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Is Walter trying to squeeze as much as he can out of Jobs death or does he think Steve is living through his body?
 
Doesn't get to the point of my question. Why did they need him that badly? Why is the best answer we can get for the acquisition "Well, Beats isn't a bad business?"

You are getting plenty of answers. You just are ignoring them or are otherwise not absorbing them.

1. Apple needs a ready-for-showtime streaming music service, without busting the bank (as Spotify would). CHECK.

2. Apple could certainly use more leadership with pull in the music business. CHECK.

3. The headphone business is solid and justifies most of the cost of the acquisition.

The world is a complex place and if you need a single simple answer for anything, you are not going to be satisfied. This deal is actually pretty simple, but you need to be able to process 1+1+1=3.
 
You are getting plenty of answers. You just are ignoring them or are otherwise not absorbing them.

1. Apple needs a ready-for-showtime streaming music service, without busting the bank (as Spotify would). CHECK.

2. Apple could certainly use more leadership with pull in the music business. CHECK.

3. The headphone business is solid and justifies most of the cost of the acquisition.

The world is a complex place and if you need a single simple answer for anything, you are not going to be satisfied. This deal is actually pretty simple, but you need to be able to process 1+1+1=3.

Actually, watching the recode conference shows me it's none of those. They seem to think curation is the next secret sauce for music sales. That makes sense to me and I'm curious how it will develop.
 
The staff of the local mango smoothie shoppe knew him better than most too. :)

Yeah but one spends 5 minutes selling him a smoothie. The other ones spends days talking about and writing down notes about his life. You could learn a thing or two about a person's preferences and values doing that.

Isaacson is a Steve Jobs expert... more than most.
 
...does he think Steve is living through his body?

That's silly, of course he doesn't think that.

What people need to realize is that an authorized biography was not the only result of the time that Walter spent interviewing Steve. It also resulted in an awakening of sorts, a certain change in perspective for Walter. He soon came to feel, in a deeply intimate way, that there is a little Steve inside of everyone.

Gently knocking on our hearts. We just have to let him in.
 
That's silly, of course he doesn't think that.

What people need to realize is that an authorized biography was not the only result of the time that Walter spent interviewing Steve. It also resulted in an awakening of sorts, a certain change in perspective for Walter. He soon came to feel, in a deeply intimate way, that there is a little Steve inside of everyone.

Gently knocking on our hearts. We just have to let him in.

Eh? I'm only half way through his book and he's making him out to be a complete asshat!
 
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