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Employment Questionnaire and Two Signatures From Steve Jobs Going Up for Auction

Thursday February 22, 2018 12:12 pm PST by Juli Clover
An auction site is set to sell off three pieces of Steve Jobs memorabilia, including a rare employment questionnaire filled out by the former Apple CEO.

Jobs filled out the application in 1973, just after dropping out of Reed College, where he attended school for approximately six months and then audited classes for another year and a half.

On the document, Jobs lists "english lit" as his major, and Reed College as his address. He lists "Computer" and "Calculator" as skills, along with "Design" and "Tech," and says that he has special abilities that include "Electronics" and digital "Tech or Design Engineer."


Auction site RR Auction expects the questionnaire to fetch upwards of $50,000 at auction.

Along with the questionnaire, the site also plans to auction off two documents that feature a rare Steve Jobs signature. The first is a Mac OS X technical manual that Jobs signed back in 2001, and there's a short story that goes along with the signature, obtained in a parking lot following an Apple training session in Cupertino.

"It was afternoon, the end of my training day and I just got into my car when I saw Mr. Steve Jobs walking into his car. I rolled down my window and called up his name. He asked me whether he knew me. I told him I certainly knew who he was and immediately asked him if he would be kind enough to sign my Mac OS X Administration technical manual. He refused and said 'I feel weird doing that.' I refused to back down. After a bit of cajoling on my part, he finally told me to hand over the manual and pen. He said 'give me those' and he autographed my manual," in a letter of provenance from the consignor.
The signed manual is expected to go for approximately $25,000 when it's placed up for auction, and it's being compared to a signed magazine cover that sold for $50,000 back in October of 2017.

The third document is a newspaper clipping from 2008, which features an image of Steve Jobs speaking at the Worldwide Developers Conference where the iPhone 3G was introduced. Jobs signed the newspaper at the Fraiche Yogurt shop in Palo Alto, California where he was eating frozen yogurt with Tony Fadell, who also signed the document.

Steve politely declined several times, stating that everything at Apple was a group effort, so he didn't like to sign and take credit for everything. My mom is pretty persuasive and was eventually able to convince Steve to sign; but under Steve's condition that the person sitting with him would have to sign it as well. That friend turned out to be Tony Fadell, known as the Father of the iPod, who was working at Apple during that time and instrumental in the design and development of the first iPod which later morphed into the iPhone.
The signature on the newspaper is expected to fetch somewhere around $15,000 when it is auctioned off.

The three Steve Jobs auctions will kick off on March 8 and will end on March 15 at RR Auction.

Tag: Steve Jobs
[ 72 comments ]


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pentidoes
8 months ago
Miss him. :(
Rating: 17 Votes
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iapplelove
8 months ago
Sometimes I find myself watching old Steve videos on YouTube
Rating: 12 Votes
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Relentless Power
8 months ago

His birthday is in 2 days


And he would be turning 63 years old. Far too young for him not to be in the world anymore. I still think it’s amazing to reflect back on the technological changes that he introduced (And changed) and how it carries over to Apples DNA today.
Rating: 12 Votes
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prasand
8 months ago
lol @ "possible, but not probable"
Rating: 8 Votes
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mariusignorello
8 months ago
He was the driving force of Apple. It just won’t be the same without him (and isn’t).

I’m not looking to start trouble with this post so please don’t.
Rating: 8 Votes
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WBRacing
8 months ago
I wonder how many other massively influential business people in decades to come would leave a legacy so many treasure that meant that a relatively nondescript job app form of theirs would command the equivalent of $50k (and likely more)?

Bill Gates, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark "Please, call me the messiah" Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, even Elon Musk...

None of them come close to earning the levels of adoration and admiration that so many people have for Steve Jobs. That in itself is a quite remarkable achievement.
Rating: 7 Votes
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icanhazapple
8 months ago
I miss him so much. He was one of us.
Rating: 5 Votes
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AngerDanger
8 months ago

The signed manual is expected to go for approximately $25,000 when it's placed up for auction, and it's being compared to a signed magazine cover that sold for $50,000 back in October of 2017.

Hmm, maybe I should put my rare Steve Jobs strand of hair up for auction. $100k doesn't seem too low a starting price, yeah?
Rating: 5 Votes
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michaelant
8 months ago
I read this and you know, my main take away is the people badgering for autographs.. are kinda cruddy people.

If somebody said sorry, no thanks, I don't want to sign, I'd drop it immediately. But then, I think I've asked for an autograph just once in my life.
Rating: 4 Votes
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Kaibelf
8 months ago
The questionnaire I think is fantastic. It provides an amazing example of how dismissing candidates out of hand because of their car situation or not happening to have majored in the "right thing" or "the right place" (or even having a degree at all) is foolhardy. I also like how the skills are varied enough. A lot of today's recruiters should have a copy of this document on their desk as a reminder that there's more to finding talent than jumping on Ziprecruiter.
Rating: 3 Votes

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