Steve Jobs’s error-filled CV to fetch $50,000 at auction

The job application form was written shortly after he dropped out of university, three years before he co-founded Apple

Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs announces the new iPod Shuffle in September 2006
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

An error-strewn CV written by Apple co-founder Steven Jobs in 1973 is up for auction – and it’s expected to fetch up to $50,000 (£36,000).

The single-page CV lists the entrepreneur’s name Steven Jobs, his date of birth as 24 February 1955 and his place of study as “Reed College” in the US state of Oregon, The Guardian reports.

While Jobs said he had a driving licence, he later claimed his access to transport was “possible, but not probable”. Next to the section marked “phone”, Jobs, who went on to create the iPhone, wrote “none”.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Under the special abilities section of the application form, Jobs lists: “electronics tech or design engineer. digital. – from Bay near Hewitt-Packard.” It seems likely he was referring to the California-based tech giant, Hewlett-Packard.

The document doesn’t reveal what position Jobs was applying for, The Daily Telegraph says, but it does provide a “snapshot into a tumultuous period” in the tech pioneer’s life.

Jobs dropped out of Reed College in 1972, but he remained on campus for the next year-and-a-half, during which he wrote his CV, according to the newspaper.

It’s not known whether the job application was successful. The Daily Telegraph says he didn’t secure a technical role until he joined Atari as a technician in 1974. There he met Steve Wozniak and together they founded Apple in 1976.

The sale is being held by Boston-based auction house RR Auction, and takes place between 8 and 15 March, says Alphr.

The CV will be joined by several Jobs-related items, including a Mac OS X user manual signed by the tech pioneer and a newspaper clipping about the original iPhone that is also signed by him, the website says.

Steve Jobs died of cancer in 2011.

Explore More