Steve Jobs job application valued at $175,000 heads to auction

AppleInsider

A rare piece of Steve Jobs memorabilia is going up for auction, with the latest a job application filled out by the Apple co-founder in 1973 that was previously sold for over $175,000.

The auction is for a single sheet of paper, consisting of a form filled out by Steve Jobs. Written out in 1973, the form predates his joining of Atari in 1974, and the founding of Apple with Steve Wozniak in 1976.

The page is half-filled, with some elements entered alongside blanks. For example, he lists his address as Reed College, as well as stating the answer to "Access to transportation?" as "possible, but not probable."

Steve Jobs' job application [via Charterfields]

Jobs listed his interests as "electronics tech or design engineer - digital." While he left the past employment lines empty, he also claimed to have experience with computers and calculators.

The application is said to be in a very good condition with some "overall creasing, light staining, and old clear tape to the top edge," according to the auction listing from Charterfields. The lost is also accompanied by letters and certificates of authenticity.

As with other Steve Jobs memorabilia auctions, it is expected that the signed job application will fetch a high price. The last time it went to auction was in 2018, when it sold for over $175,000.

The auction will commence at noon GMT (7 A.M. Eastern) on February 24, and will run until March 24.

lkrupp

Jobs and Apple are going down in history as one of greatest business stories ever and there’s nothing the detractors and haters can do about it. The story of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak creating Apple will be taught in business schools the world over. There will be textbooks written describing the Apple Way. When the jealous politicians break Apple up into tiny pieces in the name of ‘fairness’ it will all be over but the story will remain.


That’s why documents like this one and original hardware are so collectible and commanding such high auction prices. 

williamh

That doesn't look like a job application. There's nothing on the form about an employer or job applied to.  The paper looks more like a form he might have filled out for a university career development center or something like that.

randominternetperson

williamh said:

That doesn't look like a job application. There's nothing on the form about an employer or job applied to.  The paper looks more like a form he might have filled out for a university career development center or something like that.

Good point. Also that’s a very sloppy document for a job application. And perhaps he might have capitalized “Jobs” and “English” if this mattered, perhaps.

tzeshan

lkrupp said:

Jobs and Apple are going down in history as one of greatest business stories ever and there’s nothing the detractors and haters can do about it. The story of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak creating Apple will be taught in business schools the world over. There will be textbooks written describing the Apple Way. When the jealous politicians break Apple up into tiny pieces in the name of ‘fairness’ it will all be over but the story will remain.


That’s why documents like this one and original hardware are so collectible and commanding such high auction prices. 

Exactly my thought. Jobs will be credited with creating the Global Digital Internet Culture. Long time ago when Apple created the Mac, their ambition was to put it in the hands of every people in the world. There is no need to be a programmer. Jobs has successfully accomplished his dream!

tzeshan

Was Jobs hired by Atari?

lkrupp

tzeshan said:

lkrupp said:

Jobs and Apple are going down in history as one of greatest business stories ever and there’s nothing the detractors and haters can do about it. The story of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak creating Apple will be taught in business schools the world over. There will be textbooks written describing the Apple Way. When the jealous politicians break Apple up into tiny pieces in the name of ‘fairness’ it will all be over but the story will remain.


That’s why documents like this one and original hardware are so collectible and commanding such high auction prices. 

Exactly my thought. Jobs will be credited with creating the Global Digital Internet Culture. Long time ago when Apple created the Mac, their ambition was to put it in the hands of every people in the world. There is no need to be a programmer. Jobs has successfully accomplished his dream!

And no matter what the detractors say about Apple it will be credited with bringing the first personal computer to the market, the first smartphone, the first tablet, the first smartwatch. All the caterwauling about which company invented something ‘years’ before Apple, like Android fanboys like to repeat ad nauseam, is meaningless.

sflocal

randominternetperson said:

williamh said:

That doesn't look like a job application. There's nothing on the form about an employer or job applied to.  The paper looks more like a form he might have filled out for a university career development center or something like that.

Good point. Also that’s a very sloppy document for a job application. And perhaps he might have capitalized “Jobs” and “English” if this mattered, perhaps.

Seriously people... this was 1973.  Think about it.  Someone had to sit down and type up that old job application on what was probably some old IBM Selectric typewriter.  Was white-out even a thing back then?  

Either you weren't born during these golden years, or you forgot just how manual everything was back then.  Lighten up.

williamh

sflocal said:

randominternetperson said:

williamh said:

That doesn't look like a job application. There's nothing on the form about an employer or job applied to.  The paper looks more like a form he might have filled out for a university career development center or something like that.

Good point. Also that’s a very sloppy document for a job application. And perhaps he might have capitalized “Jobs” and “English” if this mattered, perhaps.

Seriously people... this was 1973.  Think about it.  Someone had to sit down and type up that old job application on what was probably some old IBM Selectric typewriter.  Was white-out even a thing back then?  

Either you weren't born during these golden years, or you forgot just how manual everything was back then.  Lighten up.

Capitalizing is nearly as easy as lower-case, whether you're writing by hand or using a typewriter. Seriously, before word processors people still did the best they could and better than this.  If this was a job application and one wants a job, you'd expect a person to give half a shit. I was a tyke back in '73 but I am old enough that I did my college applications with the dang essays on a typewriter. There was Wite-Out and there were these correction tape sort of things but people had to be more careful because  Wite-Out looks crappy.

I have a question about this document for sale:  is the person selling it the rightful owner of the document?  My guess is that the document came from the corner of some storage room back at Reed College and that it ought to belong to the school.

It's obviously not a job application.  It's apparently a form Jobs filled out for his school's career center and either his parents or the school made him do it.  He obviously didn't care at all about that form and not much about school.  He dropped out and then audited some classes for a bit, including calligraphy.  He didn't know what he was going to do but he already knew he wasn't going down the traditional path.