school teacher why God wasn't helping them. She couldn't answer, so he stopped going to church.
#3.) He tried pot and LSD. Jobs tried both drugs in high school and said that they were, quote, "a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life."
#4.) Who had the biggest presence on his iPod? Apparently Jobs had FIFTEEN albums by BOB DYLAN on his iPod...and three from the cellist YO-YO MA.
-And while Jobs wasn't religious, he said that Yo-Yo Ma's music was the BEST CASE that God actually exists.
#5.) He only had one book on his iPad. It's called "Autobiography of a Yogi" and it's about a guy's spiritual quest for a guru. He read it every year since he was a teenager.
#6.) He believed his most irreplaceable employee was his head designer. One of the biggest reasons for Apple's success is the design of its products. So Jobs valued his head designer, JONATHAN IVE, more than any other employee.
#7.) He met his biological father before either of them knew they were related. Jobs was adopted, and used to go to a restaurant that his biological father managed in the '60s...but he didn't realize the manager was his father.
-He found out later in life that the manager was his father, but he didn't try to forge a relationship with him because he, quote, "didn't trust him."
#8.) BILL CLINTON asked for his advice during the MONICA LEWINSKY scandal. Clinton and Jobs were friends, and Clinton asked for advice when the scandal broke.
-Jobs told him, quote, "I don't know if you did it, but if so, you've got to tell the country." There was silence on the other end. Clearly, Clinton didn't listen.
#9.) He believed that Google's Android phone operating system was stolen. Jobs believed that Google's former CEO, ERIC SCHMIDT, stole the idea for the Android phone from Apple's iPhone operating system.
-He even told his biographer, quote, "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 willing to go thermonuclear war on this."
#10.) He finally met with BILL GATES last year. Jobs had always wanted to have a sit-down with Gates, and they finally did last year. Jobs wasn't impressed.
-Quote, "Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he's more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He'd be a broader guy if he'd dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram."
-But Gates wasn't exactly blown away by Jobs either. Quote, "He really never knew much about technology but had an amazing instinct for what works. [He's] fundamentally odd...weirdly flawed as a human being."
#11.) He hated how people mocked the iPad. Remember when Apple first unveiled the iPad, and everyone made tampon jokes about the name? That made Jobs DEPRESSED. Of course, then the thing sold like crazy.
#12.) He told PRESIDENT OBAMA he would only last one term. Jobs and Obama met in 2010, and Jobs continued his trend of giving it STRAIGHT and BRUTAL to presidents.
-He told Obama that he was looking at a one-term presidency, because the country's education system is corrupt and the country's laws are not friendly to business. But...he did offer to help with Obama's 2012 campaign.
#13.) He believed he'd "finally cracked" the secret to making a great television. So expect one of Apple's next "game changer" products to be a revolutionary TV.
#14.) He initially hated the idea of apps. It's impossible to imagine Apple products today without apps...but originally, Jobs HATED them.
-He felt like it would be way too hard to police other companies making apps. His board finally convinced him to change his mind, he did, and now apps have completely changed the way we use our phones.
#15.) He regretted not immediately having surgery after his cancer diagnosis. In 2004, when Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he tried holistic remedies instead of getting surgery. He ended up regretting that.
-He told his biographer, quote, "I didn't want my body to be opened. I didn't want to be violated in that way."
#16.) He only had one request for his biography. Jobs promised he wouldn't micromanage any aspect of his biography, except one thing: a great COVER. And it turned out pretty well. It looks kind of like an Apple product.
