Steve Jobs - C1: Childhood: Abandoned & Chosen

His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership and values.

Walter Isaacson, the author, had more than 40 times interviews with Steve Jobs in two years to accumulate sources. He wrote this book to show how Steve Jobs connects creativity with technology in personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing and digital publishing.

At the chapter 1, Walter introduces Steve's childhood mainly in two aspects: Silicon Valley and School so that readers will keep in mind Steve's creativity and speciality since Jobs was a child.

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Silicon Valley

Clara, his adoptive mother, loves the sun and sea in San Francisco and requested to settle down here in 1952. Paul Reinhold Jobs and Clara Hagopian adopted Jobs in 1955 and made a pledge, in the request of Steve's biological mother, to afford Steve to at least finish college education. Since then abandoned, chosen and special became part of who Jobs was and how he regarded himself.

In Silicon Valley, Steve was influenced deeply by his father, Erichler and the spirit of entrepreneur. 

1. Paul, his father, crafted the backs of the cabinets and fences properly, even though they were hidden;

2. Erichler, the designer of Jobs's homes, instilled Jobs a passion for making nicely designed products for the mass market;

3. Silicon Valley is a place where all the military companies on the cutting edge, full of mysteries and high-tech. Steve grew up here and got inspired by the history of the place, that made him want to be a part of it.

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School

Steve had been taught by his mother before he went to elementary school and was quite excellent at those courses. Therefore, he was much bored of school courses in first to third grades. He played pranks to classmates and teachers to counter his boredom. Teachers in Monta Loma Elementary were impossible to control him and asked him switch to another school. 

Imogene Hill, one of the saints of Steve Jobs, accepted him and offered him lollipops  after he handled difficult math and physical books. Jobs was quite clever to solve them and scored a higher grades as a sophomore at the fourth grade. He skipped to sixth grade in Cupertino-Sunnyvale School District. 

Larry Lang, the engineer, taught Steve the regiments of electronics. Larry offered a Heathkits to Steve so that Steve acquired the ability to make things by himself. Larry took Steve to Hewlett-Packard Explorers Club where a group of fifteen or so students who met in the company cafeteria on Tuesday night and they would get an engineer from one of the labs to course and talk about what he was working on.

Steve's AP English teacher looked like Ernest Hemingway and took a bunch of students snowshoeing in Yosemite. Steve got the sensitivity of literature since then. Steve learned electronics which was taught by John McCollum, a former Navy pilot.

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个人理解：

在乔布斯刚刚去世的那个十月，和他相关的报道总是引起大家的讨论，和他相关的书籍长期霸占了热销榜，他的智慧和帅气，令人难以忽视。我对他最初的好感来自他写给妻子的情书（引发了一众翻译热潮），以及那篇毕业演讲。Stay hungry, Stay foolish。乔帮主这个带有武林大侠的称呼，也把他继续神话。这么一个理性而感性的genius, 人们都是喜欢追捧而赞扬的。

当年初Elon Musk这本书开始热销，人们又再次想起Steve Jobs，习惯性地将这两位硅谷传奇创业者进行比较。自年初就打算看得两本书，还是挪到了这个九月才开始。后面的笔记中也会提到两者的异同处。

看完了第一章，有两点深刻体会：

1. 父母的支持和鼓励。当Steve被邻居小朋友质疑他的养子身份时，他的父母告诉他：“No, you have to understand... we specially picked you out“；当他的学校老师因为他层出不穷的恶作剧而质疑乔布斯的能力时，他的父母认为：“look, it's not his fault. If you can't keep him interested, it's your fault.” Both of his parents knew the school was at fault for trying to make him memorize stupid stuff rather than stimulating him；当乔布斯因为所在的小学日日打架要求父母为他转学时，他们尊重了乔布斯的决定，即使这个要求需要他们更加努力地工作；当乔布斯参加俱乐部同他人交流学习心得时，他的爸爸总是会开车接送他，因为离家远。他们认可乔布斯的聪慧和支持他的个人发展，不停地强调，you are special. 就像是爱因斯坦的母亲对看起来不怎么合群的孩子的无条件鼓励一样，乔布斯的父母无条件的爱和支持，给予乔布斯最好的成长环境。

2. 环境。乔布斯生活在硅谷。他对电子感兴趣，而他身边都是一群从事科研工作的人，不论是街角的Larry还是整个硅谷的创业环境，都让乔布斯对creativity, precision, perfection不陌生，甚至这些都逐渐成为他的本能，本能地追求这些。乔布斯在发明时发现少了必要零件，多次直接打电话给某某公司老板，同他们交谈获得需要的材料。他生活在硅谷，一个尊重人才，尊重智慧而不是盲目崇拜authority的地方。而他本人，not disposed to accept authority。