It was Steve Jobs who had approached Walter Isaacson and suggested he write Steve’s biography. Isaacson kept putting it off, until Jobs’ wife, Laurene Powell, told him bluntly that he better do it soon if he really wanted to.
In a way, this preemptive strike was further evidence of Jobs’ inability to cede control (a recurring theme in the bio). It was a sure thing that unauthorized biographies would be published posthumously, and Jobs saw to it that there would be his version.
Indeed, soon after his death, announcements over the web said that the film rights to the book had already been bought, evidence that the man who loved to be in control was truly gone.
The book was pieced together from over 40 interviews with Jobs, as well as interviews with past and present colleagues, friends, family and competitors. It shows us a glimpse of Jobs as a baby who had been put up for adoption by young parents unable to care for him (this feeling of abandonment would linger and resonate in different points of his adult life), and as a youth growing up in Silicon Valley, the stage for an industry at the cusp of a discovery that would change our lives forever.
Two characters figure heavily in Isaacson’s biography: Steve Jobs and the personal computer. Jobs and the computing machine are intertwined and a story about Steve Jobs and his life would also be about the evolution of the device, and how he engineered the personal computing revolution.
As a fan of Jobs and his products, we found it a bit disheartening to discover our idol’s flaws—he was a demoralizing tyrant, and that was on a good day. He did not deal well with people he thought were beneath his intellect, and often showed his impatience with a harsh word or a public putdown.
Sometimes, he would pronounce an idea stupid, then after mulling it, would do a turnaround, and suggest the same idea as his own.
In many of the events recounted by Isaacson that happened between Jobs, his adversaries and colleagues, Isaacson would often describe Jobs’ behavior as unfair.
However, Jobs’s instincts and genius were undeniable. He was not a Midas, whose every venture struck gold, he had several business failures, but with each failure he adapted and learned and the legacy he left in his products is proof of that.
But when he did succeed, he would do so in a way that would leave his competitors scrambling and would again raise the bar for companies to emulate. He was the pied piper of the industry, and even his staunchest competitors would be hardpressed to disagree.
His failures and successes in business were truly inspiring, truly in a league of his own. His tenet of elegant simplicity echoed in the design of his products and his way of life (he lived in a house without high gated fences or bodyguards).
He was also a control freak, evidenced in how he wanted his products to be streamlined and integrated. He had special Pentalobe screws installed on all Apple devices so no one could easily access the guts, and he bundled software and hardware for a holistic user experience.
In the end it was this extreme need for control that would also perhaps be his undoing. The initial diagnosis of his cancer revealed that it was the type responsive to treatment, but his inability to yield control of his body to surgery was too much—he would turn to alternative treatments and his own will to heal himself before finally agreeing to surgery, which by then would be too late.
As a husband and family man, he would have shortcomings that would leave a rift between him and his eldest daughter, whom he refused to acknowledge until much later.
His relationship with wife Laurene Powell Jobs had its ups and downs. Jobs’ complicated persona did not stay in the boardroom, after all. Still, theirs was a solid marriage—Laurene’s calm demeanor would complement Jobs’s mercurial moods.
Jobs said that he wanted his biography written because he wanted his children to know him. At the end of the book, Jobs leaves us with one more thing, his answer to how he wished his legacy to be remembered, his vision and motivation for giving us objects of desire, and how his brutal honesty may at times seem like cruelty.
Even if you are not a fan of Steve Jobs, Isaacson’s book is a worthy read, as it shares the history of one of the ubiquitous objects in our lives, and the man behind the machine, it’s the story of a man who will one day be in future history books along with other great innovators.
“Steve Jobs” is available at National Book Store.
