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Walter Isaacson Considering Expanding Steve Jobs Biography

Im not paying £12 for a ebook that i know most of the content - ill be waiting for it to be around £3 - most of the content i know from macrumors and youtube videos of him being interviewed -
 
Steve and rudeness

I'd agree with that ... His rude behavior was always an issue that reared its head randomly, whenever the spotlight was on him. It's definitely an aspect of his character that people tolerated (or sometimes, made excuses for) because he accomplished so much, rather than an aspect that was beneficial.

I get the idea that if you could have asked Jobs about it, he would have rationalized it away as "doing people a favor" in a "tough love" manner. Perhaps it's a little bit like the stereotypical military concept that in order to make a great solider, you have to first tear the person down completely.

But so often, his rude behavior simply had no possible benefit to anyone involved. I remember a while back, a female blogger ran into Jobs at a MacWorld convention and wanted to get his picture. He basically said, "Get away from me!" and completely blew her off. What possible good did that do? All he did was ensure that a big Mac fan (and apparently at least a former Steve Jobs fan as well) had nothing positive to report about the encounter.


Frobozz said:
I just finished the book a couple days ago, and I found it pretty interesting. I do think that, as a reader who knew Jobs eventually passed away from the illness he was trying to hide, that it could be addressed in a grander and more thorough scope. It would have been nice to have that entire story arc as one long chapter.

I did find that Job's own personal statement about his legacy was particularly touching. You could see, in the raw, a man that felt he had a lot to offer humanity. It was clear that egos be damned, and his family would even suffer from is inattentiveness. But he would end up influencing the world in a way few people ever have. He really is in select company.

What I find the hardest to come to terms with, concerning his personality, is his rudeness. I think he could have been just as successful without scathing person attacks. I think a lot of people might point to that and say "see, Steve was an ******, so that's how good businesses are built." But I think it's more complex. I think he could have been just as effective, making hard decisions and giving people "bad news" without the intentionally wounding comments. But, sadly, that is how he probably insulated his own extremely insecure inner person from the world. He didn't know any other way. That doesn't mean it can't be done any other way. And that last summary of his life, in his own words, at the end of the book really brought to light why. It's worth the read.
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Glideslope said:
Doubtful we will ever get inside the family. It was Steve's most valued request to leave them alone.

Walter will not attempt anything other than perhaps something like "Steve's Last 24hrs."

Maybe the sister will reveal more about the alleged "Oh My God" from Steve at the moment of passing. Who knows.

Just leave Laurene, Reed, Eve, and Erin alone for at least the 1st year.
Walter gets it. :apple:
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For some reason I always get annoyed when people leave Lisa out. It annoys me when people are retconned.
 
talmy said:
I feel he needs to tighten it up first -- it's too repetitious. Then once he gets it down to the 200-300 pages of content it *really* has, perhaps add some technical content.
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This.

I work at a bookstore, and we REALLY push this book. It's one of our CEO's picks, which means we have a ridiculous amount of them in the store at a given time. The chief complaint I hear about the book - "it could be about 300 pages shorter." To quote a fairly frequent customer, and an avid reader: "It's about 600 pages of Steve being an *******. It could've easily been done in 300."
 
flux73 said:
Who said anything about a conspiracy theory? Is euthanasia for terminal cancer so inconceivable to you that you would consider it a conspiracy? It's easier for you believe that he died 24 hours after the most anticipated tech media event of the year?
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Yes, it is. Coincidences happen all the time. As humans, we like to think there are patterns or reasons when in fact there are none.

If you aren't happy with that, a far more likely explanation is that Apple moved the date up, knowing that Steve was taking a turn for the worse and that he'd want to see it.
 
justperry said:
Strange

Mere months away there was all praise for Steve here on this forum and now there's a lot of hate.
Steve might have not been the easiest guy in the world but if he wasn't what he was then all the Apple stuff wouldn't be that great as it is now. Only the best was good enough for steve and that made Apple what it is now.
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It's fine to want to make great stuff, but the man was a grade A ass. Virtually everybody in his life is wounded by him (and I'll leave out his personal life for the moment and keep it professional) -- Woz, a lot of other early Apple guys, Sculley (who was once his man-crush), even Jonny Ive is a little miffed at the way Steve took credit for his ideas. So far it seems the only major player who didn't suffer the bruises was Lasseter.

In some ways, he couldn't bust the status quo as he did in so many industries if he weren't so hard headed -- but did he need to be a porcupine to everybody? Just about everybody who was important to him professionally ends up frozen out and scarred. Again Woz is the perfect example and remained very bittersweet about Jobs. Jobs was a callous user, and as you can see by the list of the injured it was easy to go from rock star to frozen-out garbage.

justperry said:
He might have not been the nicest guy when He was in the business but who says He wasn't a nice family guy at home?
To Me he is still what he was, a great man.
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All you have to do is look at how he treated his daughter Lisa and you know all you need to know. His other kids were basically abandoned too, but to work. The man did not spend time with his family. Each child got to go on one vacation with him as a "congratulations you're an adult" celebration. He softened as he got older but he was not Mr. Dad by any means.

kingtj said:
I'd agree with that ... His rude behavior was always an issue that reared its head randomly, whenever the spotlight was on him. It's definitely an aspect of his character that people tolerated (or sometimes, made excuses for) because he accomplished so much, rather than an aspect that was beneficial.

I get the idea that if you could have asked Jobs about it, he would have rationalized it away as "doing people a favor" in a "tough love" manner. Perhaps it's a little bit like the stereotypical military concept that in order to make a great solider, you have to first tear the person down completely.
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It's much more simple than that. He was a narcissist. He doesn't think about other people, only himself. People are things to be used.

At least by the book it seems that when his parents told him he was special because they chose him for adoption, it ended up having the unintended consequence of over-consolence and gave the man a god complex. He simultaneously had fear of abandonment issues (which is probably what made him such a sensitive child, how many meetings did he cry in?) and a callous narcissism that made him detached and aloof.
 
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janstett said:
It's fine to want to make great stuff, but the man was a grade A ass. Virtually everybody in his life is wounded by him (and I'll leave out his personal life for the moment and keep it professional) -- Woz, a lot of other early Apple guys, Sculley (who was once his man-crush), even Jonny Ive is a little miffed at the way Steve took credit for his ideas. So far it seems the only major player who didn't suffer the bruises was Lasseter.

In some ways, he couldn't bust the status quo as he did in so many industries if he weren't so hard headed -- but did he need to be a porcupine to everybody? Just about everybody who was important to him professionally ends up frozen out and scarred. Again Woz is the perfect example and remained very bittersweet about Jobs. Jobs was a callous user, and as you can see by the list of the injured it was easy to go from rock star to frozen-out garbage.



All you have to do is look at how he treated his daughter Lisa and you know all you need to know. His other kids were basically abandoned too, but to work. The man did not spend time with his family. Each child got to go on one vacation with him as a "congratulations you're an adult" celebration. He softened as he got older but he was not Mr. Dad by any means.



It's much more simple than that. He was a narcissist. He doesn't think about other people, only himself. People are things to be used.

At least by the book it seems that when his parents told him he was special because they chose him for adoption, it ended up having the unintended consequence of over-consolence and gave the man a god complex. He simultaneously had fear of abandonment issues (which is probably what made him such a sensitive child, how many meetings did he cry in?) and a callous narcissism that made him detached and aloof.
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He wasn't just a narcissist, he was a psychopath. Not all people with psychopathy are serial killers, most of them make great CEOs. Not giving a damn about people and craving power and control are handy attributes for running a massive business.
 
doktordoris said:
He wasn't just a narcissist, he was a psychopath. Not all people with psychopathy are serial killers, most of them make great CEOs. Not giving a damn about people and craving power and control are handy attributes for running a massive business.
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I have been saying this all along. He was a psychopath. His parents should be sainted.

The book revealed a Jobs who was only a rumor to most of us. It seems that this was a shock to many people who thought he was some kindly hippie.

The market for a technical study of Apple is relatively small, but we can expect unauthorized biographies and some of them will be more technical. We can also expect at least one that attempts to prop up his image, written by a "fan boy".

Frankly, Apple is in a more adult and rational place now. It should be an interesting few years of transition and we will see after that...
 
It's funny that people label him a "hippie" just because he dropped some acid. He was nothing like a hippie. Just thought himself one in his mind because he did some drugs and smelled bad.
 
carlgo said:
I have been saying this all along. He was a psychopath. His parents should be sainted.

The book revealed a Jobs who was only a rumor to most of us. It seems that this was a shock to many people who thought he was some kindly hippie.

The market for a technical study of Apple is relatively small, but we can expect unauthorized biographies and some of them will be more technical. We can also expect at least one that attempts to prop up his image, written by a "fan boy".

Frankly, Apple is in a more adult and rational place now. It should be an interesting few years of transition and we will see after that...
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I doubt we will see much change. The good old brit Jonny Ives invented all the good stuff and he still is alive, thank god.
 
I did mention, even before the book had come out, that Isaacson's words could not be trusted.

The book sounded like it was written by people who hated Steve...

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flux73 said:
Haven't read the biography but I'm interested in knowing more about the circumstances surrounding his death. Maybe it's only me, but I thought it was a bit too tidy of a coincidence that he passed away the morning immediately after the iPhone 4S announcement. I've wondered if he actually passed away beforehand, or more significantly, if he euthanized himself. It's a topic a lot of people don't like to think about, but there seems to a growing awareness of it: http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/the-next-death-with-dignity-battleground/ . No judgement on my part - I support one's right to decide.

If either of these happened, I wouldn't be too surprised. Jobs was the ultimate control freak and I could imagine that he would do anything in his considerable power to make sure his death didn't overshadow any Apple announcements.
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he passed away before the iPhone 4s came out...I will be the first to say this. How do I know? I know because of the talent Steve employed and talked about so often...intuition.
 
Oooh..

I smell a George Lucas here!

Personally I loved the book, anything extra will be greatly appreciated.

However I do have some questions, such as:

1. Being the amazing influence in our modern culture, creating something so grand and so unique, how is it that barely anything was mentioned about Tim Cook??? There was almost nothing comforting me, with him being the one who replaced Jobs. It was simply not addressed and that worries me.

2. Towards the end, we seem to jump back and forth and still not get much about his time in India. If that period in his life was so special, wouldn't you think it would have been addressed?

3. Why did Isaacson, spend so much time shaping out and depicting the process of certain products and nothing about how Jobs came to the grand conclusion to let Tim Cook take over? I mean Steve Jobs couldn't settle for a decent hotel or a dish let alone something as grand as this... Makes me wonder.

4. Yes he was private, but his life was more than Apple, more than NeXT... It was also Pixar and Disney. What I am saying here is, why was it so much about Apple and not so much about Steve Jobs as a person? I know Apple was a big part of his life, but clearly he did more than that. Which is why I wonder why the book is called Steve Jobs when it might as well have been called Steve Jobs' Apple.

5. Finally, I would have loved to get more on his thinking, what he thought about life in general, more on his everyday thinking etc. this book mainly depicted him as a person who could go into a hissy fit in biblical proportions...

I love Steve Jobs, his story is special and I felt connected for reasons I cannot address in this forum. But I feel there was much more to him than this...

Isaacson, missed out on a golden opportunity to get his thoughts focused rather than collecting interviews from people who knew him and worked with him. It was all interesting but it could have been more self reflecting. I loved the parts where he let Jobs talk, but it wasn't many places.

I'll still buy the next one he'll make...

But why did they give the rights to TriStar Columbia (SONY Pictures) to do a biography about Steve Jobs when we all know what SONY thinks about him...

:apple:
 
kdarling said:
Well, I'd say those attributes are handy for clawing over others to the top :)

They don't let someone actually run a business, though, which is why Jobs surrounded himself with people who could.
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How dare you say this, I though SJ did it all alone.

Hmm...Don't you read the magazines who get the two Steves mixed up and give credit to Jobs when they meant Woz? Well, at least some new computer users did come to Apple thinking that since SJ invented (loosely) the low-cost personal computer, then it naturally makes sense to get a Mac. ;)
 
I really enjoyed the book. Steve did so much in his life it is incredible. I thought his time at NEXT can be expanded and also when he was balancing between Pixar and Apple. Really good and highly recommended it. RIP Steve.
 
I had that book in my hand on numerous occassions but put it back, thankfullly I did. I will just get check it out at the library.
 
janstett said:
The way he froze people out (including Woz)... The way he just pretended things he didn't like (such as his daughter or his cancer) didn't exist.

It's a complex story, because there was definitely some business saavy and lessons to be learned, but Steve really was not a good person.
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I found it interesting how Jobs seemed to worship the ground his son, Reed, walked on but coldly ignored his daughters, not only Lisa. I wondered if Lisa had been a boy, and not a girl, if he would have abandoned her the way that he did.

Regarding the book: it was very poorly written, felt rushed and read like a cheap, tabloid story.

I will pass on the sequel.
 
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