Steve Jobs
2011
- technology & engineering / general
- history
- inc apple computer
- biography & autobiography / business
- computer engineers
- businesspeople
- biography
- business & economics / general
- nyt:hardcover_business_books=2012-02-25
- chief executive officers
The story
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.
What it’s like
Dense, unhurried prose with the feel of a long reporting project: short anecdotal scenes stacked into a sweeping chronology, the voice steady and journalistic rather than lyrical, with the occasional sharp quotation cutting through. The mood is restless and intent, like late-night reading in a quiet office with a laptop glowing nearby and the hum of ambition in the background. Its emotional register runs between fascination and unease, as a driven, abrasive man builds companies, loses them, and returns, while the people around him swing between devotion and despair. Chapters move briskly through decades of product launches, boardroom standoffs and family life, so the pace feels propulsive even at length. Intensity is moderate: arguments are fierce and personal cruelty is described frankly, with some ugly outbursts and a serious illness handled soberly, but there is no gore or sexual content. It suits readers who enjoy business history, people curious about how creative obsession and technical craft fuse, and anyone wanting a candid, sometimes uncomfortable portrait of leadership.
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