What Was Steve Jobs’ IQ? Career, Inventions, and Legacy

Steve Jobs’ IQ has been a hot topic ever since the public started to learn more about Apple’s enigmatic founder. Undoubtedly, the businessman had a brilliant mind, but could he actually be called a genius?

While there is no way to confirm this, experts can speculate and base their professional assessment on Jobs’ career, interviews, and achievements.

In this article, we will explore Steve Jobs’ life in more detail and dive deeper into what IQ experts have said about his intelligence.

So, let’s get started.

What Was Steve Jobs’ IQ?

Experts estimate that Steve Jobs’ IQ was around 160, making him exceptionally gifted.

However, this is not an official score since we have no confirmation that Steve Jobs ever took an IQ test. Even if he had, he didn’t disclose the results to the public.

Still, there’s hardly any doubt that Steve Jobs’ IQ test score would be far above the average. After all, he was a forward-thinking visionary whose inventions and pursuits changed the world as we know it and created a standard that tech companies worldwide strive to achieve.

In addition, he was a unique character, described as sometimes difficult but absolutely invaluable. At times, he didn’t fit in with the world around him, becoming a loner who pursued his own path.

But, like most people with high intrapersonal intelligence, he was confident in his own abilities and certain of his goals.

Steve Jobs’ Early Life and Education

American inventor and businessman Steve Jobs was born in 1955 in San Francisco to a German-American mother and a Syrian father. However, due to religious concerns, his biological parents didn’t raise him, instead giving him up for adoption in Cupertino.

His adoptive parents, Paul and Clara Jobs, were a machinist and a bookkeeper who raised Steve like their own son. They soon noticed his brilliance, evident from the lack of stimulation he received in elementary school and the teachers’ suggestions to skip a few grades.

Steve Jobs didn’t struggle with learning, but he did face bullying and social isolation during elementary school. Luckily, things changed in high school—he found his place at Homestead High School, where he made good friends and took classes relating to his greatest interests: literature and electronics.

Jobs’ natural curiosity, as well as the connections he’s made, led him down the path of the counterculture that dominated the American landscape in the 1960s. He experimented with drugs, had a deep passion for music, and developed interests far beyond science and engineering. T.ake a look at our in-depth article on how drugs impact IQ, if you're interested in learning more.

Finally, Steve Jobs graduated high school and started attending Reed College in Portland. However, his pursuit of a college degree lasted only one semester—he dropped out, feeling most of what he was learning was useless.

Steve Jobs’ Career and Accomplishments

Apple products

Having returned home, Steve Jobs landed his first job as a computer technician at Atari. While he worked there, he reconnected with his high school friend, Stephen Wozniak, who’d later become a co-founder of Apple with him.

Jobs’ career took off only once he returned from a seven-month pilgrimage to India, where he went to seek spiritual enlightenment. Upon his return, he and Wozniak began building their first logic board, the Apple I. Soon after its completion, they made the Apple II, an improved version with a keyboard.

In 1977, only a year after the Apple II was completed, Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak founded their company, Apple Computer. It aimed to develop personal computers, which Steve Jobs saw as indispensable in the future.

By 1983, Apple Computer had entered the Fortune 500 list of the most successful companies, proving Steve Jobs correct. A year later, in January 1984, he introduced the first Macintosh in a fantastic publicity campaign that highlighted Jobs’ belief in the power of advertising.

Unfortunately, the first Mac didn’t sell as well as expected, so Steve Jobs was forced to leave the company amid tensions.

The Return of the King

After leaving Apple, Steve pursued other projects, such as his company, NeXT Inc., which produced workstation computers for students, and Pixar, a computer graphics firm that released the first entirely computer-animated film, Toy Story.

However, in 1997, Steve Jobs returned to Apple, which was, at that point, on the verge of financial ruin. Jobs’ smart business moves, including the launch of the iMac, a high-speed personal computer, saved the company and proved once again that Steve was a visionary.

The rest was smooth sailing—Jobs introduced iTunes, started selling iPods, and eventually ventured into telecommunications with iPhones.

Steve Jobs' High IQ Traits

No one can doubt Steve Jobs’ intelligence—he’s proven time and time again that his IQ is well above the average. Still, if you need extra evidence, let’s examine a few characteristics of people with high IQs that he also exhibits.

Those traits include:

• Excellent problem-solving skills. Steve Jobs returned to Apple when it was on the verge of bankruptcy and found the perfect solution to restore the company. That speaks volumes about his flexibility and inventiveness.
• A visionary mind. Like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs had a vision and wasn’t afraid to pursue it. He understood the importance of personal computers before they conquered the world and became one of the people responsible for their success.
• Curiosity. In his youth, Steve Jobs experimented with drugs and took an interest in various subjects, going so far as to travel to distant India in pursuit of enlightenment. This intense curiosity is often a sign of an above-average IQ.
• Risk tolerance. Steve Jobs’ IQ level is evident from his willingness to take risks instead of settling for the safe option. Every successful businessman must possess this trait, and Steve Jobs, who started two companies and significantly contributed to the third, certainly does.

Steve Jobs' Death and Legacy

Steve Jobs IQ and his legacy

Apple entered the 21st century successfully, but Steve Jobs’ health didn’t follow suit. In 2003, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which he initially treated with alternative medicine instead of surgery.

But as his condition worsened, Jobs had no choice but to accept the risky Whipple procedure. For a while, he seemed to have gone back to his old self, and then, in 2008, his health visibly worsened. Although he refused to speak about it publicly, many speculated that his cancer was back.

After a liver transplant in 2009 and a resignation from the CEO position in 2011, Steve Jobs died in October 2011 in Palo Alto, California.

His legacy lives on, though. Apple is still one of the largest tech companies in the world, launching groundbreaking products and setting trends for smartphones, laptops, and smartwatches. All that is thanks to Steve Jobs’ emphasis on innovation, which his company follows to this day.

Steve Jobs’ IQ vs. Other Intelligent People

To fully understand how high Steve Jobs’ IQ actually was, let’s compare it to similar geniuses with groundbreaking inventions.

For example, Steve Jobs’ biggest rival, Bill Gates, is estimated to have an IQ of around 160—the same as Steve Jobs. Their younger colleague, the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, follows right behind with an IQ of approximately 152.

Though it may come as a surprise, Steve Jobs’ IQ score is on par with Einstein’s and Stephen Hawking’s. Both of these world-renowned physicists have an estimated IQ of 160 as well.

Key Takeaways

Steve Jobs’ IQ may be somewhat of a mystery, but his achievements and legacy are crystal clear.

As a visionary who founded Apple, he understood how the world would develop and found a way to profit from it. He left behind a company that outlived him and an impressive selection of products that serve as staples in the tech industry.

And although Apple now has new leadership, Steve Jobs’ spirit remains strong, encouraging inventiveness, forward-thinking, and a focus on design.