Zen Myo - Steve Jobs, the Master of Technology

Located in southern California, it was a place where computer engineering was rapidly developing in the early 1960s. After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into space in 1957, the United States entered the space race, pouring billions of federal dollars into technology companies to develop modern computing.

Among these companies was the Shockley Semiconductor Company, founded by William Shockley. William Shockley won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his invention of the transistor. Another famous company was Hewlett Packard, founded in Palo Alto in 1939. HP was an engineering company that sold equipment to engineers. Silicon Valley began to resemble a sprawling Macmillan farm.

Growing up in Los Altos, Steve Jobs was fascinated by the electronics that filled his neighbor's garage. His father introduced him to Heathkits. Heathkits fascinated him greatly.

Heathkit is a product of Heath Company. Its products are called Heathkit because they are sold in kits for the buyer to assemble themselves. Heath Company manufactures audio equipment, hobby computers, electrical test equipment, radio equipment, etc.

“These Heathkits come with detailed instructions on how to assemble the equipment. All the parts are clearly laid out. They have color codes. You can see the Heathkit yourself. The Heathkit has taught me a lot of things. You understand what goes on inside a finished product. It also has a theory of how it works. The most important part of the Heathkit is that you can see this and then you can follow it. It’s not fancy stuff. You wouldn’t think you could make a television like this if you saw it. But I think you can. There’s something like that in the Heathkit’s catalog. I’ve done two other Heathkits to make televisions. Things that appear in the human environment don’t just appear spontaneously, they don’t appear spontaneously, people don’t know the inside of the things. They’re made by people, so things become clearer about things.

"It really boosts my self-confidence. Through exploration and study, I can understand the very complex objects in our environment from a superficial perspective. My childhood was really good that way."

Smithsonian interview, April 20, 1995

computer world

Homestead High School

Steve was well-recognized in Mr. McCollum's electrical course.

When he arrived at Homestead High School, he enrolled in the prestigious electrical engineering class. McCollum later recounted his experience as a student. McCollum said that Steve once personally called HP co-founder Bill Hull, asking for extra supplies for his homework and asking him to work at the HP factory during the day. Steve's creative talents were evident early in his life.

At Homestead School, Steve became friends with Bill Fernandez. Fernandez was Steve's neighbor, who, like Steve, was interested in electronics. It was Bill Fernandez who first introduced him to another computer genius, Stephen González. González was older than Steve. Everyone called him Woltz. Steve and Dotz met in 1969. Steve was 14 years old at the time and Woltz was 19. At the time, Dotz was building a small computer board with Bill Fernandez, which they called the "Cream Soda Computer." Woltz showed Steve the Cream Soda Computer. Steve seemed to be quite interested in computers.

“It was really hard to explain the kind of design I was doing to people. But Steve understood right away. So I fell in love with him. He was lean, muscular, and strong. He had a strong personality. Steve and I were still in high school at the time, but we hit it off right away.

"We talked about electronics. We talked about the music we liked. We talked about the pranks we did."

Steve Gozniat from iwOZ

Later, Dotz and Steve played various pranks. They drew a picture of a large middle finger on a high school building and joked about it.

It was at Homestead High School that Steve met Chris Ann Brennan. Brennan was the first girl he dated regularly.

About two years later, Dodds and Steve started their first venture capital venture in 1972.

Phone tapping is a hot topic on American college campuses. They were the first computer hackers. They were able to create small devices that could fool AT&T's remote dialing switch. These small devices were called "blue boxes." They used the blue boxes to make free phone calls over the AT&T phone network.

Waltz had read about it in an article and showed it to Steve. The two of them tried to build a replica. The bottles that Dotz and Steve had made worked surprisingly well. Steve first thought of selling the bottles. Waltz and Steve went from one dormitory to another at Berkeley, selling the bottles. Waltz was a student at Berkeley. Interested

They sold it to students. However, this business was illegal, and both of them stopped selling the bottles when the police nearly caught them.

Reed College

The following year, Steve graduated from high school and was old enough to go to college. He decided to attend the prestigious Reed College. Reed College is a private, comprehensive college based in Oregon. However, Reed College tuition was so expensive that Paul and Clara could not afford it. However, as promised to Steve's mother, they spent almost all of their life savings on their son's higher education.

Steve only officially attended Reed College for two months. He dropped out before Christmas. Leaving school gave him the opportunity to take the classes he wanted to take.

“After 6 months, I don’t see the value in the classroom. I don’t even think about what I want to do with my life. I don’t know how college will solve my life’s problems. I spent all the money my parents had saved their whole lives on this college. So I decided to drop out.

I believed that dropping out of school would make everything better. At the time, I was a little scared. But looking back, it was the best decision I ever made. When I dropped out of school, I could stop taking classes that I wasn't interested in. I was able to take classes that I was interested in.

It wasn't fancy. I didn't have a dorm room. So I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I had to pay 5 cents to buy food, and I had to return the Coca-Cola bottles I had pawned. I had to walk 7 miles from town every Sunday to get a good meal at the Hector's Church once a week. I loved that.

Stanford, June 12, 2005

Graduation speech