Rating: *****
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, General, Business, Business & Economics, Industries, Computers & Information Technology, Leadership, Computers, History, Technology & Engineering, Lang:en
Summary
From the author of the bestselling
biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, this is
the exclusive, New York Times bestselling biography of Apple
co-founder Steve Jobs.Based on more than forty interviews with
Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with
more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries,
competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a
riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense
personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for
perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries:
personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet
computing, and digital publishing. At a time when America is
seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies
around the world are trying to build digital-age economies,
Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied
imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the
twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology.
He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined
with remarkable feats of engineering. Although Jobs cooperated
with this book, he asked for no control over what was written
nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put
nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak
honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so,
about the people he worked with and competed against. His
friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of
the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and
compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and
the innovative products that resulted. Driven by demons, Jobs
could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his
personality and products were interrelated, just as
Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of
an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary,
filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership,
and values.