Steve Jobs' mother, Joanne Soclable Simpson was Swiss - American;  his father, Abdulfattah Jandall was Syrian.  Jobs was adopted at birth.  His birth parents wanted Steve to be adopted by college graduates, that was not the case.  He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs who promised Steve would go to college.  Jobs went to Reed College for a semester and then dropped out.  He spent 18 more months dropping in on more creative classes.  He was a Silicon Valley businessman most famous for his work with the company Apple Computer Inc.  which later changed to Apple Inc.  Together with Apple co - founder Steve Wozniak, Jobs helped make the idea of ​​the personal computer popular in the late 1970s.  In the early 1980s, still at Apple, Jobs was one of the first to see the commercial potential of using a mouse to use with the GUI.  During this period, Apple had hired a number of other people to be president of the company.  He was a supporter of the Democratic Party of the United States.  He dropped out of high school.  In 1985 Apple's Board of Directors fired Jobs from his position with the company.  He then started NeXT, a computer platform development company which dealt with higher education and business markets.  Apple's 1997 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co - founded where he worked as the CEO of Apple.  He was paid $ 1m per year plus stock options.  While Jobs was away from Apple, he bought a computer animation studio from film director George Lucas called Pixar.  Jobs later sold Pixar to Disney and gained a seat on the Disney board of directors.  Jobs presented the iPhone on January 9, 2007. On August 24, 2011, Jobs retired as CEO of Apple.  He suggested Tim Cook as his successor.  Following Jobs' request, Jobs continued as the chairman of the Apple Inc.'s Board of Directors.  fact about Steve Jobs Jobs had health problems for the last few years and had a liver transplant.  When he died of respiratory arrest caused by pancreatic cancer in 2011, it was worth $ 8.3 billion.