Steve Jobs — Walter Isaacson

Steve Jobs was a genius, who always thought ahead of time. With the help of his passion for perfection and ferocious drive altogether revolutionized 6 industries: PCs, Animated Movies, Music, Phones, Tablet Computing and Digital Publishing.

Despite being adopted, Steve always regarded himself as ‘Special’ in every way possible. After dropping from Reeds, with Wozniak he co-founded Apple and launched a fully packed computer, one of its first kind in his father’s garage. With Apple II they tapped the personal computer industry.

He was stubborn, arrogant, untrustworthy, rebellion, perfectionist and categorized thoughts differently. Mistreated his adopted parents and never accepted his daughter until later in life. Lied on many occasions and manipulated situations to gain maximum benefit out of them. Was kicked out from Apple, hence limiting his role to being the Chairman. Started another company but failed miserably.

Invested in Pixar and became owner of its 70% shares. Pixar relaunched itself with the Toy Story series which became an instant hit. Pixar was later bought by Walt Disney Animation Studios as they were partners from the very beginning. Jobs joined Apple again and became the iCEO, eventually dropped the ‘i’ which stood for interim and took command as the CEO.Jobs didn’t believe in research because according to him customers didn’t know what they wanted until it was shown to them.

Apple’s advantage from others was its integration of the entire widget from design to hardware to software to content. It was after Jobs was diagnosed with cancer that he realized the reality of life. But nonetheless treated people as usual — his behavior didn’t change much which was downright arrogant and insulting. His relation with his daughters was not much cordial, they weren’t as such part of the narrative, apart from the solo-trips he took with them.

Jobs was always skeptical of competition because he believed that his products were the best and didn’t need any competition. That proved to be wrong when Android came into market — competition resulted in better choices and hence better refined products in which he didn’t hold much believe. What I like the most about this book is its honesty about Steve Jobs and his life. Though many times he failed but was never shy of being himself, which made him an icon and a leader.