Steve Jobs

This page provides an astrological perspective on Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple. See also the page about the digital revolution. 

Cyclic patterns in Steve Jobs' career

My article "Steve Jobs' cycles of creativity", published on Astro.com in October 2022, tells the story of his career from the perspective of planetary cycles. It includes: 

1. the cyclic patterns in Steve Jobs' career, correlated with the 12-year cycle of Jupiter and the 30-year cycle of Saturn. 

2. the stories of his creative journeys towards his innovations, by following the thread of Jupiter and Saturn transits around his birth chart.

3. Steve Jobs' career in the wider context of the digital revolution,  from the perspective of the synodic cycles between Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

It is the third part of an essay about the history of computers and the digital revolution. 

Planetary alignments in Steve Jobs' birth chart

The Uranus-Neptune square of 1954-56 and the computer revolution

Both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were born during the Uranus-Neptune square of 1954-56 which coincided with the birth of the computer industry, as described in the page about the digital revolution.. Steve Jobs, born in February 1955, has a tight Jupiter-Uranus conjunction, and Jupiter trine Saturn. Bill Gates was born in October 1955, when Jupiter was 25 degrees passed Uranus, within 1 degree of Pluto and separating from a square with Saturn. Bill Gates's Jupiter is within 2 degrees of the star Regulus, the alpha star of constellation Leo. 

In other words, they were born during a complex alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. This means that their life stories resonate with all the cycles of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. It also explains why they played such an important role during the pivotal years of the digital revolution, around the time of the Uranus-Neptune conjunction of 1993. 

The Grand Cross: an unavoidable challenge

The following delineation of Steve Jobs's birth chart focuses on the alignments between the terrestrial planets and the giant planets. Steve Jobs's birth chart contains the following planetary alignments: 

• a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction and a Jupiter-Venus opposition;

• a Mars-Neptune opposition;

• the two axis are making a square to each other, creating a highly dynamic configuration known as a "Grand Cross".

Such a configuration can be interpreted in many ways: "It symbolises an unavoidable challenge. Meeting this challenge demands considerable dedication and effort." (Astrowiki) but it can also be associated to "perpetual change". 

Both Venus and Mars are involved in this configuration. They represent two important sides of his personality, and they are highlighted by higher, social or transpersonal principles, represented by Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. 

• Venus is described by Richard Tarnas as "the principle of desire, love, beauty, value; the impulse and capacity to attract and be attracted, to love and be loved, to seek and create beauty and harmony, to engage in social and romantic relations, sensuous pleasure, artistic and aesthetic experience; the principle of Eros and the Beautiful; Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty."

• Mars is "the principle of energetic force; the impulse and capacity to assert, to act and move energetically and forcefully, to have an impact, to press forward and against, to defend and offend, to act with sharpness and ardor; the tendency to experience aggressiveness, anger, conflict, harm, violence, forceful physical energy; to be combative, competitive, courageous, vigorous; Ares, the god of war." (The Planets, Richard Tarnas)

This already explains two aspects of Jobs's character that were both his strengths and weaknesses: a high esthetic sense that made him an outstanding designer with strong values (Venus) and a forceful business leader with a reputation for being harsh and even brutal (Mars). 

A designer, entrepreneur and innovator

The Jupiter-Venus alignment can be correlated to business (Jupiter) and art (Venus), and Jupiter's conjunction to Uranus adds the dimension of technology and innovation. The square of Mars to Jupiter adds an adventurous approach to the business-oriented nature of Jupiter, which translates into entrepreneurship. And the sextile of Saturn to Venus adds a practical approach to art which translates as design. 

Together, this Venus-Mars-Jupiter-Uranus configuration, helped by Saturn, reflects how Steve Jobs was at the same time a designer (Venus-Saturn), an entrepreneur (Mars-Jupiter) and an innovator (Jupiter-Uranus). 

A rebellious zen buddhist on a mission to change the world

The Mars-Uranus square adds an element of rebellion (Uranus) and breaking the status-quo through conflict, struggle or violence (Mars). Neptune adds a spiritual, mystical, utopian or visionary approach. The Mars-Neptune opposition can be described as a utopian (Neptune) warrior or adventurer (Mars). 

One or both of the Mars-Uranus or Mars-Neptune alignments can be seen in the birth charts of revolutionary historical figures that saw themselves as "heroes on a mission to change the world", such as Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, Georges Danton, Maximilien Robespierre, Napoleon Bonaparte, Lenin, Simon Bolivar, Emiliano Zapata, Salvador Allende and Pablo Neruda. Those born during Uranus-Neptune alignments, such as Salvador Allende and Pablo Neruda, helped bring forward major political breakthroughs that marked the beginning of new cultural, social and political eras. Both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were born during the 1955 waning square of Uranus to Neptune. They were the key personalities that pioneered the personal computer revolution. 

Visionary genius

The Uranus opposition to Venus, and the Neptune-Venus square correlate to visionary genius. Leonardo da Vinci had Venus sextile Uranus and trine Neptune. This genius translated in Steve Jobs's unique approach to designing end-to-end solutions which provided consumers with a new level of simplicity in their use of a personal computer, a portable music player or a smart phone. His creations were not just beautifully designed: they disrupted and transformed existing business ecosystems like the music industry and the smartphone market. 

Neptune's quality is visible in the highly rounded designs of Apple products and the transparent case of the original iMac. But perhaps it's in the iPhone where the power of Neptune's visionary nature is most tangible. The very nature of the iPhone, a multipurpose communication device designed to be a gateway into a new ecosystem of apps  - the App Store  - reflects Neptune's proteiform, holistic and systemic perspective. It is Neptune's dissolving quality that removed the physical keyboard and transformed it into a software module, only appearing on the touchscreen when needed.

Focus on 1976: the young entrepreneur meets the history of computers

In the years 1972-73 there was also an important, once in a lifetime transit of Neptune making a square to the natal position of the Sun. This transit correlates with Steve Jobs' first experiences with LSD and his interest in eastern mysticism that started precisely in 1972. 

Between 1972 and 1976, Uranus activated Steve Jobs' Grand Cross. First through a square to the natal Jupiter-Venus axis in 1972-73, and then by a transit on natal Neptune, making an opposition to natal Mars in 1974-75. These transits activated Steve Jobs "designer entrepreneur innovator" potential (Venus-Jupiter-Uranus) and the "hero on a mission to change the world" (Mars-Neptune). 

In 1974-75 Saturn added its own energy to the transits of Uranus by transiting the natal Jupiter-Uranus conjunction, which translated as a pressure to materialise his ideas into something tangible. 

This culminated in March-April 1976 with Jupiter's transit on natal Mars, followed by the Jupiter-Uranus opposition in the sky. 

As described in the page about the digital revolution, Saturn-Uranus alignments are strongly correlated to the birth of new computer industries. Steve Jobs' rise as an entrepreneur, and the birth of the Apple I personal computer can be correlated with the 1976 T-square alignment of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus that activated the Grand Cross in Steve Jobs' birth chart. It translated into a very rare sequence of transits of Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter on his birth chart, awakening his potential as a designer-entrepreneur-innovator. 

Steve Jobs' and Apple's core values

The fact that the foundation of Apple coincided with the transit of Jupiter on Steve Jobs' natal Mars-Neptune axis helps us to understand what Apple meant for Steve Jobs on a more personal level. In a way, Apple not only manifested Steve Jobs' potential as a designer, entrepreneur and innovator (Venus-Mars-Jupiter-Uranus), but it also manifested his "hero on a mission to change the world" potential (Mars-Uranus-Neptune). This explains the very specific posture he always had about Apple: for Steve Jobs', founding Apple was not just about starting a new business or designing innovative computers. It was literally about "changing the world".  He vividly pitched this to Apple employees in his 1997 meeting: 

"What we're about isn't making boxes for people to get their jobs done, although we do that well. We do that better than almost anybody, in some cases. But Apple's about something more than that. Apple at the core, its core value, is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better. That's what we believe."

This translated into the "Think different" advertising slogan and the "Crazy Ones" advertisements. It is no surprise that the 20th century personalities featured in those ads have prominent alignments between Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune: Albert Einstein  (Jupiter-Uranus opposition of 1879), Thomas Edison (Jupiter square Saturn-Neptune), Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and John Lennon (born during the Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus conjunction of 1940-41), Jimi Hendrix (born in late 1942 during a Saturn-Uranus conjunction trine Neptune), Mohandas Gandhi (Saturn-Uranus-Neptune grand trine), Martin Luther King (Jupiter-Saturn-Neptune grand trine), the 14th Dalaï Lama (Jupiter-Uranus and Saturn-Neptune alignments), Frank Loyd Wright (Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus grand trine), Pablo Picasso (born in 1881 during a Jupiter-Saturn-Neptune conjunction, with Uranus trine Neptune) and Miles Davis (Jupiter-Saturn-Neptune T-square).

Recommended resources🔗

• 📌 Steve Jobs' cycles of creativity - Astro.com

• Steve Jobs birth chart at Astro-databank

• Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson: the full biography