Jobs’ Biography: Thoughts On Life, Death And Apple—LISTEN—

http://www.npr.org/2011/10/25/141653658/steve-jobs-a-computer-icon-on-life-death-and-apple

When Steve Jobs was 6 years old, his young next door neighbor found out he was adopted. “That means your parents abandoned you and didn’t want you,” she told him.

Jobs ran into his home, where his adoptive parents reassured him that he was theirs and that they wanted him.

“[They said] ‘You were special, we chose you out, you were chosen,” says biographer Walter Isaacson. “And that helped give [Jobs] a sense of being special. … For Steve Jobs, he felt throughout his life that he was on a journey — and he often said, ‘The journey was the reward.’ But that journey involved resolving conflicts about … his role in this world: why he was here and what it was all about.”

When Jobs died on Oct. 5 from complications of pancreatic cancer, many people felt a sense of personal loss for the Apple co-founder and former CEO. Jobs played a key role in the creation of the Macintosh, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, the iPad — innovative devices and technologies that people have integrated into their daily lives.