Steve Job’s Biographer Walter Isaacson told CBS' "60 Minutes" in an interview on Sunday that the Apple CEO struggled with his beliefs about God in the time leading up to his death.
Isaacson related how Jobs, a self-proclaimed Buddhist, began to question God, the afterlife, and his personal purpose and meaning in the months before his death.
"I remember sitting in his backyard in his garden one day and he started talking about God," reminsced Isaacson. "He said, 'Sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I don't. I think it's 50-50 maybe. But ever since I've had cancer, I've been thinking about it more. And I find myself believing a bit more. I kind of – maybe it's cause I want to believe in an afterlife. That when you die, it doesn't just all disappear. The wisdom you've accumulated. Somehow it lives on.'"
Isaacson added: "Then he paused for a second and he said, 'Yeah, but sometimes I think it's just like an on-off switch. Click and you're gone.' He paused again, and he said, 'And that's why I don't like putting on-off switches on Apple devices.'"
In a recording aired on the show, Jobs also questioned the meaning of his own existence.
"I saw my life as an arc," Jobs said. "And that it would end and compared to that nothing mattered. You're born alone, you're gonna die alone. And does anything else really matter? I mean what is it exactly, is it that you have to lose Steve? You know? There's nothing."
Jobs revolutionised the digital world with his Apple products before he passed away on Oct. 5 after a long illness. Jobs was aged only 56 when he died.