Apple's Steve Jobs feared kidnapping

Apple’s late visionary founder Steve Jobs feared that his daughter could be the target of kidnappers, a newly uncovered FBI file has revealed.

Released last February and uncovered by Wired, the FBI file was put together as Jobs was probed during the 1980s for a potential post on the President’s Export Council under George Bush Senior’s administration. A further FBI file was later put together following a 1985 hoax bomb threat made against the turtle-necked Apple CEO.

When being interviewed for Pentagon clearance in 1988, Jobs was asked whether he had knowledge of anything that may make him susceptible to blackmail. Jobs told investigators of his illegitimate daughter Lisa, saying that “the type of blackmail or threat that could be made against me would be if someone kidnapped [her].”

Rather than issues of national security being at stake, Jobs noted that any kidnap attempt would “primarily be for the purpose of money, not because I may have access to classified Top Secret material or documents.”

The uncovered file also reveals that Jobs was arrested in 1975 for a “minor infraction”, failing to pay for a speeding ticket.

It’s a fascinating insight to a notoriously private man, head of a notoriously private company. For more, read Wired’s engrossing article.