It is difficult to read the opening pages of Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs without feeling melancholic. Jobs retired at the end of August and died about six weeks later. Now, just weeks after his death, you can open the book that bears his name and read about his youth, his promise, and his relentless press to succeed. But the initial sadness in starting the book is soon replaced by something else, which is the intensity of the read--mirroring the intensity of Jobs’s focus and vision for his products. Few in history have transformed their time like Steve Jobs, and one could argue that he stands with the Fords, Edisons, and Gutenbergs of the world. This is a timely and complete portrait that pulls no punches and gives insight into a man whose contradictions were in many ways his greatest strength. --Chris Schluep
* An extraordinary book which gives us a unique insight into the life and thinking of the man who has single-handedly transformed the way we live today
From the Back Cover
From the author of the bestselling biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, this is the exclusive biography of Apple's Steve Jobs, written with his full cooperation.
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 - this book chronicles the rollercoaster 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 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, so 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 and instead encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. "I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of, such as getting my girlfriend pregnant when I was twenty-three and the way I handled that," he said. "But I don't have any skeletons in my closet that can't be allowed out."
Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. Likewise, his friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, demons, perfectionism, desires, artistry, devilry, and obsession for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.
Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were all interrelated, just as Apple's hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is thus both instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.
