The Updated Book off Jobs

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Taking care of business means, for Jobs, not just lighting fires under the staff and gladhanding the media. It also involves—crucially—keeping the lines open to the young. His planned donation of 10,000 Apples to California schools gets him good will, a generous tax break and an even stronger foothold in what Hollywood likes to call "the youth market." He makes periodic campus appearances, where he is as likely as not to sit, shoes off, in the lotus position atop a dormitory coffee table and engagingly field questions. Nothing too specific, mind. The students will not press for details on "Supersite," a hazy combination of Disneyland and industrial park that Jobs has been formulating. They may not even know that Jobs, an independent, has at times mulled over some vague political plans, perhaps following in the unorthodox footsteps of Jerry Brown.

If machines can be called user friendly, then students might be called computer chummy. They represent key potential customers, as do their kid brothers and sisters. They may use computers now; the majority of them will probably be doing so in five years, at school or at work. So the students sit, rapt, while Jobs spins out his visions. Just a few years ago, they might have been considered shock troops of the computer revolution getting a gung-ho speech from their guerrilla leader. Not today. Now they are the occupying forces listening to a victory address by the field marshal.

He still sounds like one of them. He still looks like one of them. And he has brought them quite an Apple to bite. Perfect. —By Jay Cocks. Reported by Michael Moritz/Cupertino