Steve Jobs’ Early Life and Entrepreneurial Journey
Steve Jobs sold his Volkswagen to raise $1,300 for Apple’s first computer, a move that would change his life forever.
However, this sacrifice was just the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey, which would eventually make him a millionaire at just 23.
Jobs’ passion for technology started at a young age, and he was hooked on the idea that everyone should be able to own a home computer.
The Birth of Apple
Recommended Video So Jobs sold off his Volkswagen bus while fellow cofounder Steve Wozniak got money for his programmable calculator, raising $1,300 to pay for the prototype’s parts.
And the first Apple computer, the Apple I, was born on April Fools’ Day, 1976.
The sacrifice paid off: A local computer dealer placed a $50,000 order for 100 units soon after it launched, with the product mainly bought up by hobby enthusiasts.
From College Dropout to $10.2 Billion Net Worth
Jobs didn’t discover his passion for technology in a college class; at age 12, the entrepreneur had already found his true calling, and took a massive leap of faith to pursue his dreams.
A young Jobs thumbed through the yellow pages, and hunted down the phone number of Hewlett-Packard cofounder Bill Hewlett, ringing him up for a favor.
At the time, the tween was in need of spare parts to build a frequency counter, but what he received was far better than some nuts and bolts; Hewlett offered Jobs an internship at the iconic $21.4 billion tech company, where he serendipitously met a talented engineer: Wozniak.
The Magic of Blue Boxes
Together, the pair started their first business, illegally selling “blue boxes” that allowed users to make free, long-distance telephone calls.
Jobs reminisced about those years in the early 1970s as a “magical” time in his life that sent him on the path to soon create Apple.
“Experiences like that taught us the power of ideas,” Jobs said in the 1998 documentary Silicon Valley: A 100-Year Renaissance.
The Road to Success
Jobs later enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Ore., but his days of higher education were short-lived.
He dropped out after just one semester, inevitably working for legendary brand Atari as a technician and games designer at just 18 years old.
That would be the last time Jobs worked under somebody else; just two years later, Apple I hit the market, and Jobs was well on his way to becoming one of the most visionary tech pioneers in modern history.
The Legacy of Steve Jobs
Fast-forward five decades later, and Apple is the second most valuable company in the world.
The business sits in fourth place on the Fortune 500, having sold more than 3 billion iPhones, and boasting more than 100 million Mac users globally.
At the time of his passing in 2011, Jobs was estimated to be worth $10.2 billion.
Conclusion
Although he had enough money to buy a whole fleet of luxury cars shortly after founding Apple, selling his Volkswagen proved to be a critical sacrifice in making it to the top.
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