The man who put a dent in the universe

by Jill Smolowe

Not long after he announced his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in 2004, Steve Jobs had trampoline installed in the backyard of his home in California's Silicon Valley. While two workers assembled the frame and rigged a net, Jobs stood by and ana­lyzed the trampoline's design. Even after they were finished and Jobs hopped on for a tryout, he couldn't help talking about how he would make it better. "He was jumping up and down with a big smile on his face, and when he got off, he told us some ways to improve the netting," says K.C. Bradshaw, who helped with the installa­tion. "He was talking about how he'd simplify the structure or hang the net this way. He just really wanted to improve it, like this need to make the best product was in his DNA."

That vision and perfectionism helped make Jobs perhaps the most influen­tial inventor of the digital age. "He's been compared to Einstein and Edi­son, but he really should be compared to Picasso," says architect Michael Graves. "There are people who change the art form they are working in." Time and again, Jobs shattered competi­tors' preconceptions of what technol­ogy could do and what the public wanted it to do — first with the ground­breaking Apple and Mac computers, next with animated films from Pixar studios, then in rapid succession with the sleekly irresistible iPod, then the iPhone and, most recently, the iPad.

"In a world littered with dull objects, he brought the beauty of clean lines and clear thought," says his friend Bono, who met Jobs through their (RED) HIV-AIDS charity work. "He changed music. He changed film. He changed the personal computer and turned telephony on its head while he was at it. He was tenacious in the extreme, his toughness never more evident than these past few years in his fight for his life."

An intensely private man who made time for little beyond his work and his family, Jobs had a devotion to Apple that was so great, he became, in a way, its most iconic creation, from his trademark black turtleneck and blue jeans to his Zen-like product launches that made him geekdom's top rock star. Even as his health deteriorated, he remained keenly attentive to the design of Apple's new headquarters in Cupertino. "He encouraged us to develop new ways of looking at design to reflect his unique ability to weave backward and forward between grand strategy and the minutiae of the tini­est internal fittings," says the head­quarters' architect Norman Foster. "He delved into its fine print."

It is how he always worked, recalled former RIAA head Hilary Rosen, who consulted on the launch of Apple's on­line music store. "The engineer was walking us through the latest version of the iTunes Store, and Steve said, 'Let's move this a few inches, make that green.' It was sort of magical the way he just would look at the smallest detail and make the picture better."

Along the road to defining con­sumer technology in the 21st century, Jobs turned Apple, the company he cofounded, into one of the world's most profitable businesses. When he died, his fortune was estimated at $8.3 billion, but intimates say he nei­ther coveted nor hoarded it.

"Steve did a lot of charitable work, but he liked to do things anonymously," says longtime friend Dr. Dean Ornish. "He supported his wife Laurene's charities, like College Track for disadvantaged kids to get college degrees. He didn't want credit for doing things. What was important was doing the work."

Yet even as Jobs's relentless cre­ativity and extraordinary resilience kept his focus on the future, he became increasingly aware that an end was inevitable. "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," he told Stanford's graduating class in 2005. "There is no reason not to follow your heart."

During his final three years, his heart brought him home to Laurene, his wife of 20 years, and their children, Reed, 20, Erin, 16, and Eve, 13. Jobs also had a daughter, Lisa, 33, from an earlier relationship with painter Chrisann Brennan. "Steve was very dedicated to his family," says actor Tim Allen, who voiced Buzz for the Toy Story movies and became an e-mail pal. At their seven-bedroom red-brick home in Palo Alto, Jobs indulged his love of movies and TV (House being his favorite) and lis­tened to LPs on the turntable in his bedroom, a nod to his love of tech that predates MP3 players and CDs. "About 10 years ago he told me that becoming a dad is 10,000 times better than any­thing I've ever done,'" says Ornish. "Steve told me, 'Once you have a child, your heart is forever outside your body because you are more open and sensitive to things.'"

That sensitivity at home did not extend readily to his colleagues. Though he "waited in line in the cafeteria along with everybody else," says a for­mer Apple executive who asked not be named, "he wasn't a particularly approachable person." To those who pleased him with an idea, he handed out Porsche Design watches; to those who didn't, he could give humiliating reviews in group settings.

"There wasn't any room to fail or not deliver," says the exec. "He was like the parent you would keep doing stuff for, but it was never going to be good enough."

Jay Elliot, a former senior vice presi­dent at Apple, agrees that with Jobs "there was never any doubt about what Steve wanted." But Elliot offers a dif­ferent take on his leadership skills. "In a symphony orchestra, they have sheet music and the orchestra leader sticks to that," he says. "But a jazz band­leader is different. It's 'Okay, here's a key and here's a beat. All the open areas you fill in.' Steve was that kind of artist. It was all about motivating."

Part B