Steve Jobs, who once collected Coke cans for food money and is son of a Syrian Muslim dies and even people in space mourn him

Steve Jobs was born to a Syrian Muslim immigrant, quit college after a semester, slept on friends’ floors, returned Coke bottles for food money, journeyed to India to study under a guru named Neem Karoli Baba, returned a Buddhist, experimented with psychedelics, founded a computer company that changed life on earth.

“Apple is now missing a piece,” said a 19 year-old Hong Kong design student who replaced the logo’s trademark bite with Steve Jobs’ silhouette then posted it on his blog.

He died yesterday, at the age of 56, from pancreatic cancer. His life story is thrilling, unexpected and inspiring. In the mere hours that have elapsed since his death, the entire world has poured out their thoughts, and even people floating above it, in space.

“Apple is now missing a piece,” said a 19 year-old Hong Kong design student who replaced the logo’s trademark bite with Steve Jobs’ silhouette then posted it on his blog. Reuters recently picked up the story. Caps and T-shirts with the design are selling on eBay. The student has received numerous job offers.

“Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world,” said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. “I will miss you.”

“My sincere condolences to his loved ones and to everyone who admired his intellect and talent,” said Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

“Today, we lost one of the most influential thinkers, creators and entrepreneurs of all time,” said Newscorp CEO Rupert Murdoch. “Steve Jobs was simply the greatest CEO of his generation.”

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“In every generation there are great thinkers and people that have the vision of what can be and then have the energy, the skill and the genius to make it happen,” said International Space Station Commander Mike Fossum, from space, while listening to music on his iPod.

Jobs’s biological father was a Syrian born political science professor named Abdulfattah Jandali. He met Jobs biological mother, Joanne Carole Schieble, while studying in Wisconsin in the 1950s. Schieble’s father was extremely conservative, said Jandali, and would not let the couple marry. The baby they conceived was given up for adoption. “Not so many know that Stephen Jobs’ biological father was born in Homs, Syria’s third largest city, and studied at the American University in Beirut,” said a post on the facebook page of the United States Embassy in Damascus. “Like all great leaders and innovators Jobs never let himself be poured into a mold. Rest in peace, Stephen Jobs, grandson of Homs.”

“He has a brilliant mind,” said Jandali, in an interview with the Saudi Gazette earlier this year. “I don’t have a close relationship with him. I send him a message on his birthday…if he wants to spend time with me he knows where I am and how to get hold of me.” Jobs never did.

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The most inspiring tribute might be his own. From his 2005 Stanford graduation speech:

I never graduated from college…my mother never graduated from college and my father never graduated from high school…I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life…I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it…You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma…We started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, in 10 years Apple had grown into a $2 billion company…Then I got fired. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, it was devastating…it turned out it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life…I started a company named Pixar…Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film, “Toy Story”, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world…Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith…You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers…Do what you believe is great work…Love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle…Keep looking. Don’t settle.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me… Almost everything—external expectations, pride, fear of embarrassment or failure—falls away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart…About a year ago I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable…No one wants to die. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. Have the courage to follow your heart…Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish…Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.