Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

"Fresh Air" interview w Isaacson

Steve Jobs is a fascination. He was so mysterious. You heard so many rumors about him, you saw him on t.v., you heard him quoted, you were amazed at the products his company produced, he was like a rock star for many of his years yet he disappeared from the news for quite a space of time. He started Apple, they kicked him out, he came back, Apple became amazing.

Reading this biography was very enjoyable to me. I wanted to know more about Steve Jobs, what he was like as a person and as the man who ran Apple. It was great that Jobs gave Isaacson so much access to himself.

I came away thinking that it would have been hard to live or work for Jobs. I have a feeling I would have been unhappy if I'd actually ever been around him. He was unkind, more than that he was just plain mean to people. He loved his wife and kids but he was still odd and basically selfish.

One thought in my mind after reading about how Apple started and some of the people who worked there and had the ideas that produced the products such as the ipod, ipad, the Mac and so on was I wondered if he, or Apple, would have been as successful as they were if he had not been such a difficult person to work for. Would they have succeeded if he'd actually treated his co-workers with respect?

Some people who worked for him said they didn't think so. They felt like when he made them feel so bad, it inspired them to prove him wrong. I'm sure that's true for some people. But I thought that one incident in the book showed he probably could have succeeded without being so mean. There was one time when Jobs was talking to a supplier about what he wanted. The supplier was saying there was no way he could give Jobs the product he wanted and no way do it in the time Jobs wanted. Jobs stared at him in the way he was famous for staring at people, and said something like yes, he could do it. And he told the supplier not to be afraid, he knew he could do it. And the supplier did it. To me, that shows that he could have worked that way with others and gotten results, too. But who knows?

Anyway, I thought it was a good book. I plan to reread it sometime to refresh myself on the details. There's no doubt he was an incredible person who made a company that created some amazing things.