Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson

Walter Issacson spent two years doing over 40 interviews to research and write Steve Jobs’ biography. Jobs sought out Issacson and authorized his work but instructed him to tell it like he saw it. Jobs never read the final product. An example of his vision, an accurate portrayal of Steve Jobs’ life became available almost simultaneously with his death.

Born in 1955 to a Wisconsin master’s student and a Syrian PHD, Steve’s unwed parents give him up for adoption. His birth parents stipulate only that his adoptive parents provide Steve with a college education. His adoptive parents living near Palo Alto, CA are not as educated as his birth parents but recognize Steve’s brilliance early on and treat him as special. They encourage his electronic hobbies and forgive his social miscues. Steve decides to go to Reed College in Portland, OR, an academically rigorous and liberal school. Steve quickly loses interest in the academics and feels guilty about spending his parent’s money for naught. He drops out but stays to audit a variety of classes that later serve him well including calligraphy. He also meets some of his lifelong friends that encourage his interest in Buddhism and Zen and lead him to try several recreational drugs including LSD which he credits with expanding his awareness.

Out of money, he returns to Los Altos to live with his parents. He meets Steve Wozniak at an electronics club. Woz is a few years older than Jobs and works for Hewlett Packard as an engineer. Jobs takes a job for Atari, an electronic game company but ends up working the late, late shift because he can’t get along with coworkers. Woz and Jobs are unlikely friends but complement each other in business and invention. Woz is the creative and tireless engineer and Jobs is the visionary product development and marketing wizard. Together they develop the first Apple computer and found the Apple Company. The rest is history. Jobs goes on to change to way we work, play and communicate. He was a pioneer in developing personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

Rather than summarize his life, let me share some interesting information about Jobs. In his 20’s even after founding Apple he dressed like a hippie. He thought his strict vegetarian diet precluded the need for daily showers and simple hygiene. He had a daughter out of wedlock at age 23 but had trouble relating to her even when in her early teens she came to live with him and his wife. His intensity and obsession about work made his personal and family relationships very difficult. He often thought about his own adoption and how it created insecurities in his life even though he loved his adoptive parents. He loved Bob Dylan’s music. He lived very modestly for his income.

He was intensely focused on whatever project he was working on. He bluntly told people when he didn’t like their work but would sometimes later warm up to the idea and claim it as his own. He would many times cry after a confrontation with an adversary. He never did any customer research to ask the customer what they wanted. He simply created products his customer never dreamed they wanted and showed them why they couldn’t do without it. He was a perfectionist in everything he did. His products often were late being released because of the minor last minute changes he would order. He took great care in hiring people but many times hired them on the spot. He believed 'A' people wanted to work with other 'A' people. He had no patience for second rate.

He thought his products should be simple, stylish and completely integrated. The novice should be able to pull it out of the box, plug it in and use it intuitively with little or no instruction, a pleasant experience. He valued developing and marketing first rate products over profit. He would often take long walks to discuss a business venture with an employee or business partner rather than sit in a conference room. He detested Powerpoint style presentations and preferred hands on models when developing products. He made engineering, design, and marketing people all work on the same team during product development rather than pass it down the line from department to department. Jobs and Bill Gates knew each other very well and actually did some projects together. Their greatest philosophical difference in business was Gates’ openness to collaboration and the sharing and selling of ideas and Jobs’ commitment to creating, developing and exclusively marketing his own ideas, to perfection.

I don’t usually read biographies. They generally aren’t that interesting in their mundane chronological listing of events. Plus, I’m usually disappointed to discover the human frailties in supposed great people. But this book was actually fun to read. There were many ‘I remember that’ moments. Jobs truly did change so much in our culture and makes you feel like you lived through something important. And yet you are struck by how such a childish, bad tempered brat could enlist his vision and brilliance to change the world.