the foundation of apple. dan simon has the story of steve jobs incredible life. today apple is going to reinvent the phone. reporter: steve jobs was a modern-day thomas edison. you can do multifinger gestures on it and, boy, have we patented it. reporter: he didn t have a patent on his own look, but he was rarely seen without tennis shoes, levis and a black shirt. he was legendary for his flair and showmanship. amazing. and the screen literally floats in midair. reporter: steven paul jobs was born in san francisco. his mother, an unwed college student, put him up for adoption. he developed an early interest in computers, going to after-school lectures at hewlett-packard. after high school, he attended reed college but only for one semester. at just 20 years old he started apple computer in his garage with friend steve wozniak. we worked hard and in ten years apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees