instance, although he was frequently warned against it, he could
not restrain himself from sticking a bobby pin into an electrical
outlet. The resultant trip to the emergency room did not stop him
from swallowing ant poison, which he knew was taboo, or from
persuading one of his playmates to do the same. His coworkers
at Apple said that Steve could convince anyone to do practically
anything, no matter how dangerous or outrageous. “The joke
going around said that Jobs had a reality distortion field sur-
rounding him,” author Robert X. Cringely explains. “He’d say
something and the kids in the Macintosh division would find
themselves replying, ’Drink poison Kool-Aid? Yeah that makes
sense.’” 6
Important Influences
In an effort to keep Steve out of trouble, his father took the boy
under his wing. Paul Jobs was a mechanical whiz. In his spare
time, he bought wrecked cars from junkyards. He rebuilt the cars
in his garage workshop and resold them at a profit. Steve spent
Steve’s father, Paul, let him work on electronics on a work-
bench in the garage.
14 Steve Jobs