Steve jobs by Walter Isaacson is a great must read book.
The book runs to 571 pages; The balance 56 pages are for sources, notes and index.
Steve approached the celebrated Isaacson twice after he was diagnosed of cancer.He accepted to write after the second request. Steve requested to make no changes and publish the inerviews without distortion.
Isaacson has brought out the real steve jobs to the readers.I am sure Jobs enthusiasts would have read a lot about him in the press and may feel they know well about him. 25%of what I had read in the media appears in the book, but the rest 75% is great stuff, with many interesting facets of the Icon brought out in detail.
Isaacson was the Chairman and CEO of CNN and the Managing Editor of TIME earlier.Isaacson has written biographies of famous personalities like Einstein, Benjamin franklin and Henry Kissinger.Steve jobs biography happened after 40interviews with him. It is inspiring to note that Jobs lacking formal technical qualifications, reached the zenith of mobile technology and personal computing thru dogged determination & pursuance of his dreams.
Jobs was given up for adoption by his unwed mother, his biological father was a Syrian immigrant.
Jobs always felt bad that he was given up for adoption.Steve bonded very well with his adapted parents who were not well to do.Steve's father was a car mechanic and a perfectionist.Steve Jobs got his quest for perfection from his father.He used to insist that both the seen and unseen .i.e. the inside of the product must be as good as the outside in terms of fit, finish& finesse.
Steve pressurized his parents to put him in an iconic and expensive Reed college.He was exposed to the mystics of Hinduism & Zen Buddhism during the lectures at Reed college.This probably influenced his frugal life style and his minimalist design philosophies.He dropped out of most courses except a calligraphy course where he got great insights on texts and fonts. This helped him to evolve the graphic interface of Macintosh computers.
He was part timing at Atari gaming company where he was looked at as a smelly hippie due to his irregular vegan diet and his belief on nil baths.He made a trip to India while in his teens looking for his Guru Neem karoli Baba, whom he never found, but spent seven months touring villages from Varanasi, Delhi, UP and Himachal pradaesh.He was impressed with average Indian's Intution inspite of poverty.
Together with his friend Steve Wozniack, (whom he met at the Home Brew Computer Club Palo Alto) he designed the Apple computer. Wozniack was a wizard in code writing, jobs was good at marketing, raising finances and finding end users for his product.
They took on Mike Marculla as another director.Marculla taught them how to market their products.
Subsequently with the help of venture capitalists Apple computers went public, Jobs became a millionaire by the age of 25. Jobs was very driven, was particular about minimalist design, Aesthetics and User friendly products.
Steve was brash wanted only "A" class players, any body else was labelled a "Bozo".A product or design
that didn't appeal to him was classified as "S**t".His own house till he got married had no furniture.He
never got furniture that suited his minimalist tastes.He used to sit in the lotus pose and lie on a
mattress on ground, was erratic in his dietary habits, fond of carrots, salads, orange juice and frequent fasts.
Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple's CEO, asking, "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?"He crossed swords with john Sculley the CEO.They had a number of poor product upgrades and launches.Steve had his own agenda with "LISA" and Apple II which bombed and he was thrown out of the company he founded by his own board and John Sculley by the age of 30.
The "Next" computers factory that he founded was high on future technology and design where he splurged a lot of money, but low on strategy. It was subsequently sold for peanuts to Canon. Due to his Obsession on Aesthetics in manufacturing, the products he turned out were very expensive.'Next" was losing money rapidly.Steve had invested in Pixar, as he was impressed with the work of John lasseter and the motion graphics where jobs saw great future.In spite of having pumped in a lot of his money, Pixar was also losing money rapidly.
Steve learnt lessons form his past failures.He chopped excess work force negotiated a great and sweet deal with Disney studios.Steve liked the creative work of John lasseter & preferred not to interfere.Steve jobs stuck gold again with with the success of Toy story 1& 2, Bug's life and many more movies.
John sculley could not carry forward Apple with over priced products and lack of new ideas & innovative products.Competition was going great guns with Windows powered PCs.Sculley was sacked by Marculla. and Steve Jobs was called back to the company he had founded.
Having learnt lessons from failures, Steve jobs chopped work force, unrenumerative product lines and stuck gold with i-mac first with it's unique modular design.He stuck Gold repeatedly with I-pod, i-phone, I-phone 3G, 4G, 4S, I- pad, I- pad2 and became the world'd most valuable company in August 2011, overtaking Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Intel etc. obs was famous for having a "reality distortion field, "
The world bent obligingly to his will. He got his first job with the arcade game company Atari by walking into their lobby and refusing to leave until someone hired him.
Steve Jobs lived a spartan life in an ordinary house devoid of the trappings of a billionaire. Drove his Mercedes, himself & abhored security, But he was driven and used to drive those around him in mean no nonsense swear words towards latest technology, minimalist design, and flawless performance.Time and money were no constraints till he achieved the design of his taste.Steve never believed in market research and followed his Intuition to deliver world famous brands.
Steve jobs was an Icon to his eager followers and also gave the pleasure of well designed Apple stores, i-tunes(which partly salvaged the drain in the income of musicians & music companies). The world and Apple will definitely miss this great innovator who could see ahead of others and bring valuable products which others had not thought of!
Do not miss this very inspiring book!
