Steve Jobs' Cycles of Creativity

by Felipe Avila Reyes

Steve Jobs with the Macbook Air in 2008
Source: Matthew Yohe, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Steve Jobs, natal chart, 24 February 1955 at 19:15 (= 7:15 PM) San Francisco, California.
Source: Astrodatabank, RR: AA

This article uses Steve Jobs’ career as an example to demonstrate how planetary cycles can increase our understanding of a person’s creative journey. It is the third part of an essay about the history of computers and the digital revolution. My research is based on a careful reading of the comprehensive Steve Jobs biography published by Walter Isaacson in 2011, combined with detailed observations of planetary transits around Steve Jobs’ birth chart.

The first part presents the cyclic patterns found in Steve Jobs’ career. The second part looks at planetary transits around his birth chart to tell the stories of his creative journeys towards his innovations. And the third part looks at his career from the perspective of synodic cycles to put it into the wider context of the history of the digital revolution.

1) Cyclic patterns in Steve Jobs’ career

This first part presents some remarkable patterns in Steve Jobs’ career that can be correlated with the 12-year cycle of Jupiter and the 30-year cycle of Saturn.

Steve Jobs’ innovations

A person’s career usually features one or more climaxes defined by his or her greatest accomplishments. In the case of Steve Jobs, those accomplishments took the form of major innovations that became part of the history of computers and the digital revolution:

• April 1976: the Apple I personal computer,
• June 1977: the Apple II personal computer,
• January 1984: the Macintosh personal computer,
• October 1988: the NeXT Computer workstation,
• November 1995: the computer-animated feature film Toy Story,
• August 1998: the iMac personal computer,
• October 2001: the iPod portable music player,
• January 2007: the iPhone smartphone,
• April 2010: the iPad tablet computer.

This impressive track record can be put side by side with the timeline of Jupiter’s cycles between the Midheaven (MC) and the Imum Coeli (IC) of his birth chart:

Steve Jobs' innovations, Jupiter transits to the MC and IC
Source: Diagram created by the author, images Creative Commons and Fair Use

• July 1977: Jupiter on the Midheaven.
• December 1983: Jupiter on the Imum Coeli.
• June 1989: Jupiter on the Midheaven.
• November 1995: Jupiter on the Imum Coeli.
• June 2001: Jupiter on the Midheaven.
• November 2007: Jupiter on the Imum Coeli.

The correlation between both timelines is very straightforward. The iMac and the iPad are the only notable exceptions that don’t fit into the pattern. These correlations confirm the relevance of the Midheaven in a person’s career and suggest that, in the case of Steve Jobs, the Imum Coeli was equally significant. A careful reading of the biography written by Walter Isaacson led us to realise that Steve Jobs’ earliest entrepreneurial experience with the Blue Boxes, in 1971, can also be correlated with this cycle. This remarkable pattern of correlations is illustrated in the diagram.

The transitions in Steve Jobs’ career

Steve Jobs' career, Jupiter transits to Mercury
Source: Diagram created by the author

Steve Jobs started his career when he took a job at Atari as a technician in 1974. He co-founded Apple between 1976 and 1977 and was fired from Apple in 1985. That year marked an important transition in his career. He founded NeXT in 1985 and invested in Pixar in 1986. In 1996 he sold NeXT to Apple, in early 1997 he returned to Apple as an advisor to the CEO, and in the summer of 1997 he was named interim CEO. The second career transition of 1997 occurred twelve years after he departed from Apple in 1985.

I found that both career transitions precisely coincided with Jupiter’s retrograde cycles on his natal Mercury in 1985 and 1997. A careful reading of his biography also reveals that the previous transit of Jupiter on Mercury, in 1973-74, also coincided with a transitional time frame between his student years at Reed College and the All One Farm commune in 1972 and 1973, and his first job at Atari in 1974. The final transit of Jupiter on Mercury in 2009 coincided with his six-month leave of absence to receive a liver transplant.

Transitional versus foundational products

Astrology makes an important qualitative distinction between the Midheaven - associated with the career’s purpose and climaxes - and the Imum Coeli - connected with one’s foundations and family roots. Furthermore, the first half of Jupiter’s cycle is qualitatively different from the second half because each half-cycle includes transits to two different sets of planets:

• Venus, Mercury, the Sun, the Moon and Mars, when rising towards the Midheaven;
• Jupiter, Uranus, Pluto, Neptune and Saturn, when descending towards the Imum Coeli.

The symbolism associated with planetary cycles, based on the pattern of the lunation cycle, suggests that, as a whole, every Jupiter cycle should have a noticeable red thread where the achievement reached in the first half of the cycle would be consistent with the result of the second half of the cycle. Metaphorically speaking, the “fruit” or “flower” produced at the Full Moon phase, and the “seed” produced at the New Moon phase, should be of the same “species”.

I found a qualitative difference between the three innovations associated with the Jupiter transits on the Midheaven, and the other three related to the Imum Coeli. The “Midheaven innovations” - the Apple II, the NeXT Computer and the iPod - were discontinued after a relatively short lifespan and could be seen as transitional products. By contrast, the “Imum Coeli innovations” - the Macintosh, Toy Story and the iPhone - have continued to evolve until today, and could be considered the true “masterpieces” of Steve Jobs’ career. His innovations can be combined into pairs to form a cohesive whole made of three Jupiter cycles, where the product completed in the middle of a cycle is an intermediary step - like a flower or fruit - while the product achieved at the end of the cycle is a “foundational” of a long-lived product line - a seed that became a new tree.

A synthesis of Steve Jobs’ career based on cycles

In summary, Steve Jobs’ career reached a new climax every six years and was structured into three parts of approximately twelve years each. The three main parts of Steve Jobs’ career coincided with three 12-year Jupiter cycles from his natal Mercury. The innovations achieved during the transits of Jupiter on the Midheaven were transitional products that were eventually discontinued. By contrast, the innovations completed during the transits on the Imum Coeli can be considered the great “masterpieces” of his career.

The whole career of Steve Jobs could be summarised as follows:

1. “The rise and fall of Steve Jobs” (1973-1985): After his formative experiences at Reed College and the All One Farm commune in 1972-73, his career started with his job at Atari in 1974. He co-founded Apple in 1976, achieved great success with the Apple I in 1977 and launched the Macintosh six years later, in 1983-84. He was fired from Apple in 1985. This first part of his career, from the precocious success to the unexpected fall from grace, strongly resonates with the story of Icarus. The Macintosh was the great achievement of this cycle. It later evolved into the iMac product line available today. The Apple II was Apple’s first mass-produced computer and became its “cash cow” for about ten years, but the product line was discontinued in 1993 as it had become obsolete.
2. “The labours of Steve Jobs” (1985-1997): Steve Jobs founded NeXT Computer in 1985 and invested in Pixar in 1986, but he struggled with both companies for about ten years, as their initial business plans failed. Jobs shifted Pixar’s strategy into the co-production of a feature film with Disney. Toy Story was the greatest blockbuster of 1995 and Jobs became a billionaire following Pixar’s IPO. And NeXT shifted its strategy toward its operating system. The two great achievements of this cycle were Toy Story, the first computer-animated blockbuster, that continues to have sequels and prequels, and NeXTSTEP, which was the seed to develop Apple’s next generation operating system, Mac OS X. The intermediary products of this cycle were the Pixar Image Computer and the NeXT Computer. The hardware of both computers was dropped between 1990 and 1991, but their core software was used to create Toy Story and NeXTSTEP.
3. “The apotheosis of Steve Jobs” (1997-2009): In an unexpected turn of events, Jobs sold NeXT to Apple and returned to the company as an advisor to the CEO in early 1997, twelve years after being fired. He became interim CEO in the summer of 1997, restructured the company and formulated its new strategy around the idea that the computer was becoming a “digital hub” for multimedia devices. The introduction of the iPod portable music player, released in 2001 in the middle of this cycle, was a great success. Six years later, the revolutionary iPhone allowed Apple to become the new leader of the smartphone industry. The iPhone was the masterpiece of this cycle. The iPod Classic was discontinued in 2014 and the whole iPod product line was discontinued in 2022 because its functionality has been integrated into the iPhone and the Apple Watch.
4. “The final years of Steve Jobs” (2009-2011): Jobs had been fighting pancreatic cancer since 2003 and went on medical leave in January 2009 to receive a liver transplant. After recovering from his surgery, Steve Jobs returned to Apple in the fall of 2009, launched the iPad in 2010, and went on another medical leave in January 2011. He made his last public appearances in June to introduce iCloud and to present the Apple Park project. He resigned in August and died in October 2011.

Turning points and crisis

Because Steve Jobs' career lasted about 35 years, it’s not possible to highlight that many repetitive patterns related to Saturn’s cycle of 29,5 years. Nevertheless, there are a few significant patterns worth mentioning.

The first transit of Saturn on his natal Jupiter-Uranus conjunction, in 1975, is strongly correlated with the materialisation of his potential as an innovator, which translated into the foundation of Apple and its first products, the Apple I and the Apple II. Thirty years later, in 2004-05, the same transit coincided with the iPhone project, which completely renewed Apple and put it on its course to becoming a technology giant.

The Saturn return of 1984-85 coincided with the power struggle against the CEO he had hired. It marked a major crisis in his career and the transition that began when he was fired from Apple in the summer of 1985. Two years later, the transits of Saturn on the Imum Coeli in 1987 marked a turning point in his personal story as an adopted child, when he reconnected with his biological mother after the death of his adoptive mother. There is a striking contrast between the personal crisis of 1985-87 and the career climax he reached around 2001 when the iPod was released. That peak of success occurred between the Saturn opposition in 2000 and the transit on the Midheaven in 2002-03.

2) Steve Jobs’ itineraries towards his innovations

Every creative process towards his innovations was a personal journey in which Steve Jobs met with different archetypal energies. Each 12-year cycle followed a common pattern defined by the transits of Jupiter around the birth chart. But each Jupiter cycle was also unique because it included specific transits of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune which reflect the transformation of the young entrepreneur into an outstanding business leader who has been compared with Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Saturn is particularly relevant to understanding the process of materialisation of his vision into tangible products. It also helps to understand how his family life had a strong influence on his creative journey. Uranus and Neptune speak about his visionary insights about the evolution of computers and handheld digital devices.

The rise of Icarus: from the Blue Boxes to the Apple II

Steve Jobs in 1972
Source: Homestead High School, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Apple II, in typical 1977 configuration with 9" monochrome monitor, game paddles, and Red Book recommended RQ-309DS cassette deck
Source: FozzTexx, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak's first business partnership occurred as early as 1971 when Jobs was only 16 years old. In October 1971, they read the article “The Secrets of the Little Blue Box” by Ron Rosenbaum which described that it was relatively easy to build an electronic device to make long-distance calls for free. Wozniak designed and built a Blue Box and Jobs started to sell them for 150 dollars. “If it hadn't been for the blue boxes, there wouldn't have been an Apple", Jobs later reflected. "I'm 100% sure of that. Woz and I learned how to work together and we gained the confidence that we could solve technical problems and actually put something into production." They had created a device with a little circuit board that could control billions of dollars worth of infrastructure. "You cannot believe how much confidence that gave us." (Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson, Chapter 42). This formative experience coincided with the transit of Jupiter on Jobs’ Imum Coeli in December 1971.

Between 1971 and 1977, Jupiter rose from the Imum Coeli to the Midheaven and transited all the personal planets: Venus, Mercury, the Sun, the Moon and Mars. After a hippie period focused on spirituality in 1972 and 1973, Steve Jobs returned to his passion for electronics in early 1974 when he started a job at Atari as a technician. This coincided with the transit of Jupiter on Mercury (December 1973 and January 1974), which can be described as a period of intense learning. He left for India in mid-1974 and returned to Atari in early 1975.

1975 was a pivotal year: Jobs and Wozniak collaborated again on the development of a circuit board for Atari’s Breakout arcade video game. Most significantly, they attended the meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club, where they discovered the emerging field of personal computing. This is when Wozniak started to design his personal computer. The year 1975 coincided with the transit of Saturn on Jobs’ Jupiter-Uranus conjunction (June and July 1975). This was a key transit that can be correlated with the foundation of Apple less than a year later.

By March 1976, Wozniak had completed the first design of what became the first Apple Computer or Apple I. Jobs convinced Wozniak that they could sell it. This precisely coincided with Jupiter’s transit on Mars (March 1976) which can be interpreted as the awakening of the entrepreneur. Jobs and Wozniak formed the Apple Computer Company and started to sell the Apple I in April 1976.

The modest success of their first computer motivated them to think big and they started working on a personal computer that could be mass-produced. But this time Jobs took the lead in the design process. He had a strong vision of what the product should look like and paid attention to every aspect. While the Apple I had been Wozniak’s baby, the Apple II was Jobs’ baby. It was at this point that Steve Jobs first demonstrated his Venusian talent as a design leader. Jobs and Wozniak released the Apple II in June 1977, shortly before the transit of Jupiter on Jobs’ Midheaven (July 1977). It was one of the first mass-produced personal computers and its phenomenal success established Apple as one of the leading players in the personal computer revolution.

The timeframe of six years from 1971 to 1977 can be seen as a creative process that started with the Blue Boxes (Jupiter on the Imum Coeli). After his spiritual journey through India, Jobs returned to his passion for electronics with his friend Steve Wozniak (Saturn on the natal Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in the summer of 1975). They decided to become computer entrepreneurs and released their first product (Jupiter on natal Mars in April 1976). This half-cycle of Jupiter culminated with the extraordinary success of the Apple II (Jupiter on the Midheaven). Jupiter’s transits brought confidence, optimism and teamwork to the newborn entrepreneur (Mars) and design leader (Venus). And the Saturn transits provided the focus and perseverance to the businessman and innovator (the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction).

The journey of a pirate captain: the Macintosh

But in 1977 Steve Jobs was only halfway through the first Jupiter cycle of his career. The second half of the cycle would be decisive to strengthen the position of Apple in the nascent market of personal computers. Jobs knew that the success of the Apple II wouldn't last forever, and his priority was to ensure Apple’s success in the long term.

From 1977 to 1983 Jupiter descended from the Midheaven towards the Imum Coeli and transited the transpersonal planets: Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and Saturn. The difference with the first half-cycle is striking and suggests that this second half of the cycle would be much more challenging than the first one.

The project that led, first to the Apple Lisa, and eventually to the Macintosh, started in 1978. That year coincided with Jobs’ second Jupiter return on his Jupiter-Uranus conjunction (June and July 1978) which put a strong emphasis on innovation. But the key ingredient for the creative process behind the Macintosh was Jobs’ visit to Xerox PARC in 1979, where he learned about the graphical user interface (GUI) and the mouse that visionary researchers such as Alan Kay had invented. The visionary nature of the Macintosh draws the attention to Neptune, which was highlighted by the transit of Jupiter (November 1981), and the transits of Saturn (Nov 1982, May-June 1983 and Jul-Aug 1983) during the final months of the project. Furthermore, most of the project also coincided with the transit of Neptune on his Imum Coeli (1979-81). In the Steve Jobs biography, Walter Isaacson describes with great anecdotes how the Macintosh team members saw themselves as “pirates” and viewed Steve Jobs as their “captain”. This character can be associated with the Mars-Neptune opposition in Jobs’ birth chart.

Steve Jobs with the Macintosh in 1984
Source: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Six years after the Apple II, the launch of the Macintosh, announced in October 1983 and released in January 1984, coincided with Jupiter’s transit on the Imum Coeli (December 1983). It was the first mass-produced personal computer that started to democratise a radically new operating system based on the graphical user interface (GUI) and the mouse. This visionary computer was very much ahead of its time. It would take a whole decade for this new paradigm to become the new standard for personal computers.

The creative process leading to the Macintosh started with an intention of renewal of Apple’s product line and was fed by the visionary inventions seen at Xerox PARC. This full cycle began in 1971 with the Blue Boxes, reached the first climax in 1977 with the Apple II and a second climax with the epic launch of the Macintosh in January 1984 through the famous television commercial “1984” and Steve Jobs’ memorable keynote. In the first half of the Jupiter cycle, from 1971 to 1977, Jobs demonstrated his talent for disruptive entrepreneurship. During the second half of the Jupiter cycle, from 1977 to 1983, he became known as a visionary. In the next part of this article, we will see how these two distinct talents can be associated with two different threads in Steve Jobs’ career, one follows the Saturn-Uranus synodic cycle and the other the Saturn-Neptune cycle.

The labours of Prometheus: NeXT and Pixar

The next twelve years were the most difficult of Steve Jobs’ career, as he continuously struggled with his two new ventures, NeXT and Pixar. The cycle leading to the NeXT Computer started very shortly after the release of the Macintosh when Steve Jobs was fired from Apple in the summer of 1985. His departure from the company he had co-founded was the outcome of his power struggle with the CEO he hired two years earlier. The whole period of this conflict coincided with his Saturn return (November and December 1984; June to August 1985).

During the next few years, his focus shifted to his family. After the death of his mother, in 1986, he reconnected with his biological mother and found out that he had a biological sister. This period strongly resonates with the “roots” symbolism of Saturn’s transit on his Imum Coeli (1987).

The NeXT Computer was announced in 1988 and experimented in 1989, at the time of the Jupiter transit on the Midheaven (June 1989). At the time, Saturn was transiting the 5th whole sign house and by the time it reached Venus in 1990, it became clear that it had been a commercial failure. Jobs was forced to shift the strategy towards the NeXTSTEP operating system. NeXT would eventually drop its hardware in 1993. This “evaporation” of the hardware in favour of the software can be associated with the 1993 Uranus-Neptune conjunction within a few degrees of Jobs’ natal Venus. The final release of the NeXTSTEP operating system, in 1995, coincided with Jupiter’s transit on the Imum Coeli (December 1995). Thanks to its cutting-edge multimedia and Internet capabilities, NeXTSTEP became the key asset that would allow Steve Jobs to sell NeXT to Apple in 1996 and eventually return to Apple in 1997.

Steve Jobs' transits in 1990

In 1989, during the Jupiter transit on the Midheaven, Pixar won an Oscar for its computer-animated short film Tin Toy, which was initially intended as a demonstration of what could be accomplished with Pixar’s Image Computer. Also in 1989, Disney’s animated feature film The Little Mermaid was released. Its final scene was created using Pixar’s innovative CAPS digital ink and paint system. But the 1990 transit of Saturn on Venus also coincided with a difficult time for the Pixar Image Computer business, which continued to lose money. Jobs decided to sell its operations and radically shifted Pixar’s strategy by signing a contract with Disney to co-produce the first computer-animated feature film which became Toy Story. This was a key turning point in his career as a businessman. It marked a shift from his “Icarian” period at Apple and his “Promethean” period at NeXT when his obsession with controlling every aspect of his products reached neurotic proportions. Instead, the Pixar-Disney co-production meant that both companies would have to collaborate very closely. Jobs focused on managing the business relationship with Disney but he had to trust other people with directing and producing the movie.

This critical shift can be correlated with the 1990 transit of Saturn on Venus and with the 1993 Uranus-Neptune conjunction within a few degrees from Venus which deeply transformed Jobs’ mindset. During that time frame, he met the woman of his life, Laurene Powell (1989). They got married and had their first child (1991). And his father died (1993). This cycle of his career reached an impressive climax in November 1995 with the highly successful release of Toy Story, and Pixar’s initial public offering, which made Steve Jobs a billionaire. Both events coincided with Jupiter’s transit on the Imum Coeli.

In summary, the Jupiter cycle from 1983 to 1995 had a distinctive red thread of personal transformation, completely different from the previous 1971-1983 cycle which resonated with the story of Icarus. Steve Jobs’ creative journey was strongly intertwined with his journey of reconnecting with his family roots. During this cycle, Jobs’ Promethean obsession with hardware was transformed as he learned to let go of what wasn’t essential - the hardware - to keep only the essential - the 3D-animation software and the operating system. Only those could be used as seeds for the next cycle. It was also a Venusian journey of achieving a creative and balanced partnership with a mighty partner (Disney).

The apotheosis: from the iPod to the iPhone

An original tray loading "Bondi Blue" iMac, 1998
Source: Based on [http://flickr.com/photos/motoe/86835191/ this photograph] from Flickr, taken by '''[http://flickr.com/people/motoe/ Masashige MOTOE]''' and released under CC-BY-SA-2.0.

The next cycle started when, against all expectations, Jobs managed to sell NeXT to Apple in late 1996. Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 when Saturn transited his Moon (Jun-Aug 1996 and March 1997). He restructured the company to save it from bankruptcy, launched the “Think different” campaign during the transit of Jupiter on his Mercury retrograde (1997) and introduced the iMac in 1998.

The year 2001 was one of the most impressive years in Apple’s history: iTunes was introduced in January, Mac OS X was introduced in March and the first physical Apple Store opened in May ahead of Jupiter’s transit on Jobs' Midheaven (June 2001). The year reached its climax in October with the release of the iPod portable music player. The iPod extended Apple’s reach into the realm of handheld digital devices. Less than a year later, Saturn’s transit on the Midheaven (June-July 2002 and Feb-March 2003) coincided with a climax in Steve Jobs’ career, when Apple’s rebirth from its ashes demonstrated his outstanding talents as a leader, strategist and visionary.

Steve Jobs' transits in 2005

This important transit of Saturn also marked the origins of the iPhone project in 2002, and its development coincided with an impressive convergence of transits in 2004-05: Saturn on his Jupiter-Uranus conjunction, Uranus on his Sun and Neptune on Mercury.

Steve Jobs announced the iPhone in January 2007 and it was released in June. Its success can be correlated with Jupiter’s transit on the Imum Coeli (November 2007). During the next few years, the iPhone disrupted the smartphone industry and skyrocketed Apple as one of the largest technology companies in the world.

The final projects: the iPad, iCloud and Apple Park

The release of the iPad in 2010 coincided with the transit of Jupiter on the Sun in February 2010. Steve Jobs’ last significant projects, the iCloud service, and Apple’s new campus, the Apple Park, were presented in June 2011 during the final transit of Jupiter on Mars that same month. Steve Jobs died in October 2011 before the next transit of Jupiter on his Midheaven.

3) Steve Jobs’ odyssey in the high seas of the digital revolution

How did Steve Jobs’ career and innovations fit into the bigger picture of the digital revolution? In the third part of this article, I take another perspective on Steve Jobs’ career by focusing on the three synodic cycles formed by Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

The dynamics of innovation: waves, storms and cataclysms

My essay about the history of computers and the digital revolution suggests that the three synodic cycles formed by Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are highly relevant to follow the dynamics of innovation in the context of the digital revolution. The alignments in the 36-year Saturn-Neptune cycle coincide with visionary inventions, radically new approaches and technological breakthroughs. They could be described through the metaphor of “waves of visionary innovation”. Those imaginative leaps redefine what is possible and, during hard alignments in the 45-year Saturn-Uranus cycle, enable new players to challenge the established players, accelerating the renewal of existing industries and allowing the emergence of entirely new industries. These can be illustrated as “storms of market disruptions”. Both cycles are often highlighted by the stellia, conjunctions and aspect patterns with Jupiter.

These two threads unfold in the wider context of the 172-year Uranus-Neptune cycle, which represents long-term cultural, ideological and technological currents. The hard alignments of the Uranus-Neptune cycle are like “cultural and technological tsunamis” that mark a turning point once or twice per century. They can be associated with new cultural artefacts like the typewriter, the radio or the computer.

The three threads of the digital revolution

The following 1930-1970 timeline of the conjunctions and the oppositions between Saturn, Uranus and Neptune illustrate the main “waves” of innovations and “storms” of disruption that marked the beginning of the digital revolution:

Timeline 1930 to 1969
Source: Diagram created by the author

The framework described above can be used to follow the history of the digital revolution through three tracks that run in parallel:

1. The thread of visionary inventions and breakthrough technologies: The Saturn-Neptune opposition of 1936-37 is considered by Water Isaacson as the “annus mirabilis” when the breakthrough technologies that enabled the invention of the digital electronic computer became available (The Innovators, Walter Isaacson, page 38). The cycle that started at the Saturn-Neptune conjunction of 1952 gave birth to the core technologies - the transistor and the microprocessor - that enabled the miniaturisation of computers and the emergence of personal computing. The conjunction of 1989 coincided with the birth of the World Wide Web and the evolution of handheld digital devices such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants. The next cycle will begin in 2026.
2. The process of growth of the computer industry: The 1942-1988 Saturn-Uranus cycle coincided with the growth and decay of the industry of mainframe computers. IBM’s dominance reached a climax at the time of the opposition in the mid-1960s and started to be challenged by the first personal computers from the squares of 1975-77. The conjunction of 1988 marked the rise of the new industries of personal computers, mobile phones and Internet services. The next cycle will begin in 2032.
3. The long-term paradigm shifts that create new cultural and technological ages: The Uranus-Neptune squares of 1954-56 marked the start of the age of mainframe computers. The conjunction of 1993 coincided with a tidal wave of digitalisation of the economy, made possible by the democratisation of the Internet, personal computers and mobile phones. The squares of 2039-41 are the next hard alignment.

A perspective on Steve Jobs’ birth chart

Steve Jobs, natal chart, 24 February 1955 at 19:15 (= 7:15 PM) San Francisco, California.
Source: Astrodatabank, RR: AA

In Steve Jobs’ birth chart, the numerous aspects between Saturn, Uranus and Neptune reflect his visionary and disruptive qualities. He was born in 1955, during the Uranus-Neptune squares of 1954-56, shortly before the Saturn-Uranus trines of 1956-57, and after the Saturn-Neptune conjunction of 1952. And Jupiter was applying to its conjunction with Uranus and highlighting all those aspects. The Jupiter-Uranus conjunction is a key factor in the delineation of Steve Jobs’ birth chart. However, my current understanding is that the other aspects between Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are equally important.

The Jupiter-Saturn trine suggests a talent for business and organisation. The Jupiter-Uranus conjunction is often associated with technology and innovation. In the case of Steve Jobs, it is visible in his talent as a technology entrepreneur and as a leader of innovation teams. It can also be correlated with his ability to renew a business and to create innovative forms of organisation. The Saturn-Uranus trine reflects the rebellious talent that he repeatedly used to change the status quo of several industries. The proximity between Saturn and Neptune resonates with his talent as a visionary leader, but also with his famous “reality distortion field” repeatedly mentioned by his biographer. And the Uranus-Neptune square suggests that he belonged to a generation that contributed to the emergence of a new cultural and technological age.

That highly cohesive pattern of aspects suggest that Steve Jobs had the talent of a visionary capable of leading innovation teams through the creative process of leveraging new technologies and/or integrating them into radically new products. Those innovations contributed to “waves of innovation” (Saturn-Neptune alignments) and allowed Apple to participate as a disruptive player in “storms of market disruption” (Saturn-Uranus alignments) that renewed the computer, music and smartphone industries.

Following the threads of Steve Jobs’ career

Steve Jobs’ earliest entrepreneurial experience with the Blue Boxes coincided with the Saturn-Neptune oppositions of 1971-72, and his career took off when he co-founded Apple at the Saturn-Uranus squares of 1975-77. It culminated when he introduced the iPhone at the time of the Saturn-Neptune oppositions of 2006-07 and it ended shortly after the Saturn-Uranus oppositions of 2008-10.

All the key steps in Steve Jobs’ career coincided with alignments in the Saturn-Neptune cycle (SN) and/or with alignments in the Saturn-Uranus cycle (SU):

• His first entrepreneurial experience with the Blue Boxes coincided with the SN oppositions of 1971-72.
• Steve Jobs co-founded Apple and released the Apple II during the SU squares of 1975-77 and the SN trines of 1976-77.
• He visited Xerox PARC and had the vision for the Macintosh at the time of the SN squares of 1979-80 which overlapped with SU sextiles.
• The Macintosh was introduced shortly after the SN sextiles of 1982-1983.
• The NeXT Computer was introduced at the time of the Saturn-Uranus-Neptune stellium of 1988-89.
• The great success of Toy Story and the IPO of Pixar coincided with the SN sextiles of 1995-96.
• The sale of NeXT to Apple and his return to Apple occurred during the SU sextiles of 1996-97.
• The iMac was released during the SN squares of 1998-99.
• Apple’s “digital hub” strategy was formulated at the time of the SU squares of 1999-2000.
• The iPod was introduced at the time of the SN trines of 2001-02.
• The iPhone was launched at the end of the SN oppositions of 2006-2007.
• The iPad was introduced at the end of the SU oppositions of 2008-10.
• His career ended shortly after this alignment when he resigned from Apple in 2011.

Steve Jobs’ career as a visionary innovator can be understood by following the thread of one complete Saturn-Neptune cycle, from the oppositions of 1971-72 until the oppositions of 2006-07. It started with the Blue Boxes and reached a final climax of innovation with the iPhone. The other dimension of his career, as a disruptive entrepreneur, can be described through Saturn-Uranus alignments, from the squares of 1975-77 when he co-founded Apple until the oppositions of 2008-2010 that coincided with the iPad and the Apple Park project.

The timeline below shows the alignments between Saturn, Uranus and Neptune from 1970 to 1989:

Timeline 1970 to 1989
Source: Diagram created by the author

Pioneer of the personal computer revolution

The earliest experience that prepared Steve Jobs to become an entrepreneur was his formative business with the Blue Boxes, during the Saturn-Neptune oppositions of 1971-72. The microprocessor was released during that alignment.

The microprocessor was the core technology that enabled the emergence of the first microcomputers, starting with the Altair 8800 in 1975. The three pivotal years from 1975, when Jobs and Wozniak joined the Homebrew Computer Club, until 1977 when the Apple II was released, precisely coincided with the Saturn-Uranus squares of 1975-77 and with the Saturn-Neptune trine of 1976-77. By founding Apple and creating one of the first mass-produced personal computers, Jobs and Wozniak “caught the wave” of the personal computer revolution.

The next breakthrough was the Macintosh, which redefined personal computers. It coincided with the Saturn-Neptune sextiles of 1982-83 and with the Jupiter-Uranus-Neptune stellium of 1983-84. The vision for the Macintosh came from Jobs’ visit to Xerox PARC, where he learned about the visionary inventions of the GUI and mouse, during the Saturn-Neptune squares and the Saturn-Uranus sextiles of 1979-80.

New business models

The next major alignment was the stellium formed by Saturn, Uranus and Neptune between 1988 and 1989. During this timeframe, Steve Jobs struggled with both his new ventures NeXT and Pixar. Neither the NeXT Computer nor the Pixar Image Computer was commercially viable. Pixar’s hardware division was sold in 1990 and NeXT’s hardware division was sold in 1993. In retrospect, it seems like the 1988-89 stellium represented a dissolution of the “computer manufacturer” business model that Steve Jobs had followed with the Apple II and the Macintosh. During that time, the whole computer industry went through a tidal wave of renewal that marked the end of the mainframe computer industry. The companies that emerged as the new leaders followed radically new business models: Microsoft licensed its operating system and Intel supplied its chips to assemblers of personal computers such as Compaq and HP.

The timeline below shows the alignments between Saturn, Uranus and Neptune from 1990 to 2010:

Timeline 1990 to 2011
Source: Diagram created by the author

Because Steve Jobs was born during the Uranus-Neptune squares of 1954-56, one would expect his biography to resonate with the Uranus-Neptune conjunction of 1993. Remarkably, that conjunction was within 4 degrees of Jobs’ Venus in his birth chart. Venus represents the creative side of one’s personality. This suggests that Jobs’ creativity underwent a major transformation around 1993. And indeed, it was around that time that he radically shifted the strategy of both NeXT and Pixar. From 1991, NeXT focused on developing NeXTSTEP, a next-generation operating system with advanced multimedia and internet capabilities. And Pixar focused on being a 3D-animation studio and made a deal with Disney to co-produce Toy Story.

In November 1995, at the time of the Saturn-Neptune sextiles of 1995-96, Toy Story was released and rose to the top of the Box Office. And Pixar’s initial public offering made Steve Jobs a billionaire. This alignment coincided with two peaks of innovation in the field of personal computing that would help Steve Jobs to return to Apple. With the release of Windows 95, the more affordable PC became as easy to use as an Apple Macintosh. Also in 1995, as the Internet became fully commercialised in the United States, the computer industry realised that the World Wide Web was the next tidal wave that would transform the industry.

Both innovations led to a time frame of disruption in the market of personal computers, during the Saturn-Uranus sextiles of 1996-97. The market share of the Windows PC increased rapidly while Apple decreasing sales put the company at risk of bankruptcy. Furthermore, Apple had failed to develop its next-generation operating system that could compete against Windows. In a desperate move, Apple acquired NeXT for its NeXTSTEP operating system and Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997.

From computers to portable music players

Several models and gerneations of iPods
Source: Chris Harrison from Augusta, GA, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

One year after Jobs’ return, during the next Saturn-Neptune squares of 1998-99, Apple made its comeback to the playfield of the personal computer industry with the iMac. That iconic product represented Apple’s first move into its new “digital hub” strategy where the Mac would become the hub for connecting to digital cameras and music players, to edit movies, photo albums and playlists.

The next wave of market disruption came with the Saturn-Uranus squares of 1999-2000. It developed into several threads, including the burst of the Dot-com bubble in 2000 and the exponential growth of file-sharing platforms such as Napster, which threatened the music business. Steve Jobs saw the opportunity of proposing a solution to this problem. The iTunes software for the Mac and the iPod portable music player were both released in 2001, during the Saturn-Neptune trines of 2001-02. Two years later, Apple completed its end-to-end solution with the iTunes Store. It created an entirely new business for Apple and reshaped the entire music distribution industry. It was released during the Saturn-Uranus trines of 2002-03.

In this sequence, we can observe how the Saturn-Uranus alignments coincided with the disruptions of established markets, while the Saturn-Neptune cycle marked visionary strategies and technologies that provided the necessary conditions for the disruptions to occur.

The next big thing: a multipurpose handheld device

The next alignments followed the same pattern. As one would expect, a major innovation was released during the Saturn-Neptune oppositions of 2006-07 but the depth of the disruption that it provoked only became clear by the end of the Saturn-Uranus oppositions of 2008-10.

Steve Jobs with the new iphone 4 in 2010
Source: Matthew Yohe, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

When Apple released the iPhone in 2007, with its radically new form factor based on a touchscreen without a keyboard, it was dismissed by Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, as “the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard”. Google jumped on this unique opportunity and released the Android operating system (2008). By 2010, the iPhone’s approach had become the new standard for smartphones. Apple, Google and Samsung became the new leaders of the industry. And Microsoft’s attempts to catch up with its Windows Phone (2010) became one of the most spectacular failures in corporate history. The story of the iPhone remains one of the most dramatic examples of how a visionary product can reshuffle the cards of an entire industry in a timeframe of just a few years.

Furthermore, the Jupiter cycle between the Imum Coeli and the Midheaven, described in the second part of this article, provides unique insights into the creative journey that led Steve Jobs to such a successful strategy. Looking backwards, the 1995-2007 Jupiter cycle that gave birth to the iPhone can be seen as a long-term innovation path where Steve Jobs shifted Apple’s focus from computers to the larger ecosystem of digital devices. The iPod portable music player was just the first step in that direction. Halfway through the cycle, Jobs realised that its whole iPod and iTunes business would be challenged by smartphones from Nokia or Motorola. The only viable solution was to disrupt themselves by creating their smartphone. In other words, the experience with the iPod led Steve Jobs to the visionary insight that “the next big thing” would be a “convergence handheld device” that would integrate the functionality of a mobile phone, a portable music player, a digital camera and a personal digital assistant into a single device.

The unique benefits of astrology

Astrology invites us to extend our awareness of natural cycles beyond the daily, monthly and yearly rhythms of the Earth, the Moon and the Sun. The geometry of the solar system, made of the concentric orbits of the planets, suggests the existence of additional natural cycles. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune should reflect deeper dimensions of human experience. The unique value of the astrological perspective is that it allows us to give meaning to an event, project or experience by putting it in the wider context of something bigger - a planetary cycle - which follows the archetypal process of growth and transformation represented by the lunation cycle. A perspective based on planetary cycles also adds meaning at a collective level and increases our understanding of history.

This article about Steve Jobs’ career highlights three unique benefits of astrology:

1. An appreciation of the nuances of someone’s “creativity”, which can be associated with different planetary archetypes. It can come from the delineation of the birth chart but also by paying attention to the mythological characters that “speak” through the person’s words and personal story.
2. The unique itinerary of a creative process is indicated by planetary transits around the birth chart. Being aware of personal transits can clarify and energise a person’s creative process by adding universal significance to his or her personal experience.
3. The timeline of Saturn-Neptune and Saturn-Uranus alignments helps to understand the dynamics of innovation and provides unique insights into the history of technology. It can be used to forecast years of “innovation waves” and years of “market disruptions”.

Note:
I’ve written this article in loving memory of my father Rafael who passed on to me his passion as a dedicated pathfinder and writer.

References:
Steve Jobs birth data: 24 February 1955 at 19:15 (= 7:15 PM) San Francisco, California. Source: birth certificate, Astro Databank.
Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, 2011.
The Innovators, Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, 2014.
"The history of computers and the digital revolution", Felipe Avila Reyes, The Astrological Journal, September/October 2022.
"The information age", Felipe Avila Reyes, The Astrological Journal, November/December 2022.

Author:
Felipe Avila Reyes is an innovation coach, trainer and consultant based in Paris. He integrates astrology into the creative process of his coaching consultations and workshops. Website: https://www.skygarden.studio/

© Felipe Avila Reyes, 2022