Theories on Jobs' character aside, the Jobs biography is an utter mess. Some sentences feel like they were pulled from a 6th grade book report. It's riddled with obvious statements and reads like it should have been published in People magazine. I realize I'm probably being too harsh, but I wish that I felt like Isaacson had invested into this biography, this once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity, the way Jobs likely invested in developing any of his products.
I 100% agree. I'm basically finished the book (2 more chapters to go, but I skipped ahead to the last 2 chapters out of boredom). It reads like 2 different books: before coming back to Apple the second time, and after.
The first half really makes him look like an utter wretch, and almost suggests that his success was a mistake. It basically talks about what an asshole Jobs was, and how he would yell at everyone, etc, and it wouldn't talk about what actually made him a success in his early years. There was almost nothing on it, just anecdotes from people about how he smelled, he was rude, he cried all the time, and made people hate him. I would have loved a more balanced approach to hearing about how he was able to bring the Macintosh team together through inspiration. It basically felt like "Jobs was able to get the Macintosh team together by manipulating and exploiting them with his reality distortion field." I didn't find it very good at all. I also would have liked to have read more about NeXT and what problems he had besides overspending, etc. Were there successes?
The second half of the book was more interesting, because it stopped ragging on Jobs being an asshole and talked more about what he did. There were far more anecdotes, I guess maybe because he interviewed more people from this era. But at least I got a sense of what he actually did for Apple, vs feeling like he was more lucky than good.
Overall, I think the biography stunk. It's useful in that he did get access to Jobs in the final months, and getting insight into his illness, etc, was interesting and sad, but still overall I think he did a very poor job, especially about the early years.
I think you're missing the point. He was an intense, emotional visionary. He believed in what he felt, not what others told him. That's why he smelled, why he was rude, why he cried all the time, and why he made people hate him. It's also why he was successful, and why he was able to unite teams.
Most people spend their lives engaged in a kind of Keynesian beauty contest, always trying to do or be what they think they are supposed to do or be. A true visionary has their own internal sense of beauty.
I know the book is poorly (like, very poorly) edited, so maybe it's not that clear, but I think the actual idea is that Jobs became less of an asshole over time — at least partially thanks to realizing he's not invulnerable. Also, for me the first half doesn't feel like luck at all. Sociopathic con man, yes, but not luck.
I don't think Isaacson could yell at Jobs to come back with four different answers to a question so Isaacson could choose the one he liked, and keep requesting new answers until he was satisfied.
I think it's a little funny that people who don't personally know Steve Jobs have so many strong opinions on what he exactly was, and don't seem to want to give much credit to Isaacson for writing down what Jobs "chose" to share. I started reading Mark Twain's autobiography, and his assertion is that basically any autobiography is incomplete, as a person will end up backing out of telling the unflattering truth. So, while I may not be a huge fan of Jobs, the fact he let Isaacson paint a picture that wasn't total flattery is probably one of more impressive things about Jobs, in my eyes.
Well, it was a rapidly published cash-in effort. The book industry puts out tons of titles that have no enduring value but are keyed into a very specific marketing opportunity. You don't get paid when someone finishes a book, after all -- all they have to do is buy it.
When there's a big cultural and news event, it's a huge marketing opportunity, and timeliness trumps other considerations. Because we live in a very fast and competitive media environment, this dynamic plays a very big role.
The biography is a complete disaster. After I finished reading it, I found that there was nothing to take away. Actually, I highly recommend John Siracusa's point-by-point dissection of the biography at 5by5, the show is called Hypercritical and listen to episodes 42 and 43. Link: http://5by5.tv/hypercritical
Siracusa pulls no punches and each and every one of his criticisms is well thought through.
It might come across as simplistic because it wasn't really written for people like you and me - it was written for non-technical consumers of apple products and the general public.
I'm glad that I'm not the only one to feel that way about the book being poorly written. I got the book the week it came out and read maybe 4-5 chapters, I haven't touched it since then. There was one paragraph that I must have read 5 times before I could understand it completely with the poor choice of words.
