Customer Reviews

Steve Jobs

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you're like me the first thing that strikes in reading this book is how mythological it is.

Put up for closed adoption by unmarried parents who eventually married, rejected by the first would be adoptive parents, then adopted by working class parents, it would be difficult to imagine a more inauspicious beginning, or a more auspicious outcome. Steve Jobs would grow up to prove that an apple can fall quite far from the tree, and still blossom. Abandoned, the chosen one, special.

Firstly, I don't think there is any such thing as an illegitimate child, only illegitimate parents.

The public life and business achievements have been well chronicled, and I didn't want to read a book about Apple. I wondered about the family life, the relationship with Bill Gates, were they collaborators or competitors, some of the other cast of characters. I wondered how much of Apple's great accomplishments were due to Jobs, what effect his passing would have on the future of Apple. I wondered about how he got the Beatles music, and the reputedly fractious relationship with Apple records.

Isaacson has put together a narrative never less than fascinating about a mercurial man. My opinion of Jobs did not change as a result of reading this book. He already struck me as being a highly driven type A personality, narcissistic, aggressive, perfectionistic. Certainly these traits contributed to both his successes and his setbacks, and made him a difficult man to get along with, but those high standards imposed by a drive for perfection, and a demanding lack of compassion, would also draw out of people abilities, creativity, and great accomplishments.

Certainly, Isaacson's unvarnished portrait, means many people will not find Jobs the man appealing, and will not condone certain of his behaviors, and I commend Jobs for his honesty in allowing that. Perhaps the biggest surprise that he let go of his controlling tendencies, and did not seek to approve the book.

Ironically at age 22, he would find himself in the exact same position as his adoptive parents at that age, and would not acknowledge his out of wedlock child Lisa. He would eventually reverse that position before Apple went public agreeing to a DNA test, and making an arrangement. I was interested to discover that he has a lost sister Mona Simpson, an author who has written a book, A Regular Guy : A Novel, the main character based on Jobs and the relationship with his daughter Lisa.

Nemesis follows hubris with punishing fall from grace at Apple, betrayed by his hand picked underling, fired by the company he founded, exiled, buying Pixar off George Lucas for $5 million, selling it to Disney for a reputed $500 million, eventually returning as conquering hero to regain his throne, after many lean years the kingdom would once again prosper.

Among his influences were The Beatles, particularly John Lennon, also rejected by both his parents, and raised by an aunt. The Beatles being greater than the sum of the individual parts would inpsire his own management style of making better products through teamwork. Perhaps more surprising was his relating to Captain Ahab from Moby Dick, and that despotic tyrant King Lear.

The strength of this book, unfettered access to Jobs, the uncensored commentary and insights, of family, friends, business associates, even enemies, and critics.

I enjoyed the story of how he met his wife Laurene Powell. Her name is quite similar to my name, Laurence Power, and she has a degree in Economics. I enjoyed the humor and pranks of the early days with Wosniak. I particularly like calling the Vatican prank pretending to be Kissinger, collecting bootleg Dylan recordings, and illicitly mimicing the long distance beeps. I also enjoyed reading of the reality distortion field sometimes employed effectively, sometimes not. He would one day meet his father in a restaurant but neither would be aware that they met.

The book did answer most of my questions, yet I do not give it five stars. Here is why:

Recently, I have bought several quotation books, and when I learned Jobs illness was fatal, I started looking up quotes by Jobs.

Some quotation books such as Bartlett, Forbes Business quotes, and so forth do not have any Jobs quotes. Oxford and Yale each have two. In fact most quote books do not have many if any quotes by business leaders. Hopefully, this will be addressed. In fact, the The Ultimate Book of Investment Quotations (The Ultimate Series) book I found to be the only decent book that quotes business leaders and investment experts.

If you look at the Stanford commencement speech for example, available where video clips are seen, Jobs has many good quotes, and has great presentation skills. In fact, I understand there are about 100 books due to be published about Jobs.

While Isaacson's book contains many good quotes, most of these are by other people about Jobs, by Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Andy Grove, Al Gore and many others. Perhaps my favorite was the Herman Hermits quote by Bono. What I found curiously lacking were so few great quotes by Jobs himself. When I watched the Stanford speech on youtube, I wrote down six or seven quotes from that speech alone. Isaacson references the speech but barely quotes it.

Certainly, he could have sprinkled some of Jobs best quotes throughout the book. If he had done this I would definitely give the book five stars. Hopefully, this will be addressed in future editions and printings. That would make both an honest depiction and a fitting tribute to a great visionary.

Jobs: The Beatles all want to be on iTunes, but they and EMI are like an old married couple. They hate each other but can't get divorced.

Jobs: Picasso had a saying, good artists copy, great artists steal.

Alan Kay maxim adopted by Jobs: The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Tim Cook: I realised very early that if you didn't voice your opinion he would mow you down. He takes contrary positions to create more discussion because it may lead to a better result. So, if you don't feel comfortable disagreeing, then you'll never survive.

As I read the book, three quotes by George Bernard Shaw came to mind:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him. The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself. All progress depends on the unreasonable man.

If I give you an apple, and you give me an apple we each have an apple. If I give you an idea, and you give me an idea, we each have two ideas. Jobs certainly turned apples and ideas into dollars).

Some people see things as they are and ask why. Steve Jobs dreamed things that never were and asked, why not?

As a result we have iPad, iPod, iPhone, iTunes, iMac, iBooks.

I think you will enjoy it, if you choose to get it, and I hope this was helpful.

This book is highly detailed because the writer did over 200 interviews with Steve Jobs, I would strongly recommend this book to people who enjoy biographies and non-fiction books!
Its insanely great!

I already knew a fair bit about jobs but this book is a true biography of a true legend. His story had to be documented and documented well. I am glad Walter Isaacson wrote this book. I doubt anyone else could have told the story in a better way. It does not try to sugarcoat Jobs' personality and takes you on a journey through a brilliant yet crazy mind of Jobs. Oscar Levant once said 'There is a thin line between genius and insanity'. Nothing personifies jobs better.

Any person in business must read this book. The most successful CEO of all times - this is a story of how self-belief, tenacity and iron-will can change the impossible into possible. Focus and follow your vision rest is mere distraction. If you are sane enough you'll disapprove of him, if you are crazy enough, you'll understand him. Here's to the crazies...

WOW! I have to admit it took me some time to get through this book, but in the end, it was well worth it. I have truly gained an understanding of the sheer brilliance and creative genius that produced some of the most influential devices of our time. From the early days of Woz and Jobs in the garage, to the epic battles between Apple and Microsoft (and Apple and Google), to Jobs final battle with Cancer - this biography provides an unbiased look into Steve Jobs' life and the lives he touched. If you are a die hard Apple fan, or simply an iPod owner - you will find a reason to love this book. Enjoy and appreciate!

Gave this book as a gift to my grandson. He is an Apple fan and always admired Steve Jobs. He has commented how much he's enjoying the book.

I found this book somewhat easy to read. The author start with how the story of writing this book started and then the magic begin. Plenty of pictures along with many nice interview who have known Steeve. A very nice biography!

In my opinion, this is among the most important business biographies ever written. Given the number of other reviews that have already appeared, there really isn't much left for me to say that has not already been said. However, I thought it might be helpful to those who have not as yet read the book to share my thoughts about the lessons to be learned from what Walter Issacson reveals about Steve Jobs as another calendar year begins.

o Perfection is a journey, not a destination, and it should be pursued intensely in every domain of one's life
o There are no insignificant details
o Very Good is the enemy of Great
o Great is the enemy of Insanely Great
o Steal only the best from the best and then make it better

Among the treasures he "borrowed":

Make everything as simple as possible...but no simpler (Albert Einstein)
Vision without execution is hallucination (Thomas Edison)
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing (Helen Keller)
The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do (Michael Porter)
God (or Whatever) is in the details and Less is more (Mies van der Rohe
The Devil is in vague generalities (Gustave Flaubert)
Graphical user interface or GUI (Xerox PARC)

Issacson visited Jobs just before he died. They discussed death and the possibility of an afterlife. "I'll like to think that something survives after you die." Then he fell silent for a very long time. "But on the other hand, perhaps it's like an on-off switch," he said. [begin italics] Click! [end italics] And you're gone. "Maybe that's why I never wanted to put on-off switches on Apple devices."

Background - I have been a fan of Apple products for 20 years and had some familiarity with the Steve Jobs story. This is a fascinating book about a very complex person. Once I started reading this book all other reading material took a back seat. Magazines arrived and joined the pending pile.
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in how one company came to create unrivaled technology.

I love hearing about people who just don't quite no matter what the odds and succeed. Everyone has a dark side, it is just how you deal with your deamons that makes you whom you are.

I am a long-term Macintosh user and Apple supporter and Steve Jobs has always held a particular fascination for me. So it was with eager anticipation that I looked forward to the publication of his biography. I was not disappointed. Jobs was an extraordinarily complex man and it is no surprise that his life was full of twists and turns, reflecting his volatile personality. The book is almost 600 pages long but clearly his biographer had to decide what to leave out or otherwise the work could not have been contained in a single volume. Jobs' role in the founding of and subsequent involvement in the story of Apple was a case of the right person being in the right place at the right time.
Walter Isaacson's book has the hallmark of having been carefully researched and his writing style is such that once I started to read it I had difficulty putting it down.