I have no Apple products in my life. No iPhone, no Mac, no iPad, nothing. Long ago, as a young computer software developer, I hitched my wagon to Microsoft’s rising star. I reasoned that with its strategy of licensing its products as widely as possible, I could reap the benefits of a broader market for my services. I wasn’t disappointed. I perceived the Apple universe as a limited field with a high cost of entry, focused on small specialty applications in which I had no particular interest.
Nevertheless, the technological developments that Apple produced over the years have caused the world of computing to lurch in directions that were not anticipated by the group of connected people who were considered “those in the know”. We who are not in the Apple camp have been affected by these developments, and have had to adapt to new paradigms over the course of our careers. This is primarily because of the taste, the will, and the drive of one man, Steve Jobs.
Water Isaacson’s biographical book, Steve Jobs, paints a picture of Mr. Jobs that is both fascinating was well as cautionary. By having unprecedented access to the very private world of Steve Jobs for over two years, we are given a portrait of both the technical and artistic genius that many have applauded, but also the deeply flawed, insensitive, bully of a human being that he often was. No punches have been pulled. As the author noted:
“He had never, in two years, asked anything about what I was putting in the book or what conclusions I had drawn. But now he looked at me and said, ‘I know there will be a lot in your book I won’t like.’ It was more a question than a statement, and when he stared at me for a response, I nodded, smiled, and said I was sure that would be true. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Then it won’t seem like an in-house book. I won’t read it for a while, because I don’t want to get mad. Maybe I will read it in a year—if I’m still around.’”
There is no doubt that Steve Jobs was an extraordinary individual. From a distance, through the adoration of his fans and the Apple mystique, it is quite possible to be affected by what some of his coworkers have labeled the “Reality Distortion Field”, a state of viewing and believing something that isn’t real, or least not completely accurate. Jobs’ reality distortion field led him to assume the attitude of always being right and others who disagreed with him of always being wrong. This had mixed results in his career and personal life. He hit some major homeruns with some of his products. Yet, he also fielded some major duds, and nearly lost his entire fortune when he was unfettered and free from the constraining input of others’ more balanced arguments.
Starting life as an adopted child in a loving and nurturing home, being ingrained by his father with a love for electronics, mechanics, and especially with a sense of craftsmanship, he grew up with a firm belief that he was special and usual norms and rules did not apply to him. He was, he thought, destined to be a prince. Even as an adult, he ignored the handicapped parking signs and parked there anyway in his Mercedes that never bore a license plate.
In summary, Jobs grew up in middle class Palo Alto, California. In high school he earned the reputation of prankster and geek. As a college dropout, he took LSD, traveled to India to experience the gurus and Eastern philosophies. He lived on a commune in Oregon. He worked for Atari. With his friend and partner Steve Wozniak he built the first Apple computer and made $100 million before he turned 25. In a power struggle in 1985 he lost control of Apple and was ousted. His second computer company, NeXT, was a failure and hemorrhaged money. He then purchased Pixar for a tiny amount from George Lucas, who had pressing cash needs, and with director John Lasseter, turned it into a wildly successful animation studio. He then returned to Apple and assumed control. Soon he saw the Internet as a way to build an integrated consumer electronics company. Computers would become the hub of one’s digital life, and a succession of revolutionary new devices, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, would be the spokes.
This is the story that makes the skeleton of the book. The meat and the fat are far more interesting.
As a boy, Jobs rejected his parents’ Christianity because of his reaction to the starvation of children in Biafra, and his disbelief that a loving God would allow something like that to happen. In spite of his parents’ attempts to explain, Jobs begins to assert his typological attitude of “I’m right and everyone else is wrong”, even if the “everyone else” included God. This attitude is even manifested in his belief that he didn’t exude any body odor, and the requirement of regular bathing that everyone else had to endure was not one with which he needed to indulge.
At Apple, Jobs was known to berate, belittle, and scream at those who either disagreed with him or produced work he felt was not up to his sense of what it meant to be an “A-List” player. He could fire an employee on the spot, and sometimes cry when he did not get his way. To be fair he also cried when speaking of loyal friends and employees and good experiences with his family, so he wasn’t merely a cry-baby. Mixed in with the cold, callused, methodical corporate leader was a sentimental and sensitive soul, but only when focused on such things. Jobs’ attention and emotional ray gun swept around like a lighthouse. One minute it was on you, warm and enjoyable, the next, pointing in another direction, it could be cold and detached.
His life was played out in three major acts. Act One begins with his birth, abandonment, adoption, development and creation of Apple Computers. Becoming a multimillionaire so young in life made him even more self-assured and ego-centric. Act Two starts with his ouster from Apple and his fall into near desperation as most of his money is lost in the debacle of NeXT. There is a tempering and a mellowing, perhaps a maturing. Perhaps not. Maybe he merely learns better way of controlling those around him without the adolescent fireworks. Maybe not. Finally, Act Three begins with his return to a demoralized and disorganized Apple, and ends, of course with his death, but not before major successes and industry transformations are brought about because of his incessant insistence on quality, innovation, and complete control of the users’ experience.
Isaacson writes:
"The saga of Steve Jobs is the Silicon Valley creation myth writ large: launching a startup in his parents' garage and building it into the world's most valuable company. He didn't invent many things outright, but he was a master at putting together ideas, art, and technology in ways that invented the future. He designed the Mac after appreciating the power of graphical interfaces in a way that Xerox was unable to do, and he created the iPod after grasping the joy of having a thousand songs in your pocket in a way that Sony, which had all the assets and heritage, could never accomplish. Some leaders push innovations by being good at the big picture. Others do so by mastering details. Jobs did both, relentlessly."
This is a wonderful book, well worth your time, thoroughly enjoyable, and eminently readable: a balanced telling of an unbalanced life.