He changed the world but he also had extremely smelly feet. His temper was legendary but his foresight could be exceptional.
And if he could have changed one thing, it would have been to be as successful at fatherhood as he was at the technology business.
The real Steve Jobs, uncensored and finally on the record, is revealed in snippets of an authorised biography.
The hotly anticipated book, released this week, details the life, times and legacy of the man who co-founded Apple and went on to be regarded as the greatest entrepreneur of his generation.
Although biographer Walter Isaacson was granted roughly 40 interviews with his subject, early indications suggest he resisted the temptation to repay that loyalty by producing a sterile hagiography.
Instead, readers - who on pre-orders alone are set to make Isaacson's hardback book Steve Jobs this year's bestselling title - will enjoy a range of fresh information about what made the famously reclusive Jobs tick - including a few intriguing tidbits about his private life.
Born in 1955 and later adopted, he met his biological father by chance but never got to know him, fearing blackmail.
In the early 1980s, already a rich man, he showed his folk singer girlfriend Joan Baez a Ralph Lauren dress and suggested she buy it.
He kept Microsoft supremo Bill Gates waiting for half an hour the first time they met.
He also struggled with personal hygiene. During his first job, at Atari, co-workers called him "a goddamn hippie with BO" and forced him to work night shifts.
Later, he grew long hair, experimented with LSD and decided a fruitarian diet would allow him to get away with bathing just once a week.
For technology watchers there is at least one scoop in the book: Apple's product developers are working on their first television set.
The "integrated" device, Jobs claimed, would revolutionise the TV market the way the iPod changed music.
"It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices ... It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it."
Jobs spent his final days contemplating God.
"Maybe it's because I want to believe in an afterlife. That when you die, it doesn't just all disappear," he said. "But sometimes I think it's just like an on-off switch. Click and you're gone. And that's why I don't like putting on-off switches on Apple devices."
Distrusting his dad and falling out with Bill Gates
* For years, Jobs dined at a restaurant near San Jose - not realising it was owned by his biological father. They eventually met. "I had been to that restaurant a few times, and I remember meeting the owner. He was Syrian. Balding. We shook hands." But they never formed a close relationship. "I was a wealthy man by then, and I didn't trust him not to blackmail me or go to the press."
* The first time Bill Gates came to visit, Jobs kept him waiting for half an hour. Their relationship soured. "This machine is crap," said the Microsoft founder about Jobs' latest device.
* In 1982, Jobs began dating Joan Baez. One day, he told the folk singer about a Ralph Lauren dress which would be "perfect" for her. "I said to myself, far out, terrific, I'm with one of the world's richest men and he wants me to have this beautiful dress," Baez recalled. Jobs drove to the shop and showed her the frock. "You ought to buy it," he said. Baez replied that she could not afford it, and they left.
- Independent