Why this book: It had been gifted to me several years ago by a close friend but I’d never read it. I’m finding biographies and autobiographies enjoyable to listen to – so decided to finally engage with this one. I listened to this on audible and was pleased with the recording.  

Summary in 5 Sentences: Steve Jobs asked Walter Isaacson to write his biography and instructed him to include the good and the bad – he would not edit it.  He knew he didn’t have a lot of time left and wanted to make sure his own voice was included, and that he would have the opportunity to respond to some of the more controversial stories his biographer dug up.  The book covers his child hood and that window when he and Steve Wozniak started Apple in Jobs’  parents’ garage, all the way thru to his funeral in 2011. It provides a fascinating perspective on his Dr Jeckel-Mr Hyde character, his focus and vision, his genius and his failings.  Jobs and his relentless drive and vision are credited with revolutionizing the personal computer, the music industry, the tablet industry, the cell phone industry, and more, making him one of the most influential people of the digital age.  

My Impressions: Fascinating story, wonderfully written.  I’d previously read Isaacson’s  biography of Ben Franklin and both Jobs and Franklin had a huge impact on their times and the direction of American culture.  Isaacson is an engaging writer who shares a balanced perspective on the events and people he’s describing.  Jobs chose well when he asked Isaacson to be his biographer.

It is indeed a unique perspective (as far as I know) for a person who knows he’s dying, to pick his biographer, and then participate in the process of writing the biography. To his credit, Jobs did not insist on reviewing what Isaacson had written, and told him to put it all in there – good, bad and ugly – and there was plenty of all three.  Isaacson gave Jobs a heads up of some of the negatives he’d gotten and Jobs was able to provide his comment and perspective on those sides of his story, which Isaacson (always?) included in this biography.  Jobs sometimes got defensive, but often admitted his failings.

Isaacson provides a brief rundown of relevant stories from Jobs’ youth, most importantly that he was adopted and Isaacson also gives a thumbnail sketch of his biological parents.  Interestingly his biological father a PhD student from Syria, his biological mother from middle class America – he had no real relationship with either. And then the adoption process and his growing up in the Bay Area with solid working class parents – good people who gave Steve a good home and a lot of freedom to pursue his rather esoteric interests.

His late teens and college years were an almost cliche 60s early 70s search for identity, experimentation, and trying out of new opportunities and ideas – just to see what works.  I went thru that myself.  For Jobs, he went to India to develop himself as a Buddhist, tried out being a farmer, as well as (of course) being a computer engineer and developing new ideas in that nascent world of computers.  He experimented with psychedelics, became something of a new-age “hippy” and other 60s/early 70s counter-culture phenomena.  We learn of his partnership with Steve Wozniak, how that partnership spawned ideas that led to the now classic stories of building the first Apple computers in his father’s garage. Isaacson was able to talk to the many people involved with that and sorted out the various versions of that story – most of those early players are still alive – and proud to have been part of it. 

All the while, Jobs was still casting around for an identity – a zen buddhist, a vegetarian, as well as entrepreneur.  He had several girl friends including Joan Baez, fathered a daughter out of wedlock with one of his girlfriends.  This daughter initially plays very little role in his life, but as the years go on, she becomes increasingly important.  One of Jobs greatest expressed regrets was his early neglect of his daughter. 

The initial struggles to get the Mac into the market, his competition with Bill Gates, how and why he was initially fired from Apple, then went on to lead Pixar, and then how and why Apple asked him back.  Eventually he marries happily and fathers two more children who grow up in the household of an increasingly famous, influential and wealthy father, as Jobs and Apple become leaders in the home computer industry.  His development of the Ipod  “a thousand tunes in your pocket” revolutionized the music industry, and then the Iphone, which revolutionized the personal computer and phone industry,  and life for all of us. And then of course,  the Iphone and the Ipad.

 All of these stories are interesting, but the theme that runs through the book is Jobs’ character – a brilliant visionary, but a tyrannical boss, he could be charming and extremely personable, or a rude boorish jerk with little compassion for or sensitivity to other people’s feelings.  Some of this is painful to read – how could he be such an asshole! Treat people so poorly.  And at other times be so human and charming. Part of the mystery of Steve Jobs. 

One of the many things that struck me in this biography was how often he swam against the tide and succeeded.  So many of his ideas were opposed by those on his team, ran against all conventional wisdom, and no one supported him.  Yet with his drive, personality and attention to detail, he made them the ground breaking innovations in their field – the Mac computer, the Ipod, the Ipad, the Iphone.  This reality is part of my argument against the idea that AI can replace humans.  AI does well to integrate, and regurgitate conventional wisdom.  “Conventional Wisdom” said his ideas were impossible to develop, or wouldn’t work, or there would be no market for them.  History has proven conventional wisdom wrong and Steve Jobs right in so many instances.  And that is the case for how so much progress is made.

My view:  “Think Different” (at least for now,) is an argument against the idea that AI will drive everything.   Progress and new insights will depend on people with the vision, and the drive to leap ahead of conventional wisdom, .

I spent four of my most formative years in Palo Alto at the same time Jobs was breaking new ground, and I was  completely unaware of what he was doing. It was fun for me to read about his youth and young adult hood and then his development of Apple in the world that I’d spent so much time in my formative years.   But Jobs was in a different world than I; that said, I am typing this on a MacBook Air, used to have an Ipod, now I have an Iphone and an Ipad;  I am the happy benefactor of so much of what he did.

Fascinating book, fascinating man, and a fascinating look at modern history – at the key events and key personalities in the evolution of our current intense engagement with digital media.  Strongly recommended.