Steve Jobs

Walter Isaacson

Oct 2011 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

Walter Isaacson’s “enthralling” (The New Yorker) worldwide bestselling biography of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.

Based on more than forty interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than 100 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, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in 21st 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 the author, he asked for no control over what was written. 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.

Steve Jobs is the inspiration for the movie of the same name starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, and Jeff Daniels, directed by Danny Boyle with a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin.

Ratings and reviews

Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, is both interesting and informative. As someone who was only somewhat familiar with Jobs’ career, the biography opened my eyes to the recent thirty plus-year history of our cutting edge technology era. And as Isaacson correctly shows, Jobs was at the epicenter of this era, revolutionizing the world of personal computers, mobile devices, as well as the music, publishing and movie industries. Jobs and the company he personified, Apple, have created a range of products, including the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad that have literally changed the world. The book has so many fascinating stories, from the development of Apple’s revolutionary products, to Jobs’ rivalry with Microsoft’s Bill Gates, to his “wilderness” years at the helm of Pixar that changed the face of movie animation. Isaacson also explores in depth what he describes as the “unified field theory”, which drove both Jobs’ business and personal life. Jobs obsessive pursuit of creating closed end-to-end integration of hardware and software put Apple as the polar opposite of companies, such as Microsoft and Google, who have aggressively pursued more open systems, widely licensed, that were compatible with a number of different products. Isaacson argues that while Apple’s insistence on closed integrated systems, which were compatible with no other product, in the short-term reduced their market share in personal computers, it positioned the company perfectly in developing a “digital hub strategy’, which has been highly successful and profitable today. This book, in which Jobs cooperated extensively with Isaacson, shows the Apple icon warts and all. Personally and professionally, Jobs was capable of legendary fits of anger, insensitivity, indifference and at times, cruelty. To Jobs, the world was “black and white’ and “either/ or” and his quest for perfection left many causalities along the way, both in business and in his personal life. But the flip side of these flaws and Jobs’ ability to focus with relentless intensity drove him furiously toward creating elegant, unique products that were simple to use and had the customer in mind. It also allowed Jobs to face adversity, ranging from his removal from the helm of Apple in the 1980’s to his long battle with the cancer that eventually took his life. I would recommend this book highly, not only as an informative resource on business and technology, but as a fascinating view of how the creative process, when linked with technological advances, can literally change the way people live. Lance Ryskamp President, LM Publications, LLC

Why do people write books to romanticize the lives of horrible people? The only thing I find fascinating about this "Biography" is that it was able to mask the truth behind what made him this Jesus-like figure in technology. The description states that the book focuses on his "intense personality" and "creative success", but there isn't a single paragraph in the book that even mentions how he did nothing to contribute development on C, or how when Dennis Ritchie finished UNIX, Steve claimed and commercialized it for himself, granting him billions of dollars using only the effort it takes to be a back-stabbing thief. By praising Steve's career through the writing and reading of biographies, you are just rewarding selfish and greedy behavior. If you want to pay respect toward a mans advanced and loving philosophy, why not write a book about how Dennis Ritchie devoted his life toward creating C and UNIX just to benefit the technological advancement of mankind, without commercialization of any sort. Steve does not father the ground-breaking technology everyone thinks he does. Just like Hitler (who also has a bestselling biography), the only knowledge he used was his ability to weasel into success on the shoulders of someone else. In the broad spectrum; the only genius in this book is its ability to mold the mind of its reader, making a selfish and greedy person appear akin to Martin Luther King, and Gandhi.

To the guy that says "Iphone sucks, Macs are ok. So he doesn't suck too bad" You just don't get it. Steve Jobs was one of the more brilliant minds of our time. I have never owned an Apple device and may never own one. I don't question their quality one bit and I am so very happy that the iPhone was invented. Without this bold step I would not have my Galaxy II today. AND if I did it would not be of the same quality and functionality. Steve was a visionary; nobody in a sound state of mind could ever disput

About the author

Walter Isaacson is the bestselling author of biographies of Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. He is a professor of history at Tulane and was CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2023. Visit him at Isaacson.Tulane.edu.