“Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson

Review by Carolyn C. Zahnow

I thoroughly enjoyed reading “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson. It was insightful, rich with monologue, honest comparisons, and input from many important people in Jobs’ life.

The book provides interesting historical background on Jobs, including his adoption as an infant and the Syrian and German ethnicity of his biological parents.

The book begins with some review of his childhood in California as an only child of his adoptive parents who loved and nurtured him throughout their lives. Jobs was closest to his father, Paul Jobs, a machinist by trade. Steve marveled at his dad’s ability to create prototypes out of nothing for his work. The book allows a look at personal childhood reflections, including his feeling of embarrassment when he realized he was smarter than his parents, and his thoughts about being adopted.

The strength of the book is the review of the events leading to his and Steve Wozniak’s creation of the first personal computer in Jobs’ garage. Jobs was not the actual engineer in all his feats of invention but more the visionary. He knew design aesthetics and how to sell them. Jobs understood how to make his uniquely designed products “cult” products.

Recently an FBI report was released regarding Jobs, stating that he would “twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals.” The book documents his often brutal honesty in the review of other’s ideas. He minced no words. His review included feedback that items were “shitty.” Products had to be “just so” or back to the drawing board. He did not like screws to be seen on his products so he had manufacturers design special ones for “i” products.

The reader will learn about the central place in Jobs life of “the walk.” Growing up, he would walk 15 blocks to his high school on a regular basis. When he needed to work something out, he would head out for a walk. When he wanted to discuss something with a co-worker, he’d say “Let’s walk.” Sometimes those walks lasted for miles!

The book recounts the rough spots. Jobs did get kicked out of his own company but used the time to explore the field of film. He became part of the Pixar startup. He was the CEO of Pixar for a time but it took up so much of his time that he sold it off to Walt Disney Corp. He attended the various awards ceremonies for “Toy Story.”

Personally, I remember Jobs always presenting at a tech event as only Jobs could present. I worked at Nokia Mobile Phones during the 2000s and worked many tech conventions in Las Vegas. We would always groan when we’d hear that Steve Jobs had an announcement to make because no one else could pull in customers when Jobs was speaking.

Jobs did mellow out a bit as his time was drawing near. He became closer to his oldest daughter who he walked out on when she was a baby. Jobs also saw many of his friends during his final months. He suffered greatly as he was losing weight dramatically and could not gain weight. Of course, he followed crazy diets as he had for most of his life. We learn that Jobs did not follow his doctor’s advice when his cancer was first discovered and wonder if he might be here today if he had heeded the advice.

In summary the book covers the full scope of Jobs’ life and genius. For those interested in how creativity and drive has changed our world, this book will reward.