Steve Jobs

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 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).