Together today. [cheers and applause] when steve jobs handpicked Walter Isaacson to write his life story, he had already been diagnosed with cancer, but after 40 interviews, the biography provides a vivid picture of a complicated man. I think its a tough book. Its a book thats fair. I mean, this is a real human being. You will hear tape recordings of jobs himself talking about being adopted, creating apple, and his regret over ignoring what could have been lifesaving cancer surgery. Youre born alone, youre gonna die alone, and what exactly is it that you have to lose . Theres nothing. [ticking] its so much more intimate than a laptop. When steve jobs unveiled the ipad, there was no way he could have predicted what it would mean to people with autism. It turns out it may be the perfect device to help unlock the isolation many with autism feel by helping them communicate in ways that they couldnt before. I want a drink. I always had said when he was younger, it was like he was a computer and i was computer illiterate, and i didnt know how to press the right keys. Sorry. That was the hard part is, you knew there was more in there, and you didnt know how to get it out. Welcome to 60 minutes on cnbc. Im bob simon. In this edition, we look at the life of tech titan steve jobs, the cofounder of apple, and we also examine the unexpected impact that one of his inventions, the ipad, is having on children and parents living with autism. In 2004, jobs asked Walter Isaacson, a former editor of time magazine, if he would write his biography. Isaacson thought the request premature since jobs was still a young man. What he didnt know at the time, and only a few people did, was that jobs was about to undergo surgery for pancreatic cancer and was feeling his mortality. In 2009, with jobs already gravely ill, isaacson began the first of more than 40 interviews with him, the last being conducted a few weeks before his death. As steve kroft first reported in october 2011, the result was the bestselling book of the year. When Walter Isaacson first began working on the book which is published by simon schuster, a division of cbssteve jobs wife, Laurene Powell, told him, be honest with his failings as well as his strengths. There are parts of his life and his personality that are extremely messy; you shouldnt whitewash it. Id like to see that its all told truthfully. Hes not warm and fuzzy, you know . And to do it, isaacson interviewed more than 100 peoplejobs friends, family, coworkers, and competitor. I think its a tough book. Its a book thats fair. I mean, this is a real human being. He had lots of flaws. He was very petulant. He was very brittle. He could be very, very mean to people at times, and whether it was to a waitress in a restaurant or to a guy who had stayed up all night coding, he could just really just go at them and say, youre doing this all wrong; its horrible. And youd say, why did you do that . Why werent you nicer . And hed say, i really want to be with people who demand perfection, and this is who i am. Isaacson believes that much of it can be traced to the earliest years of his life and to the fact that jobs was born out of wedlock, given up by his birth parents, and adopted by a workingclass couple from mountain view, california. Paul jobs was a salt of the earth guy who was a great mechanic, and he taught his son steve how to make great things. And heonce, they were building a fence, and he said, you got to make the back of the fence, that nobody will see, just as goodlooking as the front of the fence. Even though nobody will see it, you will know, and that will show that youre dedicated to making something perfect. Jobs always knew he was adopted, but it still had a profound effect on him. He told isaacson this story from his Early Childhood during one of their many taped interviews. Now, i wasremember, right here on the lawntelling lisa mcmoylar, who lived across the street, that i was adopted. And she said, so does that mean your real parents didnt want you . Ooh, lightning bolts in my head. I remember running into the house. I think i was probably crying, asking my parents, and they sat me down, and they said, no, you dont understand. They said, we specifically picked you out. He said, from then on, i realized that i was not just abandoned; i was chosen. I was special. And i think thats the key to understanding steve jobs. Another factor was geography. Jobs grew up in Northern California not far from palo alto. He was a gifted child who tested off the charts in a neighborhood populated by engineers. You know, he was raised in a place that was just learning how to turn silicon into gold. It had not yet been named Silicon Valley, but you had the defense industry; you had hewlettpackard, but you also had the counterculture of the bay area. That entire brew came together in steve jobs. He was sort of a hippieish rebel kid, loved listening to dylan music, dropped acid, but also he loved electronics. Jobs would eventually cross paths with a computer wizard at berkeley five years his senior named steve wozniak. They became fast friends, sharing a love of hightech pranks and a disdain for authority. One of the things they did was to copy and improve an illicit device called a blue box, which reproduced the tones that the phone company used and allowed users to make free longdistance phone calls. Wozniak loves the blue box. Hes doing it as a prank. Steve says, we can sell them. We can market them. And they sold about 100 of em. And jobs said to me, thats the beginning of apple. When we started doing that blue box, i knew that with wozniaks brilliant designs and my marketing skills, we could sell anything. That was still a few years off. Jobs enrolled at reed college in oregon at a time when Timothy Leary was telling students across the country to turn on, tune in, and drop out. Jobs did after one semester. The time we grew up in was a magical time. It was also a very, you know, spiritual time in my life. Definitely taking l. S. D. Is one of the more important things in my life andnot the most important but right up there. He eventually drifted back to his parents house and became one of the first 50 employees to work for the video game maker atari. But he was not a big hit with his coworkers. Never wore shoes, had very long hair, never bathed. In fact, when he went to work for atari, they put him on the night shifts because people said he smelled so bad that they didnt want to work with him. You know, he believed that his vegan diet and the way he lived made it so he didnt have to use deodorant or shower that often. It was an incorrect theory, as people kept pointing out to him at atari. Jobs took a leave from atari and spent seven months wandering across india looking for spiritual enlightenment, and it turned out not to be a waste of time. And when he comes back, he says, the main thing ive learned is intuition, that the people in india are not just pure rational thinkers, that the great spiritual ones also have an intuition. Likewise, the simplicity of zen buddhism really informed his design sense. That notion that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. [ticking] coming up, steve jobs launches apple, changing the world and his life. I was, like, 25, when, you know, we were worth maybe 50 million. I knew i never had to worry about money again. Thats ahead, when 60 minutes on cnbc returns. [ male announcer ] alkaseltzer plus presents the cold truth. I have a cold, and i took nyquil, but im still stubbed up. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesnt unstuff your nose. What . [ male announcer ] it doesnt have a decongestant. No way. [ male announcer ] sorry. Alkaseltzer plus fights your worst cold symptoms plus has a fast acting decongestant to relieve your stuffy nose. [ sighs ] thanks [ male announcer ] youre welcome. Thats the cold truth [ male announcer ] alkaseltzer plus. Oh what a relief it is [ male announcer ] to learn more about the cold truth and save 1 visit alkaseltzer on facebook. [ male announcer ] to learn more about the cold truth we replaced people with a machine. R, what . Customers didnt like it. So why do banks do it . Hello . Hello . if your bank doesnt let you talk to a real person 24 7, you need an ally. Hello . Ally bank. Your money needs an ally. Woman were helping joplin, missouri, come back from a devastating tornado. Man and now were helping the east coast recover from hurricane sandy. Were a leading Global Insurance company, based right here in america. Weve repaid every dollar america lent us. Everything, plus a profit of more than 22 billion. For the american people. Thank you, america. Helping people recover and rebuild thats what we do. Now lets bring on tomorrow. [ticking] the 20yearold steve jobs returned to Northern California after trekking through india for several months in 1974. With his friend steve wozniak, he started building and peddling a primitive computer for hobbyists. In 1976, with a 1,300 investment, they founded Apple Computer in his parents garage. Explain to me how somebody who was a hippie, a college dropout, somebody who drops l. S. D. And marijuana goes off to india and comes back deciding he wants to be a businessman. Jobs has within him sort of this conflict, but he doesnt quite see it as a conflict, between being hippieish and antimaterialistic but wanting to sell things like wozniaks board, wanting to create a business. And i think thats exactly what Silicon Valley was all about in those days lets do a startup in our parents garage and try to create a business. So we dont have to work for somebody else. Right. He was never much of an engineer. Isaacson said he didnt know how to write code or program a computerthat was wozniaks departmentbut jobs understood their importance and their future. He was obsessed with making an attractive, simple, inexpensive computer the apple ii, marketed as the first home computer. It really didnt do much, but techsavvy people snapped them up along with school systems. And as he tells isaacson on tape, he was soon worth millions of dollars. It wasnt very many years before, on paper, we were worth a lot of money. And i was, like, 25, when, you know, we were worth maybe 50 million. I knew i never had to worry about money again. And so i went from not worrying about money because i was pretty poor to not worrying about money cause i had a lot of money. Jobs becomes rich. Jobs becomes wildly rich, makes about 100 people millionaires when apple goes public. One of the things he does, though, thats, you know, still caused a little ill will there were old friends who used to be with him in the garage, his parents garage, and they were working at apple, but they hadnt quite gotten to the level of chief engineer, so they got no Stock Options. Wozniak, being incredibly generous, is giving away his Stock Options trying to make everybody a millionaire, and steve jobs is, like, very strict on who can get the stock option. One of the people who didnt get them was daniel kottke, who had been with jobs at reed college, in india, and in the garage where apple was founded. And at one point, tries to go to steve and just starts crying, but steve can be very cold about these things. Finally one of the engineers at apple said, you know, we have to take care of your buddy daniel. Ill give him some stock if you match it, or whatever. And jobs says, yeah, ill match it. Ill give zero; you give zero. It was not the only instance of his callous behavior during that time period. Just before apple went public, his longtime girlfriend became pregnant, producing a daughter, lisa. Jobs, who had himself been born out of wedlock and abandoned, denied paternity and refused to pay support until the courts intervened. His behavior was typical of a phenomenon that apple employees openly referred to as steves reality distortion field a term out of star trek the ability to convince himself and others to believe almost anything using his indomitable will and charisma to bend any fact to suit his purpose. When he was creating the original macintosh, steve jobs would come in, and he would say, we need to have this done by next month. And people would say, no, no. You cant actually write this much code by next month. And he would say, yes, you can do it. And in the end, he would not take no for an answer, and he would sort of make the dent in the universe he wanted to. He would bend reality, and they would accomplish it. The reality distortion field, it seems like sometimes you use it, that phrase, to speak to what you see as sort of a selfdelusion. He could drive himself by magical thinking, by believing something that the rest of us couldnt possibly believe, and sometimes it worked; sometimes it didnt. And at the root of this reality distortion theory, isaacson says, was jobs belief that he was special and chosen and that the rules didnt apply to him. He had a great mercedes sports coup with no license plate on, as that was his affection but no license plate . He always believed i said, why dont you have a license plate . At one point he said, well, i dont want people following me. I only want people and i said, well, having no license plate is actually more noticeable. He said, yeah, youre probably right. You know why i dont have a license plate . I said, why . He said, cause i dont have a license plate. That disregard for the establishment helped him achieve some of his biggest successes, allowing him to see products and applications that no one else imagined. So in 1984, apple introduced a truly revolutionary product the macintosh. It used graphics, icons, a mouse, and the pointandclick technology that is still standard. It was innovative and influential, but sales were disappointing, and jobs confrontational management style became even more brittle. He would try and rationalize it in this taped interview with isaacson. I feel totally comfortable going in front of everybody else, you know, god, we really [bleep] up the engineering on this, didnt we . Thats the ante for being in the room. So were brutally honest with each other, and all of them can tell me they think im full of [bleep], and i can tell anyone i think theyre full of [bleep], and weve had some riproaring arguments where were yelling at each other. Jobs loved the arguments but not everybody else did, and isaacson writes that some of his top people began defecting. He was not the worlds greatest manager. In fact, he could have been one of the worlds worst managers. You know, he was always, you know, upending things and, you know, and throwing things into turmoil. This made great products, but it didnt make for a great management style. Jobs would eventually provoke a boardroom showdown with apple president john sculley over who should lead the company. The board chose sculley. So he was out of his own company. Kicked out of his own company, and, you know, he always had that feeling of abandonment. There was nothing worse than being abandoned by apple. He sold his stock and used the company to start a new venture called next computer, which made great products that no one bought. But jobs would be saved by a tiny company that he acquired from george lucas for 5 million. Pixar studios would eventually revolutionize movie animation and make jobs a multibillionaire. Apple hadnt done so well, and a decade after jobs left, it decided to buy next computer and the services of jobs as a consultant, but he would soon take over as ceo. And when he goes back, its almost bankrupt. Its, like, 90 days away from bankruptcy. Theyre totally out of money, and its lost its way totally. So he says, heres the 27, 30 things youre making, printers or whatever. And he draws a chart that just has four squares, and he says, professional, home consumer. Laptop, desktop. Were gonna make four computers. He retrenched, firing 3,000 people, and launched a new advertising campaign. Heres to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers. Steve jobs helped write that himself. He edited it 100he put in, they changed the world. By the end, jobs, along with four or five other people, have written this not as ad copy but as a manifesto. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. The Campaign Announced what would become the biggest comeback in business history, and it did change the world. That, plus steve jobs search for his birth parents and his battle with cancer when 60 minutes on cnbc returns. [ male announcer ] at scottrade, you wont just find us online, youll also find us in person, with dedicated support teams at over 500 branches nationwide. So when you call or visit, you can ask for a name you know. Because personal Service Starts with a real person. [ rodger ] at scottrade, seven dollar trades are just the start. Our support teams are nearby, ready to help. Its no wonder so many investors are saying. [ all ] im with scottrade. Abecause what you dont know can abouhurt you. Ce. What if you didnt know that boxes by the curb. Make you a target for thieves . Or that dog bites account for a third of all home liability claims . What if you didnt know that one in seven drivers is uninsured . And that grease fires have to be smothered . The more you know, the better you can plan for whats ahead. Get smarter about your insurance. We are farmers bum pa dum, bum bum bum bum [ticking] when steve jobs returned to apple in 1997, the company had just 5 of the Computer Market and was almost broke. When jobs died of cancer 14 years later, apple was the second most valuable corporation in the world. In his bestselling biography of jobs, Walter Isaacson writes that he revolutionized or reimagined seven industries. He did it, isaacson says, by standing at the crossroads of science and the humanities, connecting creativity with technology, and combining leaps of imagination with feats of engineering to produce new devices that consumers hadnt even thought of. Thank you for coming. Were gonna make some history together today. If you had to pick a day where it all came together, january 9, 2007, is not a bad one. Jobs is in San Francisco at the macworld conference in full pitchman mode as he unveils his latest product to the faithful. These are not three separate devices. This is one device. [cheers and applause] and we are calling it iphone. It is not only a remarkable achievement but a validation of everything that jobs believed in if you made and controlled all of your own hardware and all of your own software, you could integrate all of your products and all of your content seamlessly into one digital hub. And no one but steve jobs had thought of it. This is something microsoft couldnt do cau