In 1972, Steve Wozniak designed his own version of the classic video game Pong. After finishing it, Wozniak gave the board to Jobs, who then took the game down to Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California. Atari thought that Jobs had built it and gave him a job as a technician.[21][22] Atari's cofounder Nolan Bushnell later described him as "difficult but valuable", pointing out that "he was very often the smartest guy in the room, and he would let people know that."[23]
In mid-1972, Jobs moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area and was renting his own apartment. Brennan states by this point that their "relationship was complicated. I couldn't break the connection and I couldn't commit. Steve couldn't either." Jobs hitchhiked and worked around the West Coast and Brennan would occasionally join him. At the same time, Brennan notes, "little by little, Steve and I separated. But we were never able to fully let go. We never talked about breaking up or going our separate ways and we didn't have that conversation where one person says it's over." They continued to grow apart, but Jobs would still seek her out, and visit her while she was working in a health food store or as a live-in babysitter. They remained involved with each other while continuing to see other people.[14]
By early 1973, Jobs was living what Brennan describes as a "simple life" in a Los Gatos cabin, working at Atari, and saving money for his impending trip to India. Brennan visited him twice at the cabin. She states in her memoir that her memories of this cabin consist of Jobs reading Be Here Now (and giving her a copy), listening to South Indian music, and using a Japanese meditation pillow. Brennan felt that he was more distant and negative toward her. Brennan states in her memoir that she met with Jobs right before he left for India and that he tried to give her a $100 bill that he had earned at Atari. She initially refused to accept it but eventually accepted the money.[24]
Jobs traveled to India in mid-1974[25] to visit Neem Karoli Baba[26] at his Kainchi ashram with his Reed friend (and eventual Apple employee) Daniel Kottke, in search of spiritual enlightenment. When they got to the Neem Karoli ashram, it was almost deserted because Neem Karoli Baba had died in September 1973.[22] Then they made a long trek up a dry riverbed to an ashram of Haidakhan Babaji. In India, they spent a lot of time on bus rides from Delhi to Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.[22]
After staying for seven months, Jobs left India[27] and returned to the US ahead of Daniel Kottke.[22] Jobs had changed his appearance; his head was shaved and he wore traditional Indian clothing.[28][29] During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, later calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life."[30][31] He spent a period at the All One Farm, a commune in Oregon and Brennan joined him there for a period.[14]
During this time period, both Jobs and Brennan became practitioners of Zen Buddhism through the Zen master Kōbun Chino Otogawa. Jobs was living with his parents again, in their backyard toolshed which he had converted into a bedroom with a sleeping bag, mat, books, a candle, and a meditation pillow.[14] Jobs engaged in lengthy meditation retreats at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the oldest Sōtō Zen monastery in the US.[32] He considered taking up monastic residence at Eihei-ji in Japan, and maintained a lifelong appreciation for Zen.[33] Jobs would later say that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not fully relate to his thinking.[30]
Jobs then returned to Atari and was assigned to create a circuit board for the arcade video game Breakout. According to Bushnell, Atari offered US$100 for each TTL chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little specialized knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari engineers, Wozniak reduced the TTL count to 46, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line.[34] According to Wozniak, Jobs told him that Atari gave them only $700 (instead of the $5,000 paid out), and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.[35] Wozniak did not learn about the actual bonus until ten years later, but said that if Jobs had told him about it and explained that he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.[36]
Wozniak had designed a low-cost digital "blue box" to generate the necessary tones to manipulate the telephone network, allowing free long-distance calls. Jobs decided that they could make money selling it. The clandestine sales of the illegal "blue boxes" went well and perhaps planted the seed in Jobs's mind that electronics could be both fun and profitable.[37] Jobs, in a 1994 interview, recalled that it took six months for him and Wozniak to figure out how to build the blue boxes.[38] Jobs said that if not for the blue boxes, there would have been no Apple. He states it showed them that they could take on large companies and beat them.[39][40]