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.[54][55] Atari's co-founder 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."[56]
Jobs traveled to India in mid-1974[57] to visit Neem Karoli Baba[58] at his Kainchi ashram with a Reed College friend (and, later, an early 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.[55] 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.[55]