Steve Jobs

Walter Isaacson
One of the most prominent members of the media industry and a highly respected
critic Walter Isaacson once interviewed the man of the time Steve Jobs for an
exclusive autobiography. Jobs at that time was in deteriorating health and for once
decided to proceed with the idea of an autobiography. There was, although, a catch.
Jobs was to have all the exclusive rights over the content. He also encouraged all
those associated throughout his life to open up and share during the interviews.
Hence, a beautiful autobiography was written that told us everything we needed to
know about the mysterious Steve Jobs life.
The book opens up with a casual description of how you would go through a day of
Jobs life. It is the usual outburst of sudden energy propelled by creative imagination
and a large chunk of Jobs ego. Yes, Jobs was egoistic and the words in his
autobiography show the same. But it is the way it has been portrayed that makes
the difference. Isaacsons usage of positive metaphors and relative instances show
that the egoistic behavior of Jobs was something Jobs never wanted to portray but
since it was a part of his character, it came out naturally for him. Let us all agree,
there has been a lot of speculation surrounding the life and times of Steve Jobs as
he never shared it with anyone other than his closest sources. Hence, for he book to
include what all Jobs wanted it to include, the circle of people closest to him needed
to be traced, contacted, interviewed (often several times) and then whatever they
have said needs to be scrutinized and refined to justify its usability in the book.
Then, it finally comes into print. So how did Walter Isaacson do all of that?
Well, firstly, it wasnt an easy job and second, Steve Jobs was proactive in terms of
gathering information. Not only did he encourage them to share but chased for
interview spots and got the details right. The book opens with a troubled Jobs as a
child and chapters dealing with his abandonment, adoption and an eventual
dropout. Steve Jobs took inspiration from the then popular IBM mainframe
computers. Underlining Jobs ability to be creative, imaginative and innovative
Isaacson describes the conflict Jobs was going through in his mind regarding the
ideas of starting a business using his idea which was to revolutionize the computer
industry. This is an important feature of the Jobs autobiography which Isaacson has
maintained throughout the story. Jobs idea of Apple Inc. was to create a product
using innovation and creativity that would revolutionize computing. This creative
outlook of Jobs is detailed in the third chapter when he involves into the gaming
world by being a part of Atari Corporation, a major global gaming giant. Also in this
chapter is given a very crucial fact Jobs involvement and attraction towards Zen
Buddhism. The first three chapters have been beautifully crafted to cover Jobs first
twenty years in three chapters without losing out on any important details. Jobs
issues with his abandonment and then his adoption created in him a compulsive
behavior and a self-centered attitude. His natural curiosity and innovativeness led
him to an idea that forced him to dropout in the middle of college and began using

LSD as a recreational method. Although Jobs has several times accepted the fact in
his book that his addiction to LSD helped him in a creative manner, he did
discontinue it later on in his life. Jobs also had visited India during this time and
picked up an interest in Zen teachings that would form a part of him for the rest of
his life.

The next chapters revolve around the time when Jobs had made contact with his
confidante to be in the future, Steve Wozniak. An HP employee who knew his way to
work around any computer mainframe, he became Jobs partner and together they
created the first ever Apple I Macintosh computer that was built in Jobs own
garage. This led to the foundation of Apple Inc. and also focused on the
showmanship of Jobs. Jobs was never a creator and he has acknowledged the fact
as well in his book several times. He has outlined the crucial nature of Wozniaks
relationship with him in the early days when Apple was just beginning. Moving to a
proper office within the first six months, their main target was schools and colleges
in order to penetrate the market amidst gigantic competition with the likes of HP
and IBM. After getting an experience on a graphical user interface that was to be
discontinued by Xerox, Jobs and Wozniak designed Lisa, a GUI that would later be
the platform to build the first Mac.
It wasnt the Mac that attracted the people towards it. Instead, it was Jobs sales
tactics. Jobs was a marketer. He knew how to sell and whom to sell. He wouldnt go
looking for needs and then introduce products to satisfy the needs. He would
instead create a need, make the customer realize the need and then push his
product. It was more like a shock-and-awe campaign and he proved it works in a
brilliant manner when he describes the launching of the first Mac at the annual
Apple shareholders meet. This phase of the book that deals with the designing of
Apple I, Apple II, Lisa and ultimately finishes with the success of Mac is the most
intriguing section of the book as it tells us about the mysterious nature of Jobs and
why he cherished it so much. Isaacson paints a beautiful of the sarcastic but caring,
stoic but emotional, vague but deep thoughts and ideas that would bloom in the
mind of Steve Jobs. The creation of an egoistic success figure is shown in this
section of the book. The section of the book ends with the portrayal how Jobs
considered leaving Apple as he felt a sense of betrayal and in turn the board who
thought Jobs behavior was too compulsive and arrogant which would harm the
company in the long run after Apple II and the Mac were showing less sales. Jobs
problems with pancreatic cancer are also showcased in this part which would
ultimately result in his demise.
The flow of the book gently proceeds into a slightly fast phase that showcases most
of Jobs creativity and entrepreneurial skills. Under the influence of Zen and his
continued usage of LSD, Jobs began taking a more creative and open approach
towards things and this in turn, would open up new opportunities for him. This
culminates in the founding of another computer company by Jobs called NeXT.
Although the success of NeXT was limited due to the limited application of its

product, Jobs ideas would not go wasted and it is mentioned in the book as a fact by
Jobs himself that Apple Inc. in the future had adopted many ideas from NeXT during
the time Steve Jobs was there. Jobs also made a short stint with Pixar during this
time which prompted the animation giant Walt Disney to take it over. This was the
same time the Apple board realized their folly and called Jobs back. This was by far
the most important event in the book as this took Jobs ego to a totally new level.
This was the moment when the idea of Apple as a separate benchmark platform in
the computing industry came up. This was when Jobs decided to have a unique
cable and connection types as standard for all and only Apple devices. Ultimately,
Jobs innovated with his ideas to create the iPod and the iPhone that skyrocketed
Apples popularity and revenues.
When it was time that the cancer was slowly taking over more and more, Jobs
planned his exit and grooming Tim Cook to take over, Jobs receded to his home and
family during his last days when Isaacson first met Jobs. In a nutshell, Jobs had
described his ego beautifully and it has been subtly put forth by Isaacson. It has to
be given though that Isaacson had described a self-centered, egoistic, arrogant but
caring and affectionate person into a genius who wanted to revolutionize the world
by making things simpler and simpler.