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.
This week someone asked me – Why do you read so many biographies? They are all about the same. What do you get from that (in practice)? I told the person that, although they represent the same genre, luckily, based on my experience, they are completely different. Naturally, there is a common denominator such as inspiration, experience, knowledge of some particular company or industry, but each of these elements have their own individual characteristics. You can’t say that if you have read a book about the car industry you might guess how the film industry or the tech industry works. In addition, you can’t say that deep knowledge of a particular biography gives you a universal pattern, otherwise, we all should be successful.
I have to admit that I’ve never been a fan of Apple. I’m not such a tech geek and, maybe more significant, this brand’s too expensive for me. However, this book was a real mind opener when it comes to tech ideology and all that vouge for apple. By reading the book I had a great opportunity to deep dive into its two major elements.
First, the whole timeline depicting how each Apple product and service was delivered (except Pixar). What mindset was necessary to create one of the most valuable companies in the world. How to master at putting together ideas, art, and technology in ways that invented the future.
So I’m giving just a short briefing:
The first Macintosh with a mouse and a graphic interface. BTW the solution was taken from Xerox and it has started the first big quarrel with Bill Gates, who wanted to use this technology in Windows. When Steve got to know that Microsoft was going to use the same idea Bill said “Well, Steve, I think there’s more than one way of looking at it. I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbour named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set, and found out that you had already stolen it”. That’s hilarious and so witty.
Next, boom, Pixar which opened the world of 3d imagination and revolutionised the whole... (if you like to read my full review please visit my blog: https://leadersarereaders.blog/steve-jobs/)
The book didn't glorified his life or narrate his life as some kind of miracle. Instead, the author carefully dissected Steve's personality and related it back to the achievement he have got. The zen training and fasting he did as a teenager shaped his aesthetic based on minimalism. It also encourages his pursuit towards the perfect product . I vividly remember the design discussion of the first iphone between him and Jony Ive mentioned in the book, how he insisted a round edged screen would be much better. It is some decision won't be considered in a normal company but it also makes his product unique and irreplacable.
He is not only a great designer, but also a man with vision, he brought xerox graphic user interface into PC and become Macintosh, he brought Sony's idea of putting thousands of song into a small device to reality, he got rid of the screen of the ipod and become ipod shuffle. He got rid of the keypad on the phone even the blackberry was prevailing at that time. He did those leap of innovation. " People doesn't know what they need until you show it to them".
I really like this book and I think it is a must read for designers out there.
testo non leggerissimo ma ricco di contenuti e linee guida
Steve Jobs was one seriously complicated dude. Fascinating and inspiring life despite being a pretty big jerk most of the time.
