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herzog's review against another edition
3.0
This book is well written, and told from a unique point of view that few others could have told. Isaacson knew Jobs through it all, and tells lots of charming anecdotes and stories. It's all there and mostly factually accurate.
What tainted this book for me was Isaacson's very obvious buy-in to the closed ecosystem argument. Throughout the book, Isaacson makes it clear that his view is in 100% agreement with Jobs, that open products and ecosystems "make for bad experiences" and "shit products". There are little factual inaccuracies throughout the book, sure, but that doesn't bother me that much. What bothers me is how this book reads like two guys feeding off of each other's love of closed, controlled ecosystems. He flat out says that competitors to Apple are inferior over and over again. Biographies this important should tell an impartial story, and Isaacson only came partway to doing so.
What tainted this book for me was Isaacson's very obvious buy-in to the closed ecosystem argument. Throughout the book, Isaacson makes it clear that his view is in 100% agreement with Jobs, that open products and ecosystems "make for bad experiences" and "shit products". There are little factual inaccuracies throughout the book, sure, but that doesn't bother me that much. What bothers me is how this book reads like two guys feeding off of each other's love of closed, controlled ecosystems. He flat out says that competitors to Apple are inferior over and over again. Biographies this important should tell an impartial story, and Isaacson only came partway to doing so.
isantelli5764's review against another edition
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Fascinating tale about one of the greatest business/tech/product minds of all time. A little repetitive at times but really interesting and enjoyable.
gadicohen93's review against another edition
4.0
Before I'd started Isaacson's Steve Jobs, I'd never really known what Steve Jobs' capacity at Apple was. I actually still don't really know. Was the only thing he did as CEO screaming at his employees that their work was "shit"? Shit, shit, shit? I don't think they were shit. SJ’s perfectionism was downright arbitrary at times, and perhaps that’s why he succeeded so well. His dictatorship, ruled out of a pair of guerilla-glued-on reality distortion goggles, took its inspiration from Stalinist Russia’s governance structures of Five-Year Plans and forced industrialization. The kind of efficiency he mined out of his workers reminds me eerily of an anecdote my Current Global Macroeconomic Challenges professor David Wyss kept resorting to when discussing China’s growth: One day a government official tells a neighborhood block to find a new home, and the next day there’s a highway in its place. Apple didn’t get things done because of an inherently efficient structure of talent; it got things done because Steve Jobs’ taste buds ruled over Apple like Vladimir over Russia.
Commendable taste buds they were. His web of philosophies, all poking out of a center of zennish Simplicity, guided his every move – though, in the end, it was his gut feeling that really seemed to intuit whether he liked a product or not. Well, duh. CEOs should have gut feelings about things and should usually let their gut feelings dictate those things. Or the gut should, at least, act in an editorial capacity. And I think most of Steve Jobs’ role as Apple CEO could be translated into EAL: editor-at-large – he’d pour over a product, examine it, let his gut grunt its yeas or nays, and either scream his fucking head off or take credit for the idea’s beautiful success.
More than the fact that SJ was a complete asshole, I learned a few things. I learned that life philosophy can drive people in their quests for better products. I learned that customers don't know what they want. Like, graphical user interfaces on computers? Those were not a thing -- not even an intuitive thought, until someone (I forget who) came up with it three decades + ago. I learned that CEOs and company executives and engineers and designers bicker. A lot. They bicker about the price of the product, the materials of the product, the way the products looks, feels, the way it's marketed and advertised, the way it's packaged and sold even.
Overall, this book was pretty illuminating in the way it delved into all of Apple's personalities and products and organizational structures. It was a fast, simple, if not as completely elegant as one of Steve's products.
Commendable taste buds they were. His web of philosophies, all poking out of a center of zennish Simplicity, guided his every move – though, in the end, it was his gut feeling that really seemed to intuit whether he liked a product or not. Well, duh. CEOs should have gut feelings about things and should usually let their gut feelings dictate those things. Or the gut should, at least, act in an editorial capacity. And I think most of Steve Jobs’ role as Apple CEO could be translated into EAL: editor-at-large – he’d pour over a product, examine it, let his gut grunt its yeas or nays, and either scream his fucking head off or take credit for the idea’s beautiful success.
More than the fact that SJ was a complete asshole, I learned a few things. I learned that life philosophy can drive people in their quests for better products. I learned that customers don't know what they want. Like, graphical user interfaces on computers? Those were not a thing -- not even an intuitive thought, until someone (I forget who) came up with it three decades + ago. I learned that CEOs and company executives and engineers and designers bicker. A lot. They bicker about the price of the product, the materials of the product, the way the products looks, feels, the way it's marketed and advertised, the way it's packaged and sold even.
Overall, this book was pretty illuminating in the way it delved into all of Apple's personalities and products and organizational structures. It was a fast, simple, if not as completely elegant as one of Steve's products.
andyxmas's review against another edition
4.0
fascinating insight into apple and jobs. what i take from it? i'm not weird enough to be CEO of apple!
azureyoshi's review against another edition
2.0
TL;DR - Steve Jobs was an asshole. This book is hundreds of pages of evidence of such. Read if that seems compelling to you.
This book isn't wholly frustrating - it was interesting learning about Jobs and all of his quirks. I wasn't aware that he was an extreme fad dieter and susceptible to homeopathy as his main modality of healing.
I wish there was more on his childhood and an examination of why he turned out the way he did, like in the Tiger Woods biography. (That book gave a much better explanation as to why Tiger turned out the way he did.) Sure, they referenced how he was able to bully his parents to get out of punishments and how Jobs felt deeply traumatized by being adopted. But it felt pretty surface level to me, and I think more should have been devoted into that rather than the hundreds of examples of Jobs being a jerk later on in the book.
This book isn't wholly frustrating - it was interesting learning about Jobs and all of his quirks. I wasn't aware that he was an extreme fad dieter and susceptible to homeopathy as his main modality of healing.
I wish there was more on his childhood and an examination of why he turned out the way he did, like in the Tiger Woods biography. (That book gave a much better explanation as to why Tiger turned out the way he did.) Sure, they referenced how he was able to bully his parents to get out of punishments and how Jobs felt deeply traumatized by being adopted. But it felt pretty surface level to me, and I think more should have been devoted into that rather than the hundreds of examples of Jobs being a jerk later on in the book.
ryankuna's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
5.0
persephone2020's review against another edition
I stopped because I got distracted and read a different book. I'll come back to it
dkatreads's review against another edition
4.0
A fascinating read about a man whose life shaped more of our modern age than I ever realized. Engaging, illustrative, and important, but never quite enthralling.
Left with lots of thoughts about leadership, legacy, and what it takes to change the world, but mostly asking, is it worth it?
I enjoyed learning about the history of innovations in the computer industry, of Jobs’ design philosophy and aspirations for animation and storytelling at Pixar. My appreciation and respect for those brands grew immensely in a way I didn’t expect.
A desire to build the best products, to integrate beauty and technological need, and to push the people around you to excellence is the central theme of Jobs’ life that will stick with me the most. Thankful for the read and definitely recommended for Apple enthusiasts.
Left with lots of thoughts about leadership, legacy, and what it takes to change the world, but mostly asking, is it worth it?
I enjoyed learning about the history of innovations in the computer industry, of Jobs’ design philosophy and aspirations for animation and storytelling at Pixar. My appreciation and respect for those brands grew immensely in a way I didn’t expect.
A desire to build the best products, to integrate beauty and technological need, and to push the people around you to excellence is the central theme of Jobs’ life that will stick with me the most. Thankful for the read and definitely recommended for Apple enthusiasts.