Hardcover, 630 pages
English language
Published Nov. 3, 2011 by Simon & Schuster.
Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years -- as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues -- Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for …
Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years -- as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues -- Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted. Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple's hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values. - Publisher.
It isn't a page-turner, with its frequent time jumps requiring close attention to dates, but it deepened my appreciation for Apple's history, inspired me to re-watch Jobs' presentations, discover cool YouTube channels about vintage Apple hardware, and reminded me of the importance of focus—something I struggle with.
I think this biography would have benefited from not being rushed out like it was. In some respects, it was too close to Jobs' perspective - much of the phrasing seemed to mimic a late-Apple marketing vocabulary - while simultaneously not being close enough by incorporating more of the insights and recollections of the man from his close family, associates, and rivals.
I think that there was too much focus on describing that Jobs invented X, Y & Z while ignoring the meat of the collaborations and conflicts that led to those successes and failures. We get to hear how revolutionary iCloud is (the jury's out on that) while ignoring things like the failure of the iPod HiFi (Apple's ill-fated iPod dock & speaker). In his defense, Isaacson does check off the public failures of Jobs (NeXT, his relationship with his daughter, etc.), but I came away feeling that I'd …
I think this biography would have benefited from not being rushed out like it was. In some respects, it was too close to Jobs' perspective - much of the phrasing seemed to mimic a late-Apple marketing vocabulary - while simultaneously not being close enough by incorporating more of the insights and recollections of the man from his close family, associates, and rivals.
I think that there was too much focus on describing that Jobs invented X, Y & Z while ignoring the meat of the collaborations and conflicts that led to those successes and failures. We get to hear how revolutionary iCloud is (the jury's out on that) while ignoring things like the failure of the iPod HiFi (Apple's ill-fated iPod dock & speaker). In his defense, Isaacson does check off the public failures of Jobs (NeXT, his relationship with his daughter, etc.), but I came away feeling that I'd read more of a hagiography than I did a complete and honest accounting of the man himself and his legacy on the markets that he revolutionized (for good or ill).
