Three years before he co-founded Apple, Steve Jobs filled out a job application at Reed College in Portland in which he replied “yes” to a section asking whether he had computer skills.
Jobs also said “none” on the form in reply to whether he had a phone number. It’s a fun detail among several on the application, from a man who would eventually change the world with the creation of the iPhone.
The job application from 1973 is among items being auctioned off by Boston-based RR Auction starting on March 8.
Jobs enrolled at Reed in the fall of 1972, but dropped out after six months. But he stuck around the campus for a year and a half to audit creative courses, including classes on Shakespeare, dance, and calligraphy, according to a news release.
In his 2005 Stanford commencement speech, Jobs credited the calligraphy class in particular with influencing Macintosh design elements.
“If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts,” Jobs said.
The technical skills Jobs referenced on the application would eventually be put to good use, as he and Steve Wozniak started Apple in 1976.
“It’s a remarkable document that reveals Jobs’s early aspiration to work in the fledgling tech industry that he would one day revolutionize,” said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction.
It’s estimated that the document could fetch $50,000 or more.
Also up for auction is a Mac OSX technical manual that Jobs signed in a parking lot at Apple in 2001. The auction house states that Jobs was a notoriously “difficult signer” and his autograph is scarce among contemporary figures.
But someone attending a training session at Apple in Cupertino, Calif., convinced Jobs to sign away, even after he reportedly said, ” I feel weird doing that.”
The manual could bring in more than $25,000.
And finally, a newspaper clipping from 2008 is also being offered.
The item, from the June 10, 2008, issue of the Palo Alto Daily Post, features Jobs speaking at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference for the introduction of the iPhone 3G. Almost 10 years before the release of the $1,000 iPhone X, the headline reads: “New, faster iPhone will sell for $199.”
Jobs also signed this item, which could get $15,000. A Steve Jobs signed magazine cover sold for more than $50,000 at RR Auction in October 2017.
