Steve Jobs

 

By: Walter Isaacson

Every once in a while there is a book that captures my attention so much that I just have to buy it close to the date it comes out.  "Steve Jobs" was the latest book.  Well, audio book.

Love him or hate him.  Love his soup to nuts products or hate them Steve Jobs was one the titans of our time.  He will go down in history along the names of Ford, Eddison, and Gates.  His products will be regarded as game changers.  As the book said he reinvented 5 industries: PC, Animation, MP3 Player, Music, and Phones.  He's well on his way, posthumously, to reinventing the tablet.

He was born to parents who couldn't or wouldn't take care of him.  So, he was adopted.  His real parents, as he said, were his adopted parents.  His father was a crafty man who could fix anything.  His mother was loving and caring towards him.  He took from his father the almost Zen art of everything has it's place.

Growing up in Palo Alto he was in the heart of the countries electronics boom and he morphed his father's love for woodworking and cars to something he could call his own, electronics. 

That love planted the seed that would grow the tree that spawned Apple Computers. 

There are a lot of twists and turns in Jobs' life but you'll have to read the book to find out what they were. 

I came away from the book thinking that I would have hated to work for Jobs' but I still love his products and his attention to details.  He was a very hard man to work for.  His mind worked in a binary state: either you were a genius or you were a bozo.  There was no wiggle room.  His thoughts on you could change from hour to hour or day to day.  He could hate the concept you brought up in the Monday meeting but then love it (and claim credit for it) on Tuesday.

He was a very emotional man, something I didn't know about him.  He would cry on the drop of a hate.  Yell, scream, and curse like he a maestro in that art.  He kept his distance from his three girls, yet he embraced his son Reed into his life. 

Jobs' of course died of cancer in early October 2011.  When I heard the news at our local Mexican restaurant  I was grief stricken.  Here was this man who we all knew was close to death when he stepped down as Apple's CEO in the summer and he was dead.  I had a hard time processing the emotions I was feeling because I didn't understand them.  Sure the man changed the face of technology more times than anyone of his day but why did I get upset.  I figured it out after reading this book.  He was the person in tech that had to die early.  Music has far too many people who died early, too early.  Music lovers remember where they were when they heard that John Lennon was dead.  Geeks like myself will remember where they were when Steve died.

This book covers his life from birth to almost death.  Jobs' gave Isaacson awesome access to him.  When Reed was graduating high school, something Jobs fought to survive for, he emailed Isaacson during the ceremony to tell him how proud he was of Reed.  Jobs did not have any say in what was put in the book or who Isaacson talked to in his process of putting the book together.  In there last meeting Jobs commented that he thought there would be some parts of the book he wouldn't like so he  said he wasn't going to read the book for a few years so he wouldn't be mad at Isaacson.  Of course, he never got the read the book.

If you love tech this is a must read.  If you're interested in business, this book is a must read.

26 Hours

656 Pages