This story is the subject of a fascinating exchange between Knuth and Randall Munroe in Munroe's Authors@Google talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24

This story is the subject of a fascinating exchange between Knuth and Randall Munroe in Munroe's Authors@Google talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24#t=25m25s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24#t=25m25s Knuth neither confirms nor outright denies the story, but says "I've only met [Jobs] a couple of times and in each case I was impressed by him probably more than he was impressed by me".