This is what Steve Jobs looked like as a high school freshman

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Screen Shot 2015-03-27 at 09.05.22
Steve Jobs back when he had the same net worth as you or I. It didn't last long. Photo: Austin Belisle/Homestead High

When I think of young Steve Jobs, I typically picture the long-haired hippie who worked at Atari or the brilliant-but-immature co-founder who started Apple with Steve Wozniak. But here’s something I’ve not seen before: a photo of Jobs as a cherubic-but-undeniably-recognizable high school freshman.

The photo comes from the Homestead High yearbook from 1969, when Jobs was 14, and is far less well-known than the high school senior picture with which I’m already familiar.

What a difference a few years makes. This is Jobs' better-known senior yearbook photo.
What a difference a few years makes. This is Jobs’ better-known senior yearbook photo.

In 1969, Jobs had yet to meet Woz. The summer after his freshman year, his tech career began when he looked up Hewlett-Packard co-founder Bill Hewlett in the phone book, called him at home, and wound up being offered a job on the company’s assembly line.

He was also part of the Hewlett-Packard Explorers Club, which referred to a group of around 15 smart students who met in HP’s cafeteria every Tuesday night to get a talk from one of the company’s engineers about what they were working on at the time.

“My dad would drive me there,” Jobs later recalled. “I was in heaven.”

The freshman photo comes to light amid a renewed interest in Jobs following the release of new biography Becoming Steve Jobs (read our review here).

Several former Jobs classmates have recently listed their high school yearbooks for sale on eBay. This particular Steve Jobs yearbook auction, which packages the late exec’s senior and freshman yearbooks together, is from Denise Belisle.

You can check it out on eBay here. Currently, bidding is at $4,000 with six days remaining.

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