The Last Words of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs’s biological sister, Mona Simpson, wrote a moving and highly personal eulogy for a private funeral service for the fallen tech titan that took place a few days after his death in early October.

An acclaimed novelist, she delivered a beautifully written description of Steve Jobs‘s life, illness and death. She said his last words before he slipped into unconsciousness for the last time were, “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

Why Steve Jobs Never Had a License Plate on his Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG

Steve Jobs’ Mercedes was photographed many times over the last several years, but the car was always plate-free. How did he do it? Did he pay the fine every time he was confronted by the police? Did he obtain a special permit? Did he just get lucky?

The answer is actually very simple.

“Steve (or someone close to him) spotted a loophole in the California vehicle laws. Anyone with a brand new car had a maximum of six months to affix the issued number plate to the vehicle.

So Jobs made an arrangement with the leasing company; he would always change cars during the sixth month of the lease, exchanging one silver Mercedes SL55 AMG for another identical one. At no time would he ever be in a car as old as six months; and thus there was no legal requirement to have the number plates fitted.

One might also assume that the leasing company was happy – they had an endless supply of luxury cars to on-sell with the previous driver being none-other that Steve Jobs.

That would be a win-win-win situation for Steve, the leasing company and for the subsequent buyer.”

Stay hungry, stay foolish! - Text of the Commencement address / speech at Stanford University on June 12, 2005 - By Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer & Pixar Animation Studios

Stay hungry, stay foolish!

By Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer & Pixar Animation Studios

Text of the Commencement address at Stanford University on June 12, 2005

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

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¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. 

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. 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. 

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. 

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. 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.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

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. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because 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. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish''. It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Steve Jobs and the 7 Rules of Success - specially for Entrepreneurs

Steve Jobs and the 7 Rules of Success

Steve Jobs' impact on your life cannot be underestimated. His innovations have likely touched nearly every aspect -- computers, movies, music and mobile. As a communications coach, I learned from Jobs that a presentation can, indeed, inspire. For entrepreneurs, Jobs' greatest legacy is the set of principles that drove his success.

Over the years, I've become a student of sorts of Jobs' career and life. Here's my take on the rules and values underpinning his success. Any of us can adopt them to unleash our "inner Steve Jobs."

1. Do what you love. Jobs once said, "People with passion can change the world for the better." Asked about the advice he would offer would-be entrepreneurs, he said, "I'd get a job as a busboy or something until I figured out what I was really passionate about." That's how much it meant to him. Passion is everything.

2. Put a dent in the universe. Jobs believed in the power of vision. He once asked then-Pepsi President, John Sculley, "Do you want to spend your life selling sugar water or do you want to change the world?" Don't lose sight of the big vision.

3. Make connections. Jobs once said creativity is connecting things. He meant that people with a broad set of life experiences can often see things that others miss. He took calligraphy classes that didn't have any practical use in his life -- until he built the Macintosh. Jobs traveled to India and Asia. He studied design and hospitality. Don't live in a bubble. Connect ideas from different fields.

4. Say no to 1,000 things. Jobs was as proud of what Apple chose not to do as he was of what Apple did. When he returned in Apple in 1997, he took a company with 350 products and reduced them to 10 products in a two-year period. Why? So he could put the "A-Team" on each product. What are you saying "no" to?   

5. Create insanely different experiences. Jobs also sought innovation in the customer-service experience. When he first came up with the concept for the Apple Stores, he said they would be different because instead of just moving boxes, the stores would enrich lives. Everything about the experience you have when you walk into an Apple store is intended to enrich your life and to create an emotional connection between you and the Apple brand. What are you doing to enrich the lives of your customers?

6. Master the message. You can have the greatest idea in the world, but if you can't communicate your ideas, it doesn't matter. Jobs was the world's greatest corporate storyteller. Instead of simply delivering a presentation like most people do, he informed, he educated, he inspired and he entertained, all in one presentation.

7. Sell dreams, not products. Jobs captured our imagination because he really understood his customer. He knew that tablets would not capture our imaginations if they were too complicated. The result? One button on the front of an iPad. It's so simple, a 2-year-old can use it. Your customers don't care about your product. They care about themselves, their hopes, their ambitions. Jobs taught us that if you help your customers reach their dreams, you'll win them over.

There's one story that I think sums up Jobs' career at Apple. An executive who had the job of reinventing the Disney Store once called up Jobs and asked for advice. His counsel? Dream bigger. I think that's the best advice he could leave us with. See genius in your craziness, believe in yourself, believe in your vision, and be constantly prepared to defend those ideas.

Carmine Gallo is a communications coach, a popular keynote speaker and author of several books including The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs and The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs. His latest is The Power of Foursquare (McGraw-Hill, 2011).

9 surprising facts / things you didn’t know about the life of Steve Jobs - Hidden realities truths about steve jobs

9 surprising facts / things you didn't know about the life of Steve Jobs - Hidden realities truths about steve jobs

Steve Jobs leans against his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs (Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle/Corbis)

For all of his years in the spotlight at the helm of Apple, Steve Jobs in many ways remains an inscrutable figure — even in his death. Fiercely private, Jobs concealed most specifics about his personal life, from his curious family life to the details of his battle with pancreatic cancer — a disease that ultimately claimed him on Wednesday, at the age of 56.

While the CEO and co-founder of Apple steered most interviews away from the public fascination with his private life, there's plenty we know about Jobs the person, beyond the Mac and the iPhone. If anything, the obscure details of his interior life paint a subtler, more nuanced portrait of how one of the finest technology minds of our time grew into the dynamo that we remember him as today.

1. Early life and childhood

Jobs was born in San Francisco on February 24, 1955. He was adopted shortly after his birth and reared near Mountain View, California by a couple named Clara and Paul Jobs. His adoptive father — a term that Jobs openly objected to — was a machinist for a laser company and his mother worked as an accountant.

Later in life, Jobs discovered the identities of his estranged parents. His birth mother, Joanne Simpson, was a graduate student at the time and later a speech pathologist; his biological father, Abdulfattah John Jandali, was a Syrian Muslim who left the country at age 18 and reportedly now serves as the vice president of a Reno, Nevada casino. While Jobs reconnected with Simpson in later years, he and his biological father remained estranged.

1. Early life and childhood

Jobs was born in San Francisco on February 24, 1955. He was adopted shortly after his birth and reared near Mountain View, California by a couple named Clara and Paul Jobs. His adoptive father — a term that Jobs openly objected to — was a machinist for a laser company and his mother worked as an accountant.

Later in life, Jobs discovered the identities of his estranged parents. His birth mother, Joanne Simpson, was a graduate student at the time and later a speech pathologist; his biological father, Abdulfattah John Jandali, was a Syrian Muslim who left the country at age 18 and reportedly now serves as the vice president of a Reno, Nevada casino. While Jobs reconnected with Simpson in later years, he and his biological father remained estranged.

2. College dropout

The lead mind behind the most successful company on the planet never graduated from college, in fact, he didn't even get close. After graduating from high school in Cupertino, California — a town now synonymous with 1 Infinite Loop, Apple's headquarters — Jobs enrolled in Reed College in 1972. Jobs stayed at Reed (a liberal arts university in Portland, Oregon) for only one semester, dropping out quickly due to the financial burden the private school's steep tuition placed on his parents.

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."

3. Fibbed to his Apple co-founder about a job at Atari

Jobs is well known for his innovations in personal computing, mobile tech, and software, but he also helped create one of the best known video games of all-time. In 1975, Jobs was tapped by Atari to work on the Pong-like game Breakout.

He was reportedly offered $750 for his development work, with the possibility of an extra $100 for each chip eliminated from the game's final design. Jobs recruited Steve Wozniak (later one of Apple's other founders) to help him with the challenge. Wozniak managed to whittle the prototype's design down so much that Atari paid out a $5,000 bonus — but Jobs kept the bonus for himself, and paid his unsuspecting friend only $375, according to Wozniak's own autobiography.

4. The wife he leaves behind

Like the rest of his family life, Jobs kept his marriage out of the public eye. Thinking back on his legacy conjures images of him commanding the stage in his trademark black turtleneck and jeans, and those solo moments are his most iconic. But at home in Palo Alto, Jobs was raising a family with his wife, Laurene, an entrepreneur who attended the University of Pennsylvania's prestigious Wharton business school and later received her MBA at Stanford, where she first met her future husband.

For all of his single-minded dedication to the company he built from the ground up, Jobs actually skipped a meeting to take Laurene on their first date: "I was in the parking lot with the key in the car, and I thought to myself, 'If this is my last night on earth, would I rather spend it at a business meeting or with this woman?' I ran across the parking lot, asked her if she'd have dinner with me. She said yes, we walked into town and we've been together ever since."

In 1991, Jobs and Powell were married in the Ahwahnee Hotel at Yosemite National Park, and the marriage was officiated by Kobin Chino, a Zen Buddhist monk.

5. His sister is a famous author

Later in his life, Jobs crossed paths with his biological sister while seeking the identity of his birth parents. His sister, Mona Simpson (born Mona Jandali), is the well-known author of Anywhere But Here — a story about a mother and daughter that was later adapted into a film starring Natalie Portman and Susan Sarandon.

After reuniting, Jobs and Simpson developed a close relationship. Of his sister, he told a New York Times interviewer: "We're family. She's one of my best friends in the world. I call her and talk to her every couple of days.'' Anywhere But Here is dedicated to "my brother Steve."

6. Celebrity romances

In The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, an unauthorized biography, a friend from Reed reveals that Jobs had a brief fling with folk singer Joan Baez. Baez confirmed the the two were close "briefly," though her romantic connection with Bob Dylan is much better known (Dylan was the Apple icon's favorite musician). The biography also notes that Jobs went out with actress Diane Keaton briefly.

7. His first daughter

When he was 23, Jobs and his high school girlfriend Chris Ann Brennan conceived a daughter, Lisa Brennan Jobs. She was born in 1978, just as Apple began picking up steam in the tech world. He and Brennan never married, and Jobs reportedly denied paternity for some time, going as far as stating that he was sterile in court documents. He went on to father three more children with Laurene Powell. After later mending their relationship, Jobs paid for his first daughter's education at Harvard. She graduated in 2000 and now works as a magazine writer.

8. Alternative lifestyle

In a few interviews, Jobs hinted at his early experience with the psychedelic drug LSD. Of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Jobs said: "I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger."

The connection has enough weight that Albert Hofmann, the Swiss scientist who first synthesized (and took) LSD, appealed to Jobs for funding for research about the drug's therapeutic use.

In a book interview, Jobs called his experience with the drug "one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life." As Jobs himself has suggested, LSD may have contributed to the "think different" approach that still puts Apple's designs a head above the competition.

Jobs will forever be a visionary, and his personal life also reflects the forward-thinking, alternative approach that vaulted Apple to success. During a trip to India, Jobs visited a well-known ashram and returned to the U.S. as a Zen Buddhist.

Jobs was also a pescetarian who didn't consume most animal products, and didn't eat meat other than fish. A strong believer in Eastern medicine, he sought to treat his own cancer through alternative approaches and specialized diets before reluctantly seeking his first surgery for a cancerous tumor in 2004.

9. His fortune

As the CEO of the world's most valuable brand, Jobs pulled in a comically low annual salary of just $1. While the gesture isn't unheard of in the corporate world  — Google's Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt all pocketed the same 100 penny salary annually — Jobs has kept his salary at $1 since 1997, the year he became Apple's lead executive. Of his salary, Jobs joked in 2007: "I get 50 cents a year for showing up, and the other 50 cents is based on my performance."

In early 2011, Jobs owned 5.5 million shares of Apple. After his death, Apple shares were valued at $377.64 — a roughly 43-fold growth in valuation over the last 10 years that shows no signs of slowing down.

He may only have taken in a single dollar per year, but Jobs leaves behind a vast fortune. The largest chunk of that wealth is the roughly $7 billion from the sale of Pixar to Disney in 2006. In 2011, with an estimated net worth of $8.3 billion, he was the 110th richest person in the world, according to Forbes. If Jobs hadn't sold his shares upon leaving Apple in 1985 (before returning to the company in 1996), he would be the world's fifth richest individual.

While there's no word yet on plans for his estate, Jobs leaves behind three children from his marriage to Laurene Jobs (Reed, Erin, and Eve), as well as his first daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs.

Steve Jobs ifone co-founder Battled Pancreatic Cancer, Survived Longer Than Expected - Steve Jobs died due to which disease i.e. Pancreatic Cancer

Jobs Battled Pancreatic Cancer, Survived Longer Than Expected

Apple co-founder Steven Jobs, 56, lost his battle with pancreatic cancer yesterday, after months and weeks of rumors that the disease he had been fighting since 2003 had returned. Jobs had tried several treatments, including surgery to remove the pancreatic tumor in 2004 and a liver transplant in 2009. When Jobs announced at age 49 that he had been diagnosed with a islet cell neuroedrocrine tumor, a rare form or pancreatic cancer, he said that his cancer was cured by surgery.

Jobs also tried to improve his diagnosis with dietary changes and is reported to have made a trip to Switzerland in 2009 for a radiation-based treatment for neuroendocrine cancer that is not available in the U.S. While Jobs survived for eight years with pancreatic cancer, another high profile person, Patrick Swayze survived the disease for only 20 months.  Actor Michael Landon also died shortly after his diagnosis.

What is pancreatic cancer?

The pancreas contains two types of glands: exocrine glands that produce enzymes that break down fats and proteins, and endocrine glands that make hormones like insulin that regulate sugar in the blood. Jobs died of tumors originating in the endocrine glands, which are among the rarer forms of pancreatic cancer.

What are the symptoms?

The symptoms in the early stages are vague and could be related to many other conditions. Typically symptoms include a loss of appetite, back and abdominal pain, chronic fatigue and symptoms of jaundice including yellowing of eyes and skin.

How is pancreatic cancer diagnosed? 

Most cases are diagnosed after imaging such as an MRI or a CT scan. The imaging tests are used to take a picture of not only the abdomen but also the adjacent organs. The current gold standard of diagnosis and staging is the The helical "spiral" CT scan. In terms of blood tests, the CA19-9 is the best available tumor marker test for tracking the progress of the disease, but it's only 80 percent accurate in diagnosing the disease.

How is pancreatic cancer treated?

Chemotherapy, surgery and radiation are the most common treatments for pancreatic cancer. Most recently some targeted drug therapies such as Elotinib have been used for people who have pancreatic cancer but have not seen a benefit from traditional treatment. This drug has shown to see a 23 percent survival rate for those with this aggressive cancer. 

Who is at risk?

Over 44,000 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the US each year. Neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer, the kind that Jobs had, is much rarer. According to researchers and Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore, those at the greatest risk have a family history of pancreatic cancer, are of Ashkenazi Jewish decent, are smokers, and are often over 50. People who suffer from chronic pancreatitis or from diabetes may also be at higher risk. Some studies show that African-Americans may also be at risk due to environmental factors and higher smoking rates.

What is the survival rate? 

Nearly 37,000 people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer die from the disease each year. In fact, the average survival rate for those who have metastatic cancer is six months. While progress is being made in terms of research, the five year survival rate for those living with pancreatic cancer is still less than five percent. Early detection, when the tumor is still small, can increase the five year survival rate to 25 percent. The American Cancer  Society says that the one year survival rate for this very aggressive cancer is 20 percent. The low survival rate is tied to the stage of tumors at the point of diagnosis.

Steve Jobs' Biography Sales Jump 42,000 Percent Upon Death - Steve Jobs' Death: Obama Says 'World Has Lost a Visionary' - Steve Jobs Dies at 56 - The Apple co-founder died Wednesday after years of failing health - Steve Jobs 'Died Peacefully,' His Fa

Steve Jobs' Biography Sales Jump 42,000 Percent Upon Death

UPDATED: Walter Isaacson's book is the first-ever authorized bio of the Apple co-founder, who died Wednesday at age 56.

The untimely death of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday at age 56 has given a boost to sales of the upcoming authorized biography Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. 

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The book is No. 1 on Amazon's "Movers & Shakers" list, as sales have increased by 42,000 percent since Apple announced Jobs' death. The book moved from No. 424 to No. 1 on Amazon's overall sales rankings and also is at No. 4 at Barnes & Noble. 

PHOTOS: 10 Memorable Milestones of Steve Jobs' Career 

Steve Jobs is scheduled for publication Nov. 21 by Simon & Schuster. There is no word yet from the publisher if the publication date will be moved up in the wake of Jobs' death.

Steve Jobs is based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, colleagues, and competitors. 

VIDEOS: Remembering Steve Jobs

Isaacson, the former managing editor of TIME and the author of previous best sellers about Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger, was supposedly given complete access to Jobs, including a personal tour of his childhood home.

Few other details of the book have leaked to the public.  But The New York Times speculated when the book was announced in February 2010 that "cooperation ... could be a sign that Mr. Jobs has emerged from his recent health battles with more of an interest in shaping his legacy." 

PHOTOS: Hollywood's Notable Deaths

Steve Jobs marked the first -- and, it turns out, only -- authorized biography of the famed Apple chief executive.

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The Apple co-founder died Wednesday after years of failing health.

Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder who used digital technology to resurrect animated feature films, reshape the music industry and shake up film and television distribution models, died Wednesday. He was 56.

Jobs, a computer genius who, with fellow college dropout Steve Wozniak, built the first Apple computers from the Jobs' family garage, died in California.

PHOTOS: 10 Memorable Milestones of Steve Jobs' Career 

"Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor," a statement on the official Apple website said. "Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple."

A Buddhist and vegetarian who once handed out bottles of carrot juice to trick-or-treaters, Jobs was diagnosed with the disease in 2004 when he disclosed that doctors had removed a cancerous tumor from his pancreas.

Jobs and Wozniak introduced the Apple II computer in 1977 and took their company public in 1980, an event that made Jobs a multimillionaire able to set his sights on conquering the entertainment industry. He succeeded by turning Pixar into what is arguably the most consistent film studio in history and by becoming the largest shareholder of Disney, the industry's most iconic company.

VIDEOS: Remembering Steve Jobs

Born in San Francisco on Feb. 24, 1955, to an unmarried couple, Jobs was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs. As early as high school, Jobs was plotting a course that included the creation of world-changing products leading to personal fame and fortune. Along the way, he feuded with some of the most powerful men in the fields of technology and entertainment, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, longtime Disney CEO Michael Eisner and even The Beatles.

In earlier times an egomaniac who once dressed up as Jesus Christ at a Halloween party, Jobs even lost control of Apple, necessitating that he engineer one of the business world's most successful comebacks of all time. In 1983, Jobs famously convinced PepsiCo executive John Sculley to become Apple CEO by asking: "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?"

A year later, Apple made advertising history with a Super Bowl commercial directed by Ridley Scott that introduced the Mac computer. One year after that, Sculley, in concert with the board of directors, ousted Jobs from Apple. "What can I say? I hired the wrong guy," Jobs said in a 1996 PBS documentary. "He destroyed everything I spent 10 years working for, starting with me."

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The year he left Apple, Jobs created a new company, NeXT Computer, and a year later he purchased another, the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm for $10 million.

Jobs would own 92 percent of that CG-company purchased from Star Wars creator George Lucas, with Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull sharing the remaining 8 percent. It was Smith's idea to call the new entity Pixar.

With the addition of John Lasseter and some of the most inventive animators in the business, the team set out to make the first feature film based on Pixar's CG-images, a goal so lofty that, had the film flopped, it could have ended Jobs's corporate comeback. Toy Story, though, was the biggest hit of 1995, paving the way for a Pixar IPO and a lucrative partnership with Disney, the film's distributor.

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Jobs earned his way back to Apple in December 1996 when Gil Amelio, who took over the CEO spot from Sculley three years earlier, purchased NeXT for $429 million. Within eight months, Jobs had convinced the board to lose Amelio and name Jobs interim CEO. In 2000, Jobs made the title permanent.

With the music industry reeling from Internet users who preferred sharing music to buying it, Apple created the iPod and iTunes, with Jobs handling the arduous task of obtaining the digital rights to songs that he would sell to consumers for 99 cents apiece. Having been battered by digital pirates, music executives were skeptical of the iTunes Music Store back then, according to Hilary Rosen, head of the RIAA at the time, but they were won over by Jobs's passion.

"The shift came about above all because of the sheer willpower of Steve. His sheer charisma and his intensity absolutely made a difference," Rosen said, according to the book iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business, by Jeffrey Young and William Simon. "Steve is an incredible music fan. For people in the music industry, that was very special."

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Jobs, who once dated folk singer Joan Baez, named his computer company Apple in part because of his admiration for the Beatles and their Apple Records. But when the iTunes music store used an apple for its logo, Apple Corp. sued. Four years later, the two settled their legal differences, and iTunes began selling Beatles music in November (2010).

As Apple the computer company was shaking up the music industry, Pixar, the other company run by Jobs, was enjoying a streak of hits with A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, and Jobs was trying to squeeze a better distribution deal from Disney's then-CEO Michael Eisner.

The negotiations became so rancorous that former vp Al Gore, an Apple board member, stepped in, to no avail.

Jobs called Pixar "the most powerful and trusted brand in animation," and he doubted that Pixar could ever strike a deal with Disney as long as Eisner was at the helm, according to iCon. That feud, too, was settled in favor of Jobs when, after Eisner quit Disney, new CEO Bob Iger purchased Pixar in January 2006 for about $7.4 billion, giving Jobs a 7.4 percent stake in Disney and a seat on its board of directors.

STORY: What Is Steve Jobs' Hollywood Legacy?

Even before Jobs joined Disney, he was taking advantage of the conglomerate's close association with Pixar to boost the potential of iTunes, which began supporting video in 2005. Along with music videos, some of the earliest content available were TV shows from Disney's ABC and Disney Channel networks like Desperate Housewives, Lost, That's So Raven and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.

The introduction of the iPad on April 3, 2010, took portable viewing of video on-demand to a different level, and iTunes now offers thousands of film and TV titles.

"With Apple, Steve Jobs has created an unassailable ecosystem of iPods, iTunes, iPhones and iPads that has changed the world and destroyed all challengers for both the home and the enterprise, a heretofore unthinkable vision that no others can compete with worldwide," CNBC host Jim Cramer told The Hollywood Reporter.

But while Jobs has been on a roll for more than a decade as arguably the world's most influential man in digital entertainment, he died before he could guide Apple TV — which he once referred to as his "hobby" — to success.

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Apple TV, a fraction the size of a typical cable set-top box, moves iTunes collections, as well as video from YouTube, Netflix and other online suppliers, to TV screens. While generally reviewed as extraordinarily sleek and convenient, the product has yet to strike a chord with consumers the way iPod, iPad and iTunes have, a fact that insiders say disturbed Jobs more than he would let on.

At a Macworld Conference and Expo in 2007, Jobs used a hockey analogy to explain how he kept Apple's products ahead of the curve. "There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love: 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very, very beginning," he said.

Jobs often was criticized for being a perfectionist. In 1995 he told the Smithsonian Institution, "It's painful when you have some people who are not the best people in the world."

Friends say Jobs mellowed late in his life, focusing on family. "Parenthood changes one's world," he said. "It's almost like a switch gets flipped inside you, and you can feel a whole new range of feelings that you never thought you'd have."

Because of his poor health, Jobs has taken multiple leaves since 2004 from his position as CEO of Apple, and on Aug. 24 he relinquished the spot permanently. Jobs assumed the role of chairman of the board — a position that hadn't existed at the time — and Apple appointed then-COO Tim Cook its new chief executive.

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Steve Jobs 'Died Peacefully,' His Family Says

The Apple co-founder, who died on Wednesday, was 56.

On Wednesday, Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs died at 56 after years of failing health.

His family issued a statement in the afternoon, saying, "Steve died peacefully today surrounded by his family."

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"In his public life, Steve was known as visionary; in his private life, he cherished his family. We are thankful to the many people who have shared their wishes and prayers during the last years of Steve's illness; a website will be provided for those who wish to offer tributes and memories," the statement says.

"We are grateful for the support and kindness of those who share our feelings for Steve. We know many of you will mourn with us, and we ask that you respect our privacy during our time of grief," it concludes.

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Jobs, who formed Apple Inc. with Steve Wozniak, stepped down earlier this year, with Tim Cook taking over as CEO.

Apple's official statement on its website read: "Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple."

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Steve Jobs Remembered By Disney, Pixar Execs

The former CEO of Pixar and Disney board member died Wednesday, Oct. 5 at 56-years-old.

Following the death of Steve Jobs on Wednesday, Oct. 5, Hollywood is sharing memories of the beloved Apple CEO.

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The mastermind behind Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and iTunes, had a long struggle with failing health after fighting an unusual form of pancreatic cancer, and in 2009 getting a liver transplant.

"Steve Jobs was a great friend as well as a trusted advisor.  His legacy will extend far beyond the products he created or the businesses he built. It will be the millions of people he inspired, the lives he changed, and the culture he defined," said Disney President and CEO, Robert Iger, in a statement. "Steve was such an 'original,' with a thoroughly creative, imaginative mind that defined an era. Despite all he accomplished, it feels like he was just getting started. "  

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"With his passing the world has lost a rare original, Disney has lost a member of our family, and I have lost a great friend," the statement continued. "Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Laurene and his children during this difficult time."

In a joint statement, Pixar's John Lasseter and Ed Catmull said: "Steve Jobs was an extraordinary visionary, our very dear friend and the guiding light of the Pixar family. He saw the  potential of what Pixar could be before the rest of us, and beyond what anyone ever imagined."

"Steve took a chance on us and believed in our crazy dream of making computer animated films; the one thing he always said was to simply 'make it great.' He is why Pixar turned out the way we did and his strength, integrity and love of life has made us all better people," the statement continued. "He will forever be a part of Pixar's DNA. Our hearts go out to his wife Laurene and their children during this incredibly difficult time."

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Jobs called Pixar "the most powerful and trusted brand in animation." When Iger purchased Pixar in January 2006 for about $7.4 billion, Jobs was given a 7.4 percent stake in Disney and a seat on its board of directors.

Even before Jobs joined Disney, he was taking advantage of the conglomerate's close association with Pixar to boost the potential of iTunes, which began supporting video in 2005. Along with music videos, some of the earliest content available were TV shows from Disney's ABC and Disney Channel networks like Desperate Housewives, Lost, That's So Raven and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.

::::::::::::::::::::

Steve Jobs' Death: Hollywood Honors the Visionary

Producers, directors, actors and musicians were all moved to share their thoughts on the recently departed Apple co-founder.

Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs left behind a strong legacy in the world of technology and personal computing, but judging by the sheer number of Hollywood personalities that felt the need to share their condolencs on Twitter, his influence went far beyond that.

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Reality stars, actors, directors and comedians all shared their thoughts -- all of them seemingly heartfelt.

A few of the most notable Tweets:

Actor and comedian Albert Brooks

Had the pleasure of working for him and knowing him. He was our Edison. R.I.P. Steve Jobs.

Cowboys & Aliens director Jon Favreau

We lost a man of true vision today. Condolences to the whole Apple family.

Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof

Steve Jobs. On behalf of every dreamer sitting in his or her garage who is crazy enough to try to change the world, you will be missed.

How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. Your genius will live on for generations to come...

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Community star Donald Glover

R.I.P. Steve Jobs. I can honestly say you changed my life and the world many times over.

Internet personality Wil Wheaton

iRIP, Steve Jobs. Thank you for making incredible things, so we can live in the future.

Model and talk show host Tyra Banks

As I type on my iPhone, tears spring2 my eyes4an amazingMan I never met. His genius has touched us all. Steve Jobs, you will b/with us 4ever

Jay Manuel of America's Next Top Model

May he RIP... Steve was a groundbreaking genius who changed the face of computing! ;-(

Actress Rose McGowan

I am beyond sad about Steve Jobs' passing. Beyond.

Writer-director-actor Harry Shearer

Steve, thank you for changing our lives for the better.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World director Edgar Wright

Farewell and R.I.P. Steve Jobs. Written from a Macbook.

The Office writer-actress Mindy Kaling

Hard not to think how much Steve Jobs could've done with more years. So sad. You're the best, Steve.

Star Trek star LeVar Burton

Even though I never met him, I'm feeling the loss of Steve Jobs on a very personal level.

Skateboard star Tony Hawk

Steve Jobs was the man.

Fall Out Boy member Pete Wentz

RIP steve jobs. true legend.

Comedian Patton Oswalt

RIP Steve Jobs. Closest thing we had to Tony Stark.

Actor Steven Weber

"Death...is life's change agent..." Steve Jobs

Bachelorette Host Chris Harrison

RIP genius Steve Jobs. Incredibly sad. Thx for all the gifts he left us

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington

Damn. People like steve jobs are supposed to live forever

Technology pundit Robert Scoble

Steve Jobs has died, Apple has reported. We have lost a great one.

TV host Suze Orman

So very sad that Steve Jobs has died. What a brilliant and kind man. We will miss you Steve.

Model and talk show host Tyra Banks

As I type on my iPhone, tears spring2 my eyes4an amazingMan I never met. His genius has touched us all. Steve Jobs, you will b/with us 4ever

Two and a Half Men star Ashton Kutcher

Avatar in memory of #stevejobs [Kutcher changed his profile photo to an Apple logo featured Jobs in silhouette]

Comedian Jeffrey Ross

Sad day. Apple's Steve Jobs bytes the dust. But the good news is he backed himself up. #roastinpeace

Actress Busy Phillipps

RIP Steve Jobs. What an incredible man. He will leave a legacy that will go far beyond his inventions...

Chuck star Zachary Levi

May we all aspire to change the world the way Steve Jobs has. We've only one life. Make the best of it. #ripstevejobs

Comedian Joe Rogan

Steve Jobs has died and left behind the greatest computer company the world has ever known. A vision reached, a dream fulfilled

John Hodgman, the "PC" from the Mac commercials

Everything good I have done, I have done on a Mac.

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Steve Jobs: 10 Memorable Milestones of the Apple Co-Founder's Career

A Buddhist and vegetarian who once handed out bottles of carrot juice to trick-or-treaters, Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004. He died Oct. 5 at the age of 56. Jobs and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak introduced the Apple II computer in 1977 and took their company public in 1980, an event that made Jobs a multimillionaire able to set his sights on conquering the entertainment industry. He succeeded by turning Pixar into what is arguably the most consistent film studio in history and by becoming the largest shareholder of Disney, the industry's most iconic company. THR looks back at these and other career milestones of the American tech giant.

Pic 1

The two Steves: Jobs (on left) and Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak

Jobs founded Apple Computer with his friend Steve Wozniak in his parent's garage. Jobs sold his VW bus and Wozniak his scientific computer to raise the $1,300 to found Apple. The original Apple computers were hand-built by Wozniak.

pic 2:

With an Apple II in 1980, the year the company went public

When Apple went public in 1980 it was largest IPO since Ford in 1956. The original offering price was $14 a share but it ended the first day at $29, making more than 40 of Apple's 1,000 employees instant millionaires and Jobs personally worth over $200 million.

pic3

The famous "1984" commercial

Jobs introduced the iconic Macintosh computer to the public with the famous "1984" commercial alluding to George Orwell's famous novel of the same name. The Ridley Scott-directed commercial aired just once, during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984, but became an instant classic. The Macintosh was the first computer to feature a mouse and graphic user interface.

pic4

Toy Story-Pixar's first hit

After being forced out at Apple in a showdown with CEO John Sculley, Jobs bought the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm from George Lucas for $5 million after Disney passed on buying it for $15 million and he renamed it Pixar,  focusing it on computer animation. Among its hits were Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Finding Nemo. When Disney finally bought the company from Jobs in 2006 it paid $7.4 billion.

pic5

The original iPod introduced in 2001

Launched Oct. 23, 2001 at a low-key event, the first iPod held 1,000 songs and was touted as "ultra-portable" and 30 times faster than any other MP3 player on the market at the time.

Jobs said at the launch, "Music's been around forever, it will always be around. This is not a speculative market. And because it's a part of everyone's life, it's a very large target market all around the world. It knows no boundaries."

pic6

The iTunes store for music and videos

Jobs added video to the company's popular iTunes software in 2006. "We're doing for video what we've done for music—we're making it easy and affordable to purchase and download, play on your computer, and take with you on your iPod. Right out of the gate we're offering 2,000 music videos, Pixar's short films and hit primetime TV shows like 'Desperate Housewives' and 'Lost'," said Jobs.

pic7

Apple TV

Available in 2007, Apple TV allowed users to wirelessly play iTunes content -- movies, TV shows, photos, podcasts -- on television sets.

The first $300 version had a 40GB hard drive that could store up to 50 hours of video, 9,000 songs, 25,000 photos or a combination of each, and was capable of delivering high-definition 720p output.

pic8

The original iPhone

Jobs introduced the first iPhone, which featured a unique touch screen interface, on Jan. 9, 2007. "iPhone is a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone," said Jobs. "We are all born with the ultimate pointing device -- our fingers -- and iPhone uses them to create the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse."

pic9

Apple iPad introduced in 2010

After years of fevered speculation, Jobs unveiled the Apple iPad on January 27, 2010. The device was an instant hit, selling 50 million units through 2011. 

pic10

Steve Jobs in March 2011

Struggling with the after effects of a 2009 liver transplant, Jobs resigned as Apple CEO on Aug. 24, 2011. He said in a statement: "I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come. I believe Apple's brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role." He was replaced by Tim Cook as CEO.

Steve Jobs' Death: Obama Says 'World Has Lost a Visionary'

"There may be no greater tribute to Steve's success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented," he says on the official White House blog.

President Barack Obama issued a statement Wednesday mourning the loss of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

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Via the White House's official blog, the president issued the following statement, calling Jobs one of the "greatest American innovators" and a "bold thinker."

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"Michelle and I are saddened to learn of the passing of Steve Jobs," Obama said in a statement. "Steve was among the greatest of American innovators -- brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it."

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"By building one of the planet's most successful companies from his garage, he exemplified the spirit of American ingenuity," he continued. "By making computers personal and putting the internet in our pockets, he made the information revolution not only accessible, but intuitive and fun. And by turning his talents to storytelling, he has brought joy to millions of children and grownups alike. Steve was fond of saying that he lived every day like it was his last. Because he did, he transformed our lives, redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the world.

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"The world has lost a visionary," Obama said. "And there may be no greater tribute to Steve's success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented. Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to Steve's wife Laurene, his family, and all those who loved him."

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Jobs died Wednesday of pancreatic cancer. He was 56.