Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful:

1- "I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics," he said. "Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided thats what I wanted to do." It was as if he were suggesting themes for his biography (and in this instance, at least, the theme turned out to be valid). The creativity that can occur where both the humanities and the sciences combine in one strong personality was the topic that most interested me in my biographies of Franklin and Einstein, and I believe that it will be a key to creating innovative economies in the twenty-first century."

2- "His wife also did not request restrictions or control, nor did she ask to see in advance what I would publish. In fact she strongly encouraged me to be honest about his failings as well as his strengths. She is one of the smartest and most grounded people I have ever met. "There are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy. and thats the truth," she told me early on. "You shouldnt whitewash it. Hes good at spin, but he also has a remarkable story, and Id like to see that its all told truthfully" I leave it to the reader to assess whether I have succeeded in this mission. Im sure there are players in this drama who will remember some of the events differently or think that I sometimes got trapped in Jobss distortion field."

3- "Jobs said that his appreciation for Eichler homes instilled in him a passion for making nicely designed products for the mass market. I Jove it when you can bring really great design and simple capability to something that doesnt cost much," he said as he pointed out the clean elegance of the houses. "It was the original vision for Apple. Thats what we tried to do with the first Mac. Thats what we did with the iPod.""

4- "The Blue Box adventure established a template for a partnership that would soon be born. Wozniak would be the gentle wizard coming up with a neat invention that he would have been happy just to give away. and Jobs would figure out how to make it user-friendly, put it together in a package, market it, and make a few bucks."

5- "Coming back to America was, for me, much more of a cultural shock than going to India. The people in the Indian countryside dont use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world. Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. Thats had a big impact on my work."

6- "Jobs is a complex person, he said, and being manipulative is just the darker facet of the traits that make him successful. Wozniak would never have been that way, but as he points out, he also could never have built Apple. "I would rather let it pass," he said when I pressed the point. "Its not something I want to judge Steve by.""

7- "Apple. It was a smart choice. The word instantly signaled friendliness and simplicity. It managed to be both slightly off-beat and as normal as a slice of pie. There was a whiff of counterculture, back-to-nature earthiness to it, yet nothing could be more American. And the two words together—Apple Computer—provided an amusing disjuncture. "

8- "Jobss father had once taught him that a drive for perfection meant caring about the craftsmanship even of the parts unseen. Jobs applied that to the layout of the circuit board inside the Apple II. He rejected the initial design because the lines were not straight enough. This passion for perfection led him to indulge his instinct to control. Most hackers and hobbyists liked to customize, modify, and jack various things into their computers. To Jobs, this was a threat to a seamless end-to-end user experience."

9- "Markkula would become a father figure to Jobs. Like Jobss adoptive father, he would indulge Jobss strong will, and like his biological father, he would end up abandoning him. "Markkula was as much a father-son relationship as Steve ever had," said the venture capitalist Arthur Rock. He began to teach Jobs about marketing and sales. "Mike really took me under his wing," Jobs recalled. "His values were much aligned with mine. He emphasized that you should never start a company with the goal of getting rich. Your goal should be making something you believe in and making a company that will last.""

10- "Was Jobss unfiltered behavior caused by a lack of emotional sensitivity? No. Almost the opposite. He was very emotionally attuned. able to read people and know their psychological strengths and vulnerabilities. He could stun an unsuspecting: victim with an emotional towel-snap, perfectly aimed. He intuitively knew when someone was faking it or truly knew something. This made him masterful at cajoling, stroking, persuading, flattering, and intimidating people."

11- "But even though Jobss style could be demoralizing, it could also be oddly inspiring. It infused Apple employees with an abiding passion to create groundbreaking products and a belief that they could accomplish what seemed impossible."

12- "The best products, he believed, were "whole widgets" that were designed end-to-end, with the software closely tailored to the hardware and vice versa. This is what would distinguish the Macintosh, which had an operating system that worked only on its own hardware, from the environment that Microsoft was creating, in which its operating system could be used on hardware made by many different companies."

13- "Their differences in personality and character would lead them to opposite sides of what would become the fundamental divide in the digital age. Jobs was a perfectionist who craved control and indulged in the uncompromising temperament of an artist; he and Apple became the exemplars of a digital strategy that tightly integrated hardware. software, and content into a seamless package. Gates was a smart, calculating, and pragmatic analyst of business and technology; he was )pen to licensing Microsofts operating system and software to a variety of manufacturers."

14- "Ill always stay connected with Apple. I hope that throughout my life Ill sort of have the thread of my life and the thread of Apple weave in and out of each other, like a tapestry. There may be a few years when Im not there, but IU always come back. If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever youve done and whoever you were and throw them away. The more the outside world tries to reinforce an image of you, the harder it is to continue to be an artist, which is why a lot of times. artists have to say. "Bye. I have to go now. Im going crazy and Im getting out of here." And they go and hibernate somewhere. Maybe later they re-emerge a little differently."

15- "Jobs sometimes avoided the truth. Helmut Sonnenfeldt once said of Henry Kissinger, "He lies not because its in his interest. he lies because its in his nature." It was in Jobss nature to mislead or be secretive when he felt it was warranted. But he also indulged in being brutally honest at times, telling the truths that most of us sugarcoat or suppress. Both the dissembling and the truth-telling were simply different aspects of his Nietzschean attitude that ordinary rules didnt apply to him."

16- "For all of his willfulness and insatiable desire to control things. Jobs was indecisive and reticent when he felt unsure about something. He craved perfection, and he was not always good at figuring out how to settle for something less. He did not like to wrestle with complexity or make accommodations. This was true in products, design, and furnishings for the house. It was also true when it came to personal for the house. It was also true when it came to personal commitments. If he knew for sure a course of action was right. he was unstoppable. But if he had doubts, he sometimes withdrew, preferring not to think about things that did not perfectly suit him."

17- "Ever since he left the apple commune, Jobs had defined himself and by extension Apple, as a child of the counterculture. In ads such as "Think Different" and "1984," he positioned the Apple brand so that it reaffirmed his own rebel streak, even after he became a billionaire, and it allowed other baby boomers and their kids to do the same. "From when I first met him as a young guy, hes had the greatest of the impact he wants his brand to have on people," said Clow. Very few other companies or corporate leaders—perhaps none— could have gotten away with the brilliant audacity of associating their brand with Gandhi, Einstein, Picasso, and the Dalai Lama. Jobs was able to encourage people to define themselves as anti-corporate, creative. innovative rebels simply by the computer they used. "Steve created the only lifestyle brand in the tech industry," Larry Ellison said. "There are cars people are proud to have—Porsche, Ferrari, Prius—because what I drive says something about me. People feel the same way about an Apple product."

18- "One of his motivating passions was to build a lasting company. At age twelve, when he got a summer job at Hewlett-Packard, he learned that a properly run company could spawn innovation far more than any single creative individual. "I discovered that the best innovation is sometimes the company, the way you organize a company," he recalled. "The whole notion of how you build a company is fascinating. When I got the chance to come back to Apple, I realized that I would be useless without the company, and thats why I decided to stay and rebuild it."

19- "Why do we assume that simple is good? Because with physical products. we have to feel we can dominate them. As you bring order to complexity, you find a way to make the product defer to you. Simplicity isnt just a -visual style. Its not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. X involves digging through the depth of the complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. For example, to have no screws on something, you can end up having a product that is so convoluted and so complex. The better way is to go deeper with the simplicity, to understand everything about it and how its manufactured. You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential."

20- "Despite his autocratic nature—he never worshiped at the altar of consensus—Jobs worked hard to foster a culture of collaboration at Apple. Many companies pride themselves on having few meetings. Jobs had many."

21- ""From the earliest days at Apple, I realized that we thrived when we created intellectual property. If people copied or stole our software, wed be out of business. If it werent protected, thered be no incentive for us to make new software or product designs. If protection of intellectual property begins to disappear, creative companies will disappear or never get Started. But theres a simpler reason: Its wrong to steal. It hurts other people. And it hurts your own character." He knew, however, that the best way to stop piracy—in fact the only way—was to offer an alternative that was more attractive than the brain-dead services that music companies were concocting."

22- "But Sony couldnt. It had pioneered portable music with the Walkman, it had a great record company, and it had a long history of making beautiful consumer devices. It had all of the assets to compete with Jobss Strategy of integration of hardware, software, devices, and content sales. Why did it fail? Partly because it was a company, like AOL Time Warner that was organized into divisions (that word itself was ominous) with their own bottom lines; the goal of achieving synergy in such companies by prodding the divisions to work together was usually elusive. Jobs did not organize Apple into semi-autonomous divisions; he closely controlled all of his teams and pushed them to work as one cohesive and flexible company, with one profit-and-loss bottom fine. "We dont have divisions with their own P&L," said Tim Cook. "We run one P&L for the company.""

23- "Despite being- a denizen of the digital world, or maybe because he knew all too well its isolating potential, Jobs was a strong believer in face-to-face meetings. "Theres a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat," he said. "Thats crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what theyre doing, you say Wow, and soon youre cooking up all sorts of ideas." So he had the Pixar building- designed to promote encounters and unplanned collaborations. "If a building doesnt encourage that, youll lose a lot of innovation and the magic thats sparked by serendipity," he said. "So we designed the building to make people get out of their offices and mingle in the central atrium with people they might not otherwise see.""

24- "Jobs insisted that Apple focus on just two or three priorities at a time. "There is no one better at turning off the noise that is going on around him," Cook said. "That allows him to focus on a few things and say no to many things. Few people are really good at that." In order to institutionalize the lessons that he and his team were learning. Jobs started an in-house center called Apple University. He hired Joel Podolny, who was dean of the Yale School of Management, to compile a series of case studies analyzing important decisions the company had made, including the switch to the Intel microprocessor and the decision to open the Apple Stores. Top executives spent time teaching the cases to new employees, so that the Apple style of decision making would be embedded in the culture."

25- ""Steve has a particular way that he wants to run Apple, and its the same as it was twenty years ago, which is that Apple is a brilliant innovator of closed systems." Schmidt later told me. "They dont want people to be on their platform without permission. The benefits of a closed platform is control. But Google has a specific belief that open is the better approach, because it leads to more options and competition and consumer choice.""

26- "The nasty edge to his personality was not necessary. It hindered him more than it helped him. But it did, at times, serve a purpose. Polite and velvety leaders, who take care to avoid bruising others, are generally not as effective at forcing change. Dozens of the colleagues whom Jobs most abused ended their litany of horror stories by saying that he got them to do things they never dreamed possible. And he created a corporation crammed with A players."

27- "The saga of Steve Jobs is the Silicon Valley creation myth writ large: launching a start-up in his parents garage and building it into the worlds most valuable company. He didnt invent many things outright. but he was a master at putting together ideas, art, and technology in ways that invented the feature. He designed the Mac after appreciating the power of graphical interfaces in a way that Xerox was unable to do. and he created the iPod after grasping the joy of having a thousand in your pocket in a way that Sony, which had all the assets and heritage, never could accomplish. Some leaders push innovations by being good at the big picture. Others do so by mastering details. Jobs did both, relentlessly. As a result he launched a series of products over three decades that transformed whole industries..."

28- "Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius. His imaginative leaps were instinctive, unexpected, and at times magical. He was, indeed, an example of what the mathematician Mark Kac called a magician genius, someone whose insights come out of the blue and require intuition more than mere mental processing power. Like a pathfinder, he could absorb information, sniff the winds, and sense what lay ahead. Steve Jobs thus became the greatest business executive of our era, the one most certain to be remembered a century from now. History will place him in the pantheon right next to Edison and Ford. More than anyone else of his time, he made products that were completely innovative, combining the power of poetry and processors. With a ferocity that could make working with him as unsettling as it was inspiring, he also built the worlds most creative company. And he was able to infuse into its DNA the design sensibilities, perfectionism, and imagination that make it likely to be, even decades from now. the company that thrives best at the intersection of artistry and technology."

Many people might mistake this book for a mere biography of the man that made Apple a household name and its products coveted by millions around the world. Its not.

This book is actually three books in one. Its a business book on how to (and not to) run a company using Apple, NeXT and Pixar as case studies. Its also a history book on the ascent and the drama behind the consumer electronics evolution. And as its title suggests, its the fascinating story of one of the most gifted people of our time.

As a business book, Isaacson writes about three distinct business practices. The first is how to really create a company from scratch. The passion exuded by Jobs and Wozniak is detailed with infectious enthusiasm in the first half of the book.

The second practice (and one often not talked about in business books) is how to drive a company to the ground. The book is rife with examples of internal politics, lack of leadership and the absence of focus that truly illustrate how companies fail.

The last practice is how to build and operate a creative company that endures. For me, this is the most fascinating narrative of all. But to fully appreciate it, one must truly understand the first two, which almost always precede this one.

The book offers a great case study of three companies: Apple, NeXT and Pixar. One fascinating vignette in the book draws a contrast between Apple and Sony and why Apple was successful in conquering the consumer-end of the music business while Sony, who was in a favorable position to do exactly that, failed to do so. This story draws attention to the importance of inter-departmental cohesion that Apple possessed and Sony didnt, to the success of innovation in a company.

Business leaders reading this book will learn a lot about the power of "focus" in business. Steve Jobss most doled out advice was "focus." Throughout the book, we learn how Jobs followed his own advice to a deadly fault.

As a business book, it is amongst the best.

Its also an even better history book. It details the ascent of personal computing from the perspective of the very people that were (and still are) at its helm. The book doesnt only cover Apples evolution, but that of the entire industry. Naturally, that involves drama, which Isaacson does a great job of covering. The philosophical divide between open and closed systems that dominated the personal computing evolution is discussed thoroughly in the book via anecdotal accounts on what really happened behind the scenes. It explains what it really took to bring us the products on which I read this book and now writing its review.

Most importantly, this is a very personal book. It is the story of man adored by millions of geeks, and when departed, mourned by hundreds of millions of Apple consumers around the world. Unfortunately, a devastating portrait that is guaranteed to put out any respect or admiration youve ever had for the man emerges early on in the book. If you have spent the last fifteen years romanticizing about Steve Jobs and his products, this book will leave you punch-drunk. You will learn through stomach-churning details how Steve Jobs was a disloyal, lying, backstabbing, vindictive, manipulative, vengeful, and all-around vile and damaged human being. He was, and surprisingly so, a coward, as clearly illustrated by how he treated people in his twenties and thirties.

And oh, he cried a lot. I mean, A LOT.

The book is rife with examples of his cruelty towards those who he seemed to have loved the most. His treatment of Steve Wozniak was unconscionable and disgusting. But the most disturbing example and the one that really shows his character was how he treated his "soul mate" from Reed College, Daniel Kottke. I could sum it up by quoting John Scullys wife when she told Jobs:

When I look into most peoples eyes, I see a soul. When I look into your eye, I see a bottomless pit, an empty hole, a dead zone.

Even the amiable, most trusting co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, whos been backstabbed by Jobs several times, have said about Jobs, "I look forward to a great product and I wish him success, but his integrity I cannot trust."

The irony in Steve Jobs story was that he loathed people that treated him the way he treated others. He had to deal with a few people that gave him a run for his money like Eisner of Disney and Katzenburg of DreamWorks. He claims throughout the book that hes "honest" and a "straightshooter" yet all the stories relayed by people that had to deal with him tell a completely different story.

For a control freak, it boggles me how he allowed such a book to be written about him. Now we all know that he might have been a visionary, but he was also a very disturbed man void of compassion, empathy and integrity.

As I got deeper into the book I started to wonder, "did Apple offer on-campus Al-Anon meetings to its employees?" Evidently, working for or with Steve Jobs was like being in a relationship with a recovering Cocaine addict who sees the world in black and white and throws frequent tantrums that are aimed at destroying those around them. Its what Mike Murray, Apples Marketing Chief, called, "management by character assassination."

Jobs quotes Bob Dylan, whom we learn early in the book was one of his heroes, "if youre not busy being born, youre busy dying." Its ironic to quote those powerful words and not heed them. The book clearly shows that Steve Jobs was never really reborn or reinvented as a person. He never evolved and his base qualities were never tamed. Naturally, he spent his entire life dying from the inside out.

The book left me enriched, provoked and sad in equal measure. It is long but flows well and is a fast read. All business executives should read it for the insight it offers on what real successful companies are made of and what pitfalls to avoid along the way. Also, everyone in technology should read it to get a perspective on the evolution in the space of personal and consumer computing and to understand where were headed and how to get there. Even if youre not an executive or a geek, you should read this book for its fascinating (and well told) story of a man from Northern California who dramatically changed how we live. A man as rich with creativity and intuition for what consumers want as he was bankrupt of decency and compassion for most of those he touched.

Its a story worth reading. If for nothing else, read it to understand what it took to create the device on which youre reading this very review.

Im not an Apple person. So if youre an Apple person, you can stop reading now, because you probably wont like this review. I have never liked Apples closed-system philosophy, nor have I ever liked what I consider their over-priced and under-powered products. I have always liked the open-system philosophy of the IBM PC architecture (which is usually simplified to "windows PC", but people forget that many different operating systems can and do run on the IBM PC architecture). As far as Steve Jobs goes, until I read this book I never really knew that much about him, other than the usual stuff - co-founder of Apple, father of the MacIntosh, and really, really rich guy. Now that I do know more about him, I have to say, I dont like him.

But Im reviewing a book here, specifically a biography, and although it can be hard to separate ones opinion of the book from ones opinion of its subject, Ill try.

Basically, I liked this book. I liked it a lot, actually. I imagine it must have been somewhat difficult for Isaacson - who had previously written biographies of Benjamin Franklin ( Benjamin Franklin: An American Life ) and Albert Einstein ( Einstein: His Life and Universe ) - to now write a biography of someone who was still alive. As a matter of fact, Jobs death is not mentioned in the book. I know the publication of the book was hurried after his death, but I would have thought that at least the fact and date of his death would have been in the book. At any rate, if you segment Jobs life (and the book) as Youth, Apple I, Not Apple, and Apple II, I found the most compelling parts to be in this order: Apple I, Youth, Not Apple, and Apple II. The last segment of the book - Apple II - I found to be rather dry, with a sort of hurried, factual quality to it (for example, subchapters were titled "iPod", "iPhone", "Apps", etc). The final chapter is clearly different from the rest of the book, and its easy to imagine that it was cobbled together very quickly on Jobs death.

However, the first three segments - especially the first two - I found thoroughly absorbing. I am about the same age as Jobs (and Gates), so I have lived in basically the same social environment, and I believe as far as that goes Isaacson has captured the times well. And, as far as I could, by checking other books (for example, the excellent history of the personal computer Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer (Second Edition) ) and online sources, I believe his facts are, for the most part, correct. As I read the book, I was consciously looking for evidence of a fawning, or excessively flattering treatment, but I never really found that to be the case. That did seem to occur more in the last few chapters, but most of the book seemed to be very objective, even critical. The author many times, for example, would interject in parentheses stating when he thought a quote by Jobs was an outright lie. The first half of the book clearly described Jobs character and motivations much more than the second half. The second half of the book was more of a description of Jobs career, but even so, most of it - until the last few chapters - was very well written and interesting. Lets face it - Jobs had an interesting life, and although the book is 571 pages of actual text, it will take several more books to describe each facet of his career in detail. One of the most interesting parts of the book, and a part of Jobs career I knew very little about, was his involvement with Pixar/Disney. As a matter of fact, approximately three quarters of his wealth derives from that connection. He is the single largest stockholder in Disney - by far.

I stated at the outset that Im not an Apple fan, so what was my motivation to read it? Partly it was my interest in the history of the PC. As was Jobs and Gates, as a young man I also was drawn to the idea of a "personal computer". My first PC was an Atari 800, and I learned BASIC on it. I used to save programs on a cassette recorder. My second PC was an IBM PC/XT. It had a 5MB hard drive (yes - MB). Its not easy for anyone born after 1990 or so to appreciate the sense of wonder that surrounded the appearance of these machines. I sincerely believe that the drama that Jobs created with his product introductions to some extent stems from a desire to recapture that initial sense of wonder, that this is a machine that can be programmed to do anything you can think of. Another motivation for me was that, in interviews, I have heard the author put Jobs in the same class of great men such as Thomas Edison. Now, Edison is one of my heroes (one of Jobs heroes as well), and I wanted to see for myself if that was justified (it was not).

Great industrialists are very often (though not always) focused, intensely energetic, ego-driven, and cruel people. And Jobs was all of those. And I dont think Im being mean here, thats all in the book. The author does not psychoanalyze Jobs, but he does share some opinions, both his own and those of others, as to what motivated him. That topic alone is probably good for another few books. In the end though, the conclusion I drew was that he was not a very nice person, either to know or to work for. Steve Wozniak, on the other hand, apparently was a very nice person, and Jobs seemed to be cordial to him more than anyone else in the book. As a matter of fact, one of the mysteries of the book - for me - is that it doesnt really go into that relationship much at all. It mentions Wozniak, but only because it has to, I mean, he invented the Apple computer! Outside of that, if all you knew about Wozniak was what you read in this book, you would think he was just an early business associate of Jobs.

Steve Jobs was a visionary - no doubt about that. And he had an almost unerring sense of design. But was he a "great man"? I guess it depends on what you consider a "great man". But before you decide that, heres another interesting point - Jobs only got Apple back on its feet after introducing the iPod (several versions of the mac went down in flames). For the last 4 years (at least) Apple has received 50% of its revenues from iPod/iPhone sales, and only 25% of its revenues from computers. And the iPhone % is continuing to increase. In other words, Apple today is really a music player/cell phone company. Of course, Apple invented neither, they just improved them. So Jobs is a great man if you define that to be a man who transformed Apple into a domestic version of Sony. Now, thats not an insignificant accomplishment. However, creating a more aesthetic mp3 player is not my definition of a great man. But then, Im not an Apple person...

Book review by Richard L. Weaver II, Ph.D.

This is a fascinating, if not riveting, story that is not only well-written and well-constructed (organized in a chronological manner), but it is incredibly well-researched, too. It not only revealed how open Jobs was with Isaacson, but how open all of those who were part of, influenced, or were on the fringes of Jobs life, were when Isaacson interviewed them.

From reading this book, you get this intricate portrait of a mercurial, sometimes vicious, self-absorbed, genius who had serious difficulties dealing with the realities of day-to-day living. But, it is Jobs peculiarities--his uniquenesses--that make this book so engaging. You simply have a hard time believing such a person like Jobs even existed! (Remember, Jobs did not read this book before he died.)

One aspect of Jobs personality--reinforced throughout the book--was that "ordinary rules didnt apply to him" (p. 313). I found it astonishing, for example, that he couldnt be relied on to tell the truth. It was said about him by Helmut Sonnerfeldt, "He lies not because its in his interest, he lies because its in his nature" (p. 313). He was adept at misleading, being secretive, as well as being brutally honest. He could be incredibly brutal!

Whatever you thought about Steve Jobs--based on his public persona--this book will shake (destroy?) that image. Isaacson pulls no punches, nor do the individuals interviewed. Jobs was a temperrmental, insensitive, authoritative, control freak, with an emphasis on freak! Sure, he was incredibly bright, imaginative, creative, intelligent, educated, and knowledgeable, but the way he treated others, the way he thought about others who were not his intellectual equals (or intellectual superiors!), was near pathological and perverse. He was an egomaniacs egomaniac (terribly selfish and demanding). To give you a mere glimpse of how selfish he was, he seldom remembered anniversaries or birthdays (p. 530).

Jobs was not one to emulate when it comes to effective human relations, however, even though many of his personal eccentricities were not exemplary, this is a motivational book.

There are a number of great motivational messages throughout the book. Some of the messages include: never give up, create a vision or dream, pursue your dream, whatever it takes, surround yourself with great minds and supportive personnel (not just "yes people"), dont worry about going against the grain, be creative, take risks, defy failure, bet your career on doing things in a different way, be hands-on, know your product, be thorough, check-and-re-check, perfectionism is good and it works, have passion, infuse everything you do with emotion, focus, prepare thoroughly, do nothing half-assed, and always keep your customers in mind (be user friendly). Jobs knew that "deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do" (p. 336).

On the basic values Jobs supported--and a value seen in every Apple product which he oversaw (and a value that made Apple successful!)--is the effective marriage between technology and the humanities (p. 527). The marriage was consummated in the silicon architecture, in the Aple organization, as well as in Jobs own soul (p. 527)!

If you really want an overview of who Steve Jobs was and how he operated, Isaacson does a beautiful job of summarizing in Chapter 42, "Legacy" (pp. 560-571). It is an honest, complete, and intimate conclusion that accurately and completely draws together many of the comments, reactions, and insights scattered throughout the book. It is a wonderful closing chapter.

In this final chapter, too, Isaacson allowed Jobs, who had shared with him what he hoped his legacy would be throughout the course of their conversations, to be the one to conclude the book (pp. 567-570). No, there are no completely new insights in Jobs essay, because you absorb his personal values, approaches, feelings, and reactions throughout the book, but Isaacson was correct, just hearing Jobs express himself at the end was a beautiful, warm, and touching way to conclude the book. Just as Jobs was a true genius (very few measure up!), Isaacson is a genius in the manner with which he introduces him to the general public. This is truly an incredible book.

First and foremost, this is just a good read.

I found that Isaacsons bio of Einstein was both interesting and did a profoundly better job of explaining relativity than my physics professors ever did. This book didnt disappoint. It was both captivating, and offered meaningful insight into Steve Jobs and the history of Apple.

On way of my own biases, I was an Apple bigot before being an Apple bigot was cool. I learned to program on an Apple II that my father brought home in 1980. Ive been a shareholder since I was given a single share of Apple stock for my bar mitzvah in 1981. I later grew up using Macs in college for everything from writing papers to digital circuit simulation to writing shareware apps that paid off debt I had accumulated as a starving grad student and provided the down payment on my first home. I even continued to use a Mac (eventually a PowerPC clone) as my exclusive home computer during most of my tenure with IBM!

But around 1998-99, I finally gave up on Macs and bought my first PC. By then I had concluded that Windows hadnt simply caught up, but in many regards had surpassed the Mac. Mac had become a lesser computer that cost a premium, for which applications were fewer in number, and cost more. Even after Apple finally made substantial improvements and moved to a Unix kernel, Ive never been tempted to look back.

Whats more, as Apple entered the consumer electronics domain and began producing closed devices and systems characterized by excessive proprietary control, I developed a decidedly anti-Apple viewpoint. Not a reflexive anti-Apple bias -- I did eventually start using a hand-me-down iPod when my daughter just had to upgrade to a iTouch. And we eventually all got iPhones after I concluded that, whatever its limitations, it was still a better option than the available Android alternatives. But you get the point -- Im now closer to being an anti-Apple bigot than one of the hordes of Apple fans.

This book provides real insight into why Apple systems are as closed as they are, and why Apple acts as controlling as it does. It provides a good understanding of just how Steve Jobs drove Apple to where it is today.

Ultimately, the book does not paint a flattering picture of Jobs. Ive read other reviewers who complained that Isaacson clearly disliked Jobs, and that the book was a hatchet job. Ive seen Isaacson doing interviews since Jobs death, however, and if anything, Id say the opposite is true. I think he actually holds Jobs in awe.

(Those who find the description of Jobs as such an unrelenting jerk incompatible with the extremely strong positive feelings expressed by many who worked with him have clearly never worked with somebody of his ilk, and fail to recognize something basic in human psychology. When people go through what is effectively prolonged hazing, one of two things happen: either they part ways prior to completion, in which cases they are left only with enormous resentment over the hazing/bad behavior, or they survive the hazing and feel empowered and strongly bound to the others involved, as a result. What you would expect from those who worked closely with/for Jobs is precisely a polarized love or hate reaction. But even those who come out with strong positive feelings will still very much recognize, and likely even resent, the bad behavior.)

Ive also seen complaints that the book gives short shrift to specific events or aspects of Jobs life. That strikes me as inevitable. The book is ~600 pages as it is. I think the purpose of the book is to provide meaningful insight into Jobs, including what formed him and what he formed, not to comprehensively document each and every aspect and occurrence of his life.

Are there places where the book is lacking? Yes, I think so. The book suggests that there was a substantial change in Jobs -- a maturation -- between his initial stint with Apple and his second run there. But if he became more reasonable and effective at his interpersonal interactions with Apple employees in his second stint, that certainly wasnt apparent to me from the book.

In any case, whatever its limitations, and whatever your feelings toward Apple or Steve Jobs, this book is enlightening and entertaining, and well worth the read.

P.S. For the record, this is the first book Ive read in its entirety on an eReader. (A Kindle Fire -- perhaps theres some irony there.)

This review is being typed on a Macbook Pro, which I purchased two years ago. Later, when I go to the gym, I will listen to songs purchased on iTunes, which I have transferred over (using Firewire) to my iPhone 4s; I have been caught in the snare of Apples enclosed system for the past year and have no intention of leaving it anytime soon. What this book has done, for me and countless other Apple fans, is help me understand the devices I use through an understanding of the man who created them.

Walter Issacsons biography is highly readable and very compelling. I admit that before opening this book I was ignorant of just how much of an impact Steve Jobs has had on Silicon Valley and technology generally. It was engaging to read Isaacsons account of the construction of the Apple II in his parents garage, the development of the Macintosh, the creation of Next, the acquisition of Pixar, and his eventual return to Apple where he saved the company and entered his most creative years at the age of 40 (developing iTunes, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad).

Most interesting to me though was how his devices (take your pick between the iPhone, Macbook, etc.) are an almost perfect analogy to his personality and disposition. The clean and elegant design is an undoubted result of his Zen Buddhist background. The enclosed system, in which the case cannot be opened, the software altered, and the multiple device connectivity, are a striking parallel to his ridiculous demand for control. It was hard not to read the book and find yourself liking Jobs. Yes, he was an ego-maniac, a control freak, a sometimes cruel individual, an abandoner, and he had the temperament of a rattle-snake, but he was also a genius.

It isnt that he was always correct, but he was right on SO MANY things that it is astounding to look back and consider some of his most strategic business decisions and creative endeavors. Important also is noting that he himself invented little. Instead, he combined the ideas and notions of others (from Steve Wozniak to John Lasseter) to create products that people had as of yet not understood they even needed. This ability, combined with a borderline debilitating perfectionism, gravitational personality, and ingenuity made it possible for him to bring together the best and the brightest and create a company which will hopefully endure for many years following his death. Being a Seattle-ite I was drawn as well to his interactions with Bill Gates and how different (yet similar) their egos and ideologies were.

This biography was an excellent read and a must for anyone interested in Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs himself, or the creation of one of technologies biggest companies. I found myself very much rooting for Apple and Jobs, and I believe that Isaacson was too, because his affection is evident in his writing. Academically, this could be a good thing or a bad thing, but it is clearly the most heavily researched and exhaustive biography that is likely to emerge in a very long time. Because Jobs had no control over the product (other than the cover design), it is a compelling, but not always flattering bio of a mercurial and important individual.

I am not a fan of Apple. I have never bought any of their products, and I have never thought much about Steve Jobs even though I grew up a child of the 80s and 90s. I have always been a PC user and now use Android. I find it fascinating that Apple considered itself the "good guys" when comparing itself to Microsoft, IBM, and these days Google. While I do believe the quality of a product can be higher when you are controlling the end to end experience, I never agreed that they should be the ones deciding what you should do with the item you purchased. Apple tells you how you are going to use their product and you either take it or leave it. When Steve Jobs didnt like Adobe Flash, he didnt put it on Apple products. He made a choice that was yours to make, not his. Apple put out the iconic "1984" ad basically saying Apple was going against the establishment, but to me they were the ultimate example of control and that has made me uninterested in buying their products in the past.

I still find myself fascinated by the life of Steve Jobs now that Im a little older and thats what made me finally decide to purchase the book. Steve was a very unique individual, and thats both a good and bad thing. In some areas he was definitely a genius. I would also say he was eccentric and a narcissist. If you read about many very intelligent people throughout history there were often dark sides to them almost as if the unique aspects of their minds had to be balanced by issues in other areas. Some say Jobs was a functioning psychopath. I have no idea if I would go that far, but its obvious from reading the book that while he was very good at what he did, something was also kind of off. I cant logically make sense of an intelligent person like him falling for so much nonsense when it came to food and dieting like he did.

The biggest issue is, not surprisingly, the way he treated people. Years ago I would have condemned Jobs, but my own experiences in life have caused me to have mixed opinions now. How successful would Apple have been if Jobs did not act the way he did? We can only guess, but Id be willing to bet good money not as successful as it turned out to be. I had the displeasure of working for an executive that was truly ignorant and arrogant towards the people below him. I left the company because I would not treat my people that way and do not agree with it, but I also believe that you cant always be the nice guy if you want to truly be successful. Yes, I do believe Steve Jobs went over the edge with this at times, and I could never be like him, but accountability is important, and when you are just the nice guy people take advantage of you or dont take situations as seriously as they should. Steve didnt accept less than the best and he was very brutally honest about it with the people around him. These days I feel like there is a little bit of Steves style in the way I do things and that is ok. There needs to be balance in all things, but for Steve everything was very black and white and that pushed him to extremes most people would not feel comfortable using in their own lives.

I have read many of the one and two star reviews and find myself disagreeing with some of the points made in those reviews. I dont see the book as being all negative and avoiding the good things about Steves life. It just stated things as they were. Intelligent people can put the pieces together and each of us has to come to our own conclusions after reading the book. He accomplished some amazing things in his life and he seemed to truly enjoy what he did. On the other hand, most of his life he was not a great family man, and he was not that great to the people around him which has brought out some extreme opinions from those who worked with him. I didnt read the book and think wow this guy was a horrible person. I actually have a better opinion of Steve and Apple after reading the book. I may even buy one of their products after reading the book. He was an imperfect person in many ways, but he also accomplished things that most of us can only ever dream of. I now wish I had the opportunity to spend time with him and really see what he was like and learn from him.

I did find a few things about the book a little weak. Like some other reviewers, I do think the book should have gone chronologically more and bounced around less. It just seemed to skip over some things or barely mention them and a couple of times a first name would be mentioned and I wasnt sure who it was and found myself going backwards trying to figure out if the person was mentioned before. I also agree that the style of the book changed when I made it to the last 20% or so, as if they were in a rush to release the book after his death. I would like to have seen more thoughts from Jobs near the end and more from his family, though I do agree with how the book ended. At first it seemed kind of odd and I expected more, but ending it at the point Isaacson last visited with Jobs was actually the most respectful ending he could have given.

Overall the book is very good and will leave you deep in contemplation once you are done as to what kind of person Steve Jobs really was. The good and the bad. The extremes in his life and how he dealt with people in general. Again, I finished the book and came away with a greater respect for Steve Jobs, and I think if you can read between the lines a bit and really spend some time thinking about what you read, you will also come away having some different thoughts regardless of whether you like or dislike Jobs or Apple. The book may not be perfect, and we are only spectators who were not a part of Jobs life, but the book accomplished what it needed to, and the overall experience combined both sides of Jobs into something dignified. Thats all it needed to do.

Im among those who felt sorrow at Steve Jobs passing. I must confess, not so much for him and his family as for the rest of the human family. That said, my heart does very much go out to his wife and children and to all those who loved him. I have no doubt that his absence is leaving an enormous hole. Why I am so sad is because I think the order of his accomplishments is on par with Prometheus bringing fire to humanity and he had it in him to do so, so much more.

"Steve Jobs" was a riveting, fast and easy read, utterly fascinating because Jobs life, accomplishments and personality was so. The rise of consumer technologies changed our world dramatically and its surprising what an exciting story it makes. Its fairly clear to me that, had Jobs allowed others to temper him any more than they did, or had he done so himself, we would not be enjoying the fruits of his labor. He was of a piece and his products a clean expression of him.

I read the book on my iPhone, using the Kindle app. It tells you what percentage of the book youve already read. When, as I was reading, I felt that the biographer was not getting to the meat of Steves personality, when he failed to explore the deeper meaning of Steve Jobs, I thought there was plenty of time. I didnt realize that such a large percentage at the end of the book would be notes, etc. I was startled and disappointed when the book ended without any introspection around Jobs. This still being a 5 star review is a testament to what an amazing man Steve Jobs was and what a great story the story of Apple is.

It fell to Isaacson to gain a deep (40 interviews) understanding of the man, the company, the times and the accomplishments and impact. And by deep I mean, the psychological, spiritual and even transcendent aspects of the life of this man who had such an extraordinary effect on so many of us. Isaacson, regrettably, truly and utterly missed the opportunity, to do so. It seems he made lots of notes and cobbled them together well. The reader gets many facts and quite a few opinions, but what is utterly lacking is insight.

I dont understand how Walter Isaacson, an important man with many great responsibilities, could fail so completely in delivering insight that comes from a soulful understanding, that is overarching and gazes beyond the surface. Does he, himself, lack introspection and an active and conscious connection with his own subconscious, soul and spirit? Did he not see the mythological, another fine intersection, this one of the worldly and the transcendent? If he had made this connection he could have given us Steve Jobs and the story of Apple in a way such that we could apply it to our own lives, as the mythological is a universal context.

But there is no one to blame but Jobs, I fear. He selected Isaacson and in those forty interviews, considering his perfectionism, as described by Isaacson, should have spotted the glaring absence of the special quality in the questions that allows for this deeper insight and revelation. It seems we will have to contend ourselves more so with his products than with insight into what made this all possible. And maybe thats okay. Maybe he couldnt be copied anyway; not everyone can be.

The one hope I hold out is that, over time, Isaacson will gain a better understanding of what he got in those interviews, that things will gel and that he, himself will grow and that he will write another book that gives us what was absent in this one. To be fair, he was rushed. Steve Jobs did die too young.

Addendum:

It didnt happen right away, as my glowing review evinces, but something unexpected has transpired in the little over a year since I read this book. Before doing so, I was a genuine Apple and Steve Jobs admirer. It appears that "Steve Jobs," ultimately, was a turn-off. I experience none of the enchantment I once felt with Apple and its products.

First of all, reading this book made me realize that Id deified Steve Jobs for a long time. I think the most striking thing for me was noticing how many outcomes we enjoy today as Apple loyalists were shaped by the most mundane & unintentional factors.

For example, hardware & software integration makes for a superior product outcome. But its interesting to realize that that didnt come from some magical genius sight. Rather, it seems to emerge from Steves impulsive desire to control things, which many linked to his being abandoned as a child.

These facets of Steves character that shaped management decisions, strategy & influence culture awe me as I realize that you never know which small, immaterial step you take will reverberate through the halls of time.

The book ends up being about the whole person rather than the business side of him. Depending on where you land on the Steve fandom scape, its either "the best thing ever" or "it sucks." 😀

One thing. I came away admiring is his laser-like focus to the point of zoning everything else out. Thats one thing anyone who interacted with him tended to comment on & it speaks tons about his passion and purpose.

Out of all his philologies shining throughout the book, though, I walk away adopting simplicity. That is one thing he was on the money for.

Should you read this book?

If youre a fan of the man or just want to better understand Apple then, sure. If youre interested in the business side of things, only a small portion of this book will appeal to you. You may find yourself skipping over the remaining parts, but the business portions of the book have some veritable gold mines.

Thank you, Steve, for leaving my world a much better place with your products. As you said, "Build a company that will still stand for something a generation or two from now… not just to make money."

I hope to say I did that as well one day.

My thoughts - a powerful, yet not entirely flattering biography, of a charismatic, temperamental, narcissistic genius who was driven by perfectionism. (You may wish to skim this review if you plan on reading this book).

Steve Jobs, a man who will not be easily forgotten, passed away on October 5, 2011 at the age of 56. In 2009, knowing he was dying, he got Walter Isaacson to agree to write a book about his life. Over the course of the next two difficult years of Jobs illness, Isaacson conducted over 40 interviews with him, his friends, family and former coworkers.

Jobs grew up in Mountainview, CA, outside of Palo Alto, the adopted son of Paul and Clara Jobs. His biological parents --grad students, a Syrian father and American mother, he referred to as his "sperm and egg bank". Even when he later found out who his real parents were, he always referred to his adoptive parents as his "real" parents. However, it appears apparent from reading this book, that being abandoned by his biological parents was a real issue for Jobs throughout his life, and it affected the way he treated people as an adult.

As a young boy, early on Jobs realized he was brighter than his parents. This made him feel more detached. In fact in the 4th grade he tested at a 10th grade level. Bored with school, he was also somewhat socially awkward and was often bullied at school. He demanded that he be sent to another school or that he would stop going to school, so his parents moved to a better neighborhood. It was here where Jobs began tinkering with electronics in his garage. This is where is all begin in 1976 for Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak. The two were both loners and "music geeks" introduced by a friend. Jobs experimented with pot, hash, and LSD and embraced the hippie lifestyle. The only college that Jobs had any interest in attending was Reed College in Portland, Oregon. It was at Reed that Jobs became interested in Buddhism, attended a Hare Krishna Temple,and became obsessive about dieting and vegetarianism. He was on a personal unending search for enlightenment, which he never quite seemed to find. Jobs dropped out of Reed College to travel around India on a spiritual journey.

Jobs biography covers his 30+ year career which includes not only the start up operation of Apple Computer out his garage, but also his involvement at Atari, Pixar and NeXT. Just four years after Apples start up, the company went public and was worth 1.79 billion dollars. By the age of 25 Jobs was worth 256 million dollars and made 300 other people millionaires in the process. In 2011 Apple is a 40 billion dollar Company. Yet despite his wealth Jobs was a minimalist, believing that in home and in business, "simplicity is the ultimate sophistication".

Jobs opinion of himself was that "he was special". He had the uncanny ability to read people and to know exactly what their weak points were. He used that to his advantage, and created a fear factor in those who worked for him. He was eager to put people down, often in front of others, and wasnt afraid to tell those who worked for him that their ideas were dumb. His prickly behavior caused a high burnout in staff, and because of his high expectations his goal in hiring was to find creative, super-smart people who had a rebellious spirit.

He was a genius in business, but not so much in his personal life. His biography covers his tumultuous relationship with daughter Lisa who he fathered out of wedlock in 1978, to his marriage in 1991 to Laureen Powell and the birth of his first child that same year, who for the first two weeks of his life was known simply as "baby boy Jobs". In 1995 and 1998 two more children, daughters were born to Steve and Laureen. His was described as aloof to his daughters and often "prickly" to his wife, thus by no means an easy man to live with.

His illness,was first diagnosed in October of 2003, with what was believed to be, a curable form of pancreatic cancer. Jobs decided against surgery despite the urging of his doctors and those closest to him. Instead he chose to try some radical diets and fastings in the hope they would cleanse his body of cancer. His was obsessed with body image and did not want to have a surgery he believed might not be entirely necessary. The nine month wait caused his cancer to spread, and his health and quality of life would deteriorate as well, ending with his death on October 5, 2011.

Steve Jobs is a fascinating read about a complicated and extremely fascinating man. As prickly as this man could be at times, there are a few paragraphs that were able to bring me to tears. Apparently, according to Jobs, much of your thinking is changed in the face of death, and suddenly you no longer worry about "having something to lose."

A highly recommended read.