It’s possible—likely even—that Steve Jobs could have picked someone better than Walter Isaacson to write a biography. Isaacson is just one man after all. One writer. One lens. One shot in a game devoid of do-overs.
I picked up my copy of Steve Jobs with low expectations. I’d heard some pretty scathing criticism of Isaacson from people I consider more scholarly in their knowledge of Apple history than I.
And maybe that’s the reason I couldn’t put the book down. The bar was so low it could’ve been walked over. Or maybe Jobs did get it right. Maybe Isaacson was the right guy. Or at the very least, the most right given the circumstances.
I really enjoyed Steve Jobs, the book. It meant a lot to me, in some very complex ways. I am, in most respects, not like Steve Jobs in my way with people, but I deeply identify with many of his personality traits.
I think there’s a lot of reason to be inspired by the man. Inspired to be more like him, and to be very different from him—both for what he did and for what he often did not do in his business and personal life.
Maybe I’ll say more one day, but for now, I just wanted to share the two quotes, which, more than any others in Steve Jobs, have stayed with me weeks after finishing the book.
The 1983 Mac team
Steve Jobs moved people. He moved people to action, to glory, and sometimes, to tears. He moved low value, attention-sapping projects out of the way. He moved entire industries forward. He moved competitors to action, and to failure.
He also created a world-class team of movers. In Isaacson’s words:
Veterans of the Mac team had learned that they could stand up to Jobs. If they knew what they were talking about, he would tolerate the pushback, even admire it. By 1983 those most familiar with his reality distortion field had discovered something further: They could, if necessary, just quietly disregard what he decreed. If they turned out to be right, he would appreciate their renegade attitude and willingness to ignore authority. After all, that’s what he did.
Jobs acted with intense conviction, and he forced others to do the same.
Jony Ive
One day Jony Ive will have his own biography, but I hope it stays unwritten for a long, long time. I think Ive has a lot left to do, if not with Apple, then with a company that lets him continue intersecting art and technology.
Ive’s deeply da Vincian design philosophies are evident in every major Apple product released since he joined Apple. Ive explains the value of simplicity:
Why do we assume that simple is good? Because with physical products, we have to feel we can dominate them. As you bring order to complexity, you find a way to make the product defer to you. Simplicity isn’t just a visual style. It’s not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of the complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep.
The world desperately needs more people like Jony Ive.
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The book suffers from a rush to publish. First, it was speeded up to be out by Christmas and then to follow his death quickly. What was lost are the later editing passes, which tend to focus on improving flow and eliminating repetition. Walter Isaacson has hinted as much when he talks of doing a second edition.
That comes through most clearly in a theme that repeats throughout the book, Jobs’ cruelty to those around him. A book written less quickly wouldn’t have just repeated that theme. It’d begun by teasing readers about its possibility during his early years, then fed more details as he achieves success, and finally toward the end attempted some sort of resolution.
As is, there’s too much repetition and too little flow. Every time Isaacson brings up Jobs self-obsession, it’s almost as if it’s being introduced for the first time. He says much the same thing, drops it, then says it again twenty pages later.
Also, I think Isaacson is still trying to understand Jobs. The second edition, if it comes, should benefit from more time to think and reflect. Personally, I hope he’s bold enough to do a radical rewrite.
Bringing up Ives brings up something that also needs to be better explored. To what extent was Jobs creative in himself and to what extend did he ‘merely’ force others to be more creative and achieve higher standards. Most of the accounts in the book don’t have Jobs offering brilliant ideas. They show him screaming insults and obscenities until those under him create something he finds acceptable. Jobs talent seems less linked to knowing how something great can be made and more to recognizing that greatness once others have created it.
–Michael W. Perry, author of Untangling Tolkien