Plot

The advent of the computer age promises to change the way people work and interact with the outside world. One expert proclaims that with the computer, business leaders will be able to work from anywhere in the world, people won't be stuck in cities anymore. They could work whenever and wherever.

In 1984, Cupertino, California. The Apple Macintosh's voice demo fails less than an hour before its unveiling. 28-year-old Apple co-founder Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) demands engineer Andy Hertzfeld fix it. Hertzfeld is one of the original inventors of the Apple Macintosh. Hertzfeld says that the hardware has failed and a result the machine would not say "hello" to the audience. Steve is adamant that the "hello" is an integral part of the presentation, while also arguing with an employee that the exit signs of the auditorium have to be switched off for complete darkness, even though it is in complete contravention to the safety regulations. The employee informs him that the fire department will not let them dim the lights for safety reasons, he tells her, if a fire causes a stampede to the unmarked exits, it will have been well worth it for those who survive.

Hertzfeld says that he needs special tools to get into the hardware as Steve designed the machine so that ordinary users could not tinker with it. As a result, nobody at the auditorium had the tools to open the machine. Steve wants to sell 3 million of the new machines in 3 months. Joanna (marketing executive) suggests pushing the demonstration back while they work on the voice feature, but Steve says they will always start exactly on time

Andy Hertzfeld finds Steve and tells him he still can't get the voice feature to work. Steve tells him to fix it and Andy says they're not a pit crew at Daytona; they can't fix this in seconds. Steve tells Andy they didn't have seconds; they had three weeks. The universe was created in a third of that time. Steve threatens to call out every single member who helped create the Macintosh computer on stage itemizing each team member by their creation and tells Andy that he will call him out by name in front of the hundreds of reporters when he gets to the voice feature that didn't work. Hertzfeld finally suggests faking the demo using the prototype Macintosh 512K computer, while the original demo version had a memory of 128K.

Joanna and Steve go backstage. She tries to convince him to just leave the "hello" out of his demo, that no one will realize there is supposed to be a voice program, but he is adamant because the demo machine's success will dictate whether he is a success or a failure. He also admits that he needs it to say hello because Hollywood has turned the computer into a monster in their films. This computer is designed to look warm and friendly and inviting, and he wants it to say hello. She acknowledges that HAL said hello and it scared her. Joanna complains about both the $2,500 price point of the machine and the fact that it doesn't have much memory; he tells her she can complain about one or the other, but memory will up the price point further so she can't complain about both. She asks why he is charging as much, and he explains that its new and innovative in that it's the first computer without programming language.

Jobs rants to marketing executive Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) about a Time magazine article exposing his paternity dispute with ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston). Steve finds boxes of TIME Magazine in the back and asks why they are there. She tells him it was a mistake they were going to leave them on all the chairs since it talked about how personal computers were to be the future. But they changed their mind because it was a scathing article that focuses on Steve having an illegitimate daughter, Lisa. Steve complains about the TIME article, saying that they put a drawing of a man and a PC on the cover. He says he was up for Man of the Year, but the journalist has some ill will towards him and that's why he's not on the cover. Joanna tells him Chrisann and Lisa are there, and she begs him to meet with her, to keep her from badmouthing him to the 335 reporters in the lobby.

Steve denies he is the father of Brennan's five-year-old daughter, Lisa (Perla Haney-Jardine). Brennan arrives with Lisa to confront him. She is bitter over his denials and his refusal to support her despite his wealth. Chrisann is frantic, saying that he inferred in the article that she slept with 28% of the country's population. He said he didn't say that -- but with a paternity test that says he's only 94.1% likely to be the father, he was quoted as saying that it meant 28% of the US population could be just as likely. She insists he called her a slut and points out that his Apple stock is up to 441 million, yet her and his daughter are going to have to be on welfare. He responds by shouting that Lisa is not his daughter.

Jobs bonds with Lisa over her MacPaint art and agrees to provide more money and a house. Lisa tells Steve she knows he named one of the Apple computers, the LISA, after her. He tells her it's something called a coincidence the machine actually stands for Local Integrated System Architecture. She is confused, wondering if he named her after the computer instead of the other way around. While Lisa plays on the computer, he raves about how the machine is the next big thing and will revolutionize how computers are used. He checks on Lisa's progress and then rotates the screen to Chrisann, revealing Lisa has used the MacPaint program to draw what she calls an abstract. He teaches her how to save the file she can already read the word Save, another sign that she is a gifted child. He has now warmed up to the little girl and tells Chrisann he will put enough money in her account to buy a house. She is skeptical but Joanna promises it will be so.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen) asks Jobs to acknowledge the Apple II team in his presentation, but Jobs feels that mentioning the aging computer is unwise. Woz tells Steve that the Apple II accounts for the bulk of Apples profits, but Steve is dismissive, only focused on the Macintosh and how excited everyone is after seeing the famous Super Bowl 1984 ad. Woz mentions that the Board hated it but Steve doesn't care about their opinion.

Steve Jobs notices a man with a floppy disk in his pocket getting into an elevator. He asks what size shirt the man is wearing, what size shirt he himself is wearing. He now wants a shirt with a pocket so he can keep the floppy disk in it and pull it out during the demonstration. He tells Joanna to find someone who wears the same size shirt as him, in white, and to give him his shirt in exchange, as well as a free computer. She asks why the shirt had to be white. He tells her the computer is beige so he must wear white to offset it.

Jobs meets Apple CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels) moments before he is going to be on stage. John voices that the Board was unhappy with the 1984 ad and Steve is argumentative, saying it looks like it should win an Academy Award for Best Short Film. John points out that it doesn't show the brand, its set in a dystopian future that the customers don't live in, that there were real-life skinheads in it. Steve argues that that's the look they wanted the characters to have but John counters that real skinheads are racists, and they're now associated with their brand if anyone finds out. John then asks Steve why he can only focus on being rejected instead of chosen, pointing out that if someone is adopted, it's not that their parents spent time with him and then gave him away it's that a couple chose him and agreed to raise him. Jobs admits that his need for control stems from his feelings of powerlessness in being given up by his biological parents.

Through news footage, it is revealed that the Macintosh was a huge disappointment, and it fell very short from Steve's projected one million in three-month projection. Instead, it only sold 50,000 in that time period. Steve was subsequently fired by Apple.

By 1988, following the failure of the Macintosh, Jobs has founded a new company, NeXT. Before the NeXT Computer launch at the War Memorial Opera House in 1988, he spends time with 9-year-old Lisa, but his relationship with Brennan is still strained; he accuses her of irresponsible behavior and of using Lisa to get money from him. The product is a black cube, and Steve is focused on the design he takes pride in that the machine is a perfect cube and is angry that some of the dimensions are off. Joanna tells him when he was at Apple, he made everyone uncomfortable, and they had contests every year for the person who did the best job standing up to him. She won three years in a row. Joanna then tells him he has reality distortion and reveals that years ago, when he was upset about TIME Magazine's cover, it wasn't a PC on the front but a sculpture of a computer. And he was never up for Man of the Year. This new information changes his perspective of things.

Wozniak arrives and predicts the NeXT will be another failure. Jobs confronts him about his public criticism of him, and Wozniak questions Jobs's contributions to computing history. Jobs defends his role as that of a conductor, who directs "musicians" like Wozniak. Steve is a bit condescending to Woz, which infuriates him. He points out that Steve isn't an engineer or a designer. Woz built the circuit board, the graphical interface was stolen, so why does he constantly have to hear that Steve Jobs is a genius. Steve tells him that he is the conductor; they are just the musicians.

Apple CEO John Sculley demands to know why the world believes he fired Jobs - Jobs was actually forced out by the Apple board, who were resolute on updating the Apple II following the Macintosh's lackluster sales. In flashback we see John meeting Steve at his home. Sculley tells him the Board just decided they want to get rid of Steve. They argue, with Steve pointing out that John hated the famous 1984 ad; John says they had skinheads in it and they didn't show the product. He points out how his Pepsi ads showed the soda, people drinking it. He then accuses John of trying to keep the ad off the air, but John tells him, "it's the opposite; without him, it wouldn't have aired at all." They had purchased various airtime two 30-second spots and one 60-second spot but after viewing the ad, the network didn't want to air it and insisted they auction off their time. But he kept the 60-second spot and that's how the commercial aired. Steve demands a meeting with the Board.

Despite Sculley's warnings, Jobs criticized the decision and dared them to cast a final vote on his tenure. Steve had forced the vote just to make John look like he was responsible for his departure.

Steve argues with John saying the Macintosh would have sold if they had set the price point at $1,495 instead of $2,495 but John says it's not the price; users were unimpressed with the machine.

Steve goes to his dressing room where Chrisann is waiting, demanding more money because she has to go to the doctor for a sinus infection. But he points out that records show she spent $1,500 of the money he's given her to bless her house, which she could have used for things like the doctor. He is furious with her because he knows people who know people and they have reported that Chrisann threw a bowl at Lisa's head. Chrisann defends the report, saying that she didn't throw it at her head that she threw it at the ground and Lisa wasn't even in the room. It is revealed that she was angry at Lisa for forgetting to set her alarm clock, which he says is not something a child should have to do anyway.

After Hoffman and Jobs discuss NeXT's unclear direction, she realizes that Jobs has designed the computer to entice Apple to buy the company and reinstate him. Steve reveals that the Macworld article was right his goal was to show his innovation and ideas so Apple would take notice, and he can be reinstated back in the company, as CEO.

Years go by and through real archival footage, we see that Apple falters in the 1990s with the one big gadget launch being The Newton, a PDA that turns whatever you write into computer text. It is mocked by the press and on The Simpsons and considered a failure.

By 1998, Apple has fired Sculley, purchased NeXT, and named Jobs CEO, and Jobs is about to unveil the Mac at Davies Symphony Hall. The Mac is revealed, beautiful for its transparency, bright color, side compartment for all the ports. Steve says that the video on the projection screen was the best he's ever seen. Andy Cunningham comes over and tells him it's because she's dimmed the Exit signs for a true blackout. He asks how she managed that, and she tells him she connected the light sources of the Exit signs to their system so they can turn them off for seven seconds.

Joanna takes Steve backstage, and she reveals that she has already reviewed the quotes and discloses what they say everyone is raving about the Mac and it is slated to sell a million units in three months. The statistics predict that 33% of the consumers will be people buying a personal computer for the first time and many PC users are slated to swap over to Mac. Steve is furious to learn that Lisa has allowed her mother to sell the house Jobs bought for them. Hoffman reminds Jobs that he threatened to withhold Lisa's college tuition. He defends this decision stating that Lisa's mom has sold the house he bought for them. Joanna tells him that's not Lisa's fault, but Steve says Lisa could have stopped her from doing so. Its later revealed that Chrisann sold the house at a fraction of its worth, the same thing she has done with sculptures she had previously bought at top dollar with the money Steve gave them. Joanna mentions that Chrisann needs money for doctor visits because she has a sinus infection. He tells her she's had the same sinus infection for 15 years.

Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg) (a member of the original Mac team) admits that he paid Lisa's tuition and suggested she attend therapy, stunning Jobs. Steve tells Andy that he will wire $25,000 into his account to reimburse him. Andy defends him paying for the tuition by explaining that word would let out that Steve Job's daughter had to miss out on her first semester at Harvard because her dad refused to pay the money, and it would have made Apple look bad.

Wozniak again asks that Jobs credit the Apple II team during the presentation, and again he refuses. Steve defends his decision to downsize and refuses to add anyone into his speech. He explains this by stating that there are A-players and B-players in the company and there's no reason to include B-players in his speech. Woz is defiant, stating that they aren't B-players, that the employees who design and build the machines are the reason the A-players can shine.

Sculley arrives in secret and the two make amends. He gives Steve a Newton, the gadget that Apple thought would be a big hit but was a flop. They have a cordial dialogue, and Steve reminds John of how he said that as an adopted child, he should feel selected, not rejected. But in reality, he was rejected the Catholic lawyer who originally adopted him sent him back to the adoption agency after a month. His mother refused to sign the adoption papers when the less-educated Jobs wanted to adopt him which Steve comments as being flabbergasting, that someone selects him, and they're still rejected. As they speak, we flashback to Steve in the early 80s trying to convince John, then president of Pepsi-Cola, to become CEO of Apple. He gets into an impassioned pitch about how the personal computer he's designing at Apple will be so inviting that everyone will have one, in the future. They are waited on by a nice Syrian waiter. John asks if Steve ever met his biological parents, and Steve admits he did meet his biological mom. John asks if he ever wants to meet his dad, and Steve says that they both have. We now see them again at the restaurant with the waiter he is Steve's father, whom Steve tracked down. John asks if he ever told the man he was his dad but Steve says no but he actually brags to customers that Steve Jobs comes into the restaurant. He fears revealing their relationship would end up in a lawsuit of his dad claiming some ownership of Apple.

At the behest of Hoffman, Jobs apologizes to Lisa for his mistakes, admitting that he is "poorly made". He confesses to Lisa that "the Lisa" was actually named after her. He also promises Lisa on seeing her Walkman that he's going to put more music in her pocket (the birth of the iPod). Lisa watches her father take the stage to introduce the Mac but only after he hands her the printout of the abstract she made as a kid on the original Macintosh, which he kept with him all those years.