Steve Jobs

Synopsis
A thorough biography of Apple's mercurial co-founder, savior, and legend.

My thoughts
This biography was hugely entertaining and full of information. Not only did Steve Jobs live an epic life, but Walter Isaacson interviewed practically everyone Jobs ever met to research this book. Isaacson knows how to skillfully sift through all the gossip and other noise to present a well-rounded portrait of his subject. That said, he wasn't able to remain completely impartial. It's almost like he was in awe of Jobs (not that I blame him).

This is certainly a warts-and-all profile, and I came away with the impression that Jobs was a brilliant man but not someone I'd want to work for. He was stubborn, ambitious, and egotistical, and although those qualities translated into enormous success in the business world, they also pushed some of his co-workers and subordinates to the breaking point. It's ironic that these qualities also contributed to his early death. When Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he initially chose not to follow his doctors' advice. Defying authority and thumbing his nose at conventional advice had worked spectacularly in his professional life, but it had devastating consequences for his health.

One of the small pleasures of this book was that it gave me the thrill of discovering the inside story to many of the technological innovations that I take for granted. Jobs's magnetic personality inspired his subordinates and spurred them to come up with solutions to problems most people wouldn't even have realized existed. The revolutionary scrolling wheel on the first iPod was one such example. It's a relatively simple idea, but it elegantly streamlined the process of scrolling through a long list of songs on a small screen.

The book also made me appreciate Jobs's (and Apple's) dedication to aesthetics. He understood exactly what technology people wanted (a personal computer, a tablet computer, a multipurpose phone/music player/video game console), and he cared what it looked like. "It's in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough," he explained when he introduced the iPad 2. "It's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our hearts sing." Jobs could give people what they didn't even know they wanted because he had a passion for the entire product, not just one aspect of it. That's an incredibly rare trait.

Bottom line
Compulsively readable.

Fine print
Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson
Genre: biography
Photo from Goodreads
I borrowed this book from my library.