Steve Jobs, part 1
Steve Jobs, part 2
Monday, October 24, 2011
Steve Jobs: Family photo album
College student Reed Jobs decided to study oncology after seeing his father, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, battle cancer. Reed's younger sister Eve is a great horseback rider, and their sister Erin has her father's great sense for design. And the eldest, Lisa, who was estranged from her father when she was young, became very close with him in recent years.
These are some of the insights that Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson shared with 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft as the two browsed through some Jobs family photos - on an iPad, of course.
The photos show a side of Jobs that few knew - the family man on vacation, at home, on his wedding day to Laurene Powell, with his father when Jobs was a baby.
"60 Minutes" coverage: Steve Jobs
Complete coverage: Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011
On Overtime this week, we take a look at these Jobs family photos. Steve Kroft tells producer David Rubin about seeing these images and hearing the family stories: "I didn't know anything about the way he lived. And it speaks to the secrecy and the mysterious nature of this persona that Jobs managed to create -- the secrecy both about his business operations and especially the secrecy about his family life, private life."
In his private life, Jobs was a married man with four children. In 1991, he married, Laurene, then an investment banker. Isaacson says Jobs talked to him about meeting and marrying Laurene: "They went out off and on for a year. As usual, any relationship with Jobs can be somewhat tumultuous. But he said to me, 'It was tough, but you eventually realize you've met the person, you know, who you're right to live with.' "
Laurene and Steve had three children: Reed, Eve, and Erin. Jobs' eldest child, Lisa, was born in 1978 to Jobs and then-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan. For many years Jobs refused to acknowledge Lisa as his child, but by the time she was in high school, Lisa was living with Steve and Laurene.
As Jobs got sicker, his children wanted time with Isaacson to speak about their father. Isaacson recalls talking with Jobs' son: "Reed just adores his father. When I was first working on the book, he came to see me and said, 'Let's take a walk.' Very much like his father would have done. And he says, 'I know you're gonna hear a lot of stories of my dad being tough and brutal to people. But I want you to know that he really cares about the products and he wasn't just out to make money or to be a great businessman.' "
Also on 60 Minutes Overtime this week - listen to Steve Jobs' opinion on high-tech rivals Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Mark Zuckerberg.
And click here to see Steve Kroft's two-part 60 Minutes piece "Steve Jobs," produced by Graham Messick:
Watch Part 1 of "Steve Jobs"
Watch Part 2 of "Steve Jobs"
Disclosure: Walter Isaacson's biography "Steve Jobs" is published by Simon & Schuster, a division of CBS corporation.
Steve Jobs talks on tape about biological dad
Steve was full of contradictions, but so are we all. Yet I can't help wonder how he resolved these to himself:
1) he drove a car without plates so he wouldn't be noticed and followed, yet without a plate everyone knew who he was;
2) he didn't want to meet the biological father who abandoned him, yet he wanted the daughter he abandoned to become part of his family;
3) at the stanford address he urged students to follow their dreams and not the dogma of others, yet he lorded over Apple and expected everyone to follow his own dream;
How he resolved this cognitive dissonance, we may never know. I suspect that being told by all around you how wonderful you are may have clouded personal doubts. The book may reveal that "the emperor has no clothes", yet the real lesson is that Steve was indeed like the rest of us. Just crazy enough to follow his passions despite it's contradictions.
by Nyloc_Rek October 24, 2011
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