Steve Jobs

This official biography of Steve Jobs isn’t a new book; it was published in 2011. I finally got around to reading it after an associate gave it a high recommendation. Being a couple of years old, used copies are readily available. I went to the most efficient market I know of, eBay, and found a copy for $8.57 delivered to my door (retail is $35).

It is quite a story. This is not a quick read at almost 600 pages but the author is terrific and has done a masterful job of telling this story. Walter Isaacson had intimate access to Steve Jobs and his family, friends and associates. While this is an authorized biography, Jobs did not put any restrictions on the project and, in fact, never read the book. The result is a biography that is authoritative (based on several hundred interviews) but also well balanced. The positives and negatives of Steve Jobs’ personality are portrayed.

I guess the negatives come to mind first. Steve Jobs was not a nice person. Or to be more blunt (and probably accurate), he was just an asshole. But he was also a genius. And this asshole genius will probably be judged by history as the most influential businessman of our time. It seems likely that he will be compared with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Thomas Watson and Bill Gates.

I didn’t know much about Steve Jobs’ personal life. He was adopted and never knew his birth father. He had a troubled relationship with his first daughter. He tended to ignore his wife and family. As mentioned above, he was not a nice guy.

He tended to be awful to his employees and other business associates. He was typically complimentary when it served his purposes. That is, he was manipulative.

His legacy, of course, is twofold. First, in the products he created. And second, in the company he created.

The products started with the Apple II. But more significant was the introduction of the graphical user interface with the Macintosh in 1984. And with the Mac began a series of products that would reflect his design genius, perfectionism, innovation and his uncanny ability to see what consumers would want long before they knew they wanted it. Jobs always wanted to control everything about the product: hardware, software and user experience. In this way and in his mind, he hoped to create perfect products. This was the thinking that led to Apple’s closed system architecture.

I had almost forgotten Jobs’ role in the founding and success of Pixar and the re-invention of animated movies. The Apple stores have helped redefine retailing and how physical stores can affect a brand.

The iPod changed how we consume music. Meanwhile, the iTunes Store saved the music industry which was staggering under an outdated business model that had been overrun by piracy via sites like Napster.

The iPhone turned mobile phones into a pocket computer and then spawned a new content creation industry to be sold via the App Store.

The iPad really started tablet computing and may save the publishing industry and countless newspapers, magazines and books as the ink-on-paper business struggles to survive.

Apple itself, the company, was considered by Jobs as his greatest creation. It became the most valuable company on earth. Whether Apple can remain a dominate force in the years and decades ahead without Steve Jobs at the helm remains to be seen.

Walter Isaacson says that Steve Jobs wasn’t exceptionally intelligent. But he was a magical genius with exceptional insights based on remarkable instincts. He was an exceptional person that lived a life that couldn’t have been scripted in Hollywood.

If you haven’t read the book, consider it. It really is a terrific biography.

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