Steve Jobs
by Walter Isaacson
©2011 Simon & Schuster
Most of the books about Steve Jobs and Apple Computer, indeed most biographies, tend to be sequential, moving linearly through time telling the story, one anecdote after another. While this book more or less flows through time, Isaacson makes a point of following some of Steve’s more notable character traits and using them to illustrate what made Steve the person he was – both genius and asshole all at the same time.
Don’t get me wrong, this is the best of the Steve Jobs biographies. It is the longest, most thorough, and presumably the most accurate of all. Jobs always had a sense of history and that he had a special place in history, so he wanted that history portrayed accurately. During the development of the original Macintosh, Jobs hired Michael Moritz to be Apple’s “official historian”. Moritz had extraordinary access until he was fired just before the launch when Jobs didn’t like something Moritz had written. Isaacson covers the “authorization” of his book in the Introduction, stating that he was first approached about such a book in 2004. Isaacson had recently finished a book about Benjamin Franklin and was working on one about Einstein. It was not until 2009 that Isaacson agreed to write the book on Jobs. Jobs promised as much access as needed and promised he would not interfere with the book. In fact he promised not to read the book prior to its being published. For Jobs, this was an unprecedented release of control over a project that meant a lot to him.
One of the best features of this book and something I wish all biographers would include is a list of Characters. Over three pages long, the list includes a sentence describing how each person fits into the story of Steve Jobs. For instance, who is Lee Clow? The list explains: “Advertising wizard who created Apple’s “1984” ad and worked with Jobs for three decades.” This is incredibly helpful when someone like Clow disappears from the narrative for a few chapters and then suddenly pops up again. This happens with many names far more obscure than Clow.
If there is a theme that flows throughout the book, it is Steve’s insistence on seeing everything in black and white. There is never a middle ground and over the years Jobs utterly crushes many people when they can swing from hero to shithead and back again, often all in one day. Burrell Smith may be the ultimate example. Burrell was the hardware designer who took over for Steve Wozniak after Woz had crashed his airplane. Burrell worshiped Woz’s genius and often worked multi-day stretches to meet Jobs’ demands. By the mid-90’s Burrell was incapacitated with schizophrenia. Burrell is often credited with coining the term “reality distortion field” in reference to Jobs’ ability to persuade people to his point of view, even when they know that what he wants is impossible. The few who survived working with Jobs for any real length of time were those who learned to control the effects of the zone.
Another thing I like about this book is that it covers Steve’s relationships with the people in his personal life. Many other books, whether about Steve specifically or more generally about the history of Apple as a company, cover only small slivers of time in Jobs’ life outside Apple. Isaacson has a chapter for Chrisann Brennan, his girlfriend from high school, and Lisa, the daughter he would deny for years. Lisa would later change her name to Lisa Brennan-Jobs when Steve accepted her into his family. Another chapter covers other relationships during the early Apple days when he dated Joan Baez, and later when he found his half-sister, Mona Simpson, and his birth mother, Joanne Simpson. These chapters are quite telling of the formation of his character or, as some would put it, his lack of character. Steve’s wife, Lauren Powell, is woven throughout the last chapters of the book, particularly the chapters dealing with his cancer.
At the start of this review I said that this book is the most thorough of the Steve Jobs biographies. Most people do not realize that Apple computer is not where Jobs built his fortune. That happened almost by accident, through his purchase of Pixar, the animation film company, from George Lucas. For several years Jobs split his time between Next Computer and Pixar. By pouring money into Pixar, Steve kept the company afloat while gradually buying out the company management. After the success of Toy Story and the following movies, Jobs sold Pixar to Disney, becoming a billionaire and one of Disney’s largest stock holders in the process.
The book is 627 pages, including acknowledgements, sources, and notes. Most of the book is a real page-turner and drags only when it pushes to get through the stories about the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Steve was already sick for much of that time and the story then moves into his leaves of absence from Apple, and how his family and friends helped him through the final stages. The book is always well-written and if you read only one biography of Jobs and Apple, this is the one to read.