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After Issacson's botched Steve Job's biography, I have a difficult time trusting him for any historical figure. Issacson had unprecedented access to Steve Jobs

After Issacson's botched Steve Job's biography, I have a difficult time trusting him for any historical figure. Issacson had unprecedented access to Steve Jobs, yet the biography really didn't provide any new insight into what made him who he was.

jotjotzzz 9y ago
It's also possibly partly due to Steve Jobs and his RDF (reality distortion field). I actually found that biography pretty good. I think he did the best that he could with it. By presenting all points of view, its really up to you to decide. I don't think he ever said he is a liar (as someone commented) -- not sure how he could have done that. If you're reading that biography as if it's the freaking bible of Steve Jobs, then no. But it showed a lot of the sides of Steve that I did not know before and did not like. I knew he was an a-hole, but didn't know how low he had gone. I especially found the part about his first wife and daughter Lisa so very, very sad -- and he made Woz cry. What a guy.
- astrodust 9y ago
  It's not that he was a liar, it's that he was granted a unique opportunity to write a book unlike anything anyone else could write and delivered that...turd. Sure, deadlines, pressure, but honestly, it was 80% junk that had already been written in other books or articles, 10% "why are you asking these dumb questions" and only 10% actual insight. It was a surprising weak effort is all. People expected something of more substance. It's a shame someone like Michael Lewis wasn't at bat for that book. He seems more able to dig through the layers and find out the actual story. The New New Thing gets into fantastic detail about Jim Clark even though he's just one of the people in that book.
  - MilnerRoute 9y ago
    I've always liked Steven Levy's book about Apple, Insanely Great. (He released an updated version not too long ago.) I also thought he did a great job with the profiles of historic computing pioneers in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. (One of the few books that users the word "hackers" properly...)
  - bborud 9y ago
    Ah yes, a book for the plebs. Not for the hardcore stalker who has studied every shred of information to ever have been published about Jobs.
    - astrodust 9y ago
      If you'd simply had a subscription to Byte Magazine and casually read every third article you'd know at least 50% of what he put in that book. We're talking about someone who over decades had an outsized impact on Silicon Valley and computing in general, not some obscure figure that nobody ever wrote about and you'd have to go out of your way to learn more. If this was about Gordon Moore or Andy Grove you'd have a point, but it's Steve fucking Jobs. There's maybe ten people from his era that are more instantly recognizable, and those are people like Oprah Winfrey or Bill Clinton. Isaacson's book is the Reader's Digest version of a biography. It's the WikiHow version of what should have been written. Imagine writing a biography of Elon Musk and introducing, breathlessly, that he made his first fortune from PayPal as if people didn't know. This is that book.
      - bborud 9y ago
        Many people don’t know. That’s the entire point. Not everyone is a stalker fanboi who absorbs all trivia over years and needs a pure diet of only previously untold anecdotes.
        astrodust 9y ago
        It's not that I'm a "stalker fanboi" so much as you've apparently been living under a rock for the last thirty years if you haven't heard this shit before. Did you know Bill Gates founded Microsoft? No way! Did you know Steve Wozniak built the original Apple? Get out! This is not mind-blowing news. It's also irrelevant. This ended up being some bullshit compendium when, given the unprecedented access, you'd expect better. They could've written this book based on anecdotes and old press. That's the problem.
        bborud 9y ago
LeifCarrotson 9y ago
That's a commendable lack of susceptibility to the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. [1] It would be easy to take this biography of someone we don't and can't know, and take it as fact, when he failed to do a good job on the biography of someone we did know. > Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. > In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. [1] http://larvatus.com/michael-crichton-why-speculate/ http://larvatus.com/michael-crichton-why-speculate/

jotjotzzz 9y ago

It's also possibly partly due to Steve Jobs and his RDF (reality distortion field). I actually found that biography pretty good. I think he did the best that he could with it. By presenting all points of view, its really up to you to decide. I don't think he ever said he is a liar (as someone commented) -- not sure how he could have done that. If you're reading that biography as if it's the freaking bible of Steve Jobs, then no. But it showed a lot of the sides of Steve that I did not know before and did not like. I knew he was an a-hole, but didn't know how low he had gone. I especially found the part about his first wife and daughter Lisa so very, very sad -- and he made Woz cry. What a guy.

astrodust 9y ago
It's not that he was a liar, it's that he was granted a unique opportunity to write a book unlike anything anyone else could write and delivered that...turd. Sure, deadlines, pressure, but honestly, it was 80% junk that had already been written in other books or articles, 10% "why are you asking these dumb questions" and only 10% actual insight. It was a surprising weak effort is all. People expected something of more substance. It's a shame someone like Michael Lewis wasn't at bat for that book. He seems more able to dig through the layers and find out the actual story. The New New Thing gets into fantastic detail about Jim Clark even though he's just one of the people in that book.
- MilnerRoute 9y ago
  I've always liked Steven Levy's book about Apple, Insanely Great. (He released an updated version not too long ago.) I also thought he did a great job with the profiles of historic computing pioneers in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. (One of the few books that users the word "hackers" properly...)
- bborud 9y ago
  Ah yes, a book for the plebs. Not for the hardcore stalker who has studied every shred of information to ever have been published about Jobs.
  - astrodust 9y ago
    If you'd simply had a subscription to Byte Magazine and casually read every third article you'd know at least 50% of what he put in that book. We're talking about someone who over decades had an outsized impact on Silicon Valley and computing in general, not some obscure figure that nobody ever wrote about and you'd have to go out of your way to learn more. If this was about Gordon Moore or Andy Grove you'd have a point, but it's Steve fucking Jobs. There's maybe ten people from his era that are more instantly recognizable, and those are people like Oprah Winfrey or Bill Clinton. Isaacson's book is the Reader's Digest version of a biography. It's the WikiHow version of what should have been written. Imagine writing a biography of Elon Musk and introducing, breathlessly, that he made his first fortune from PayPal as if people didn't know. This is that book.
    - bborud 9y ago
      Many people don’t know. That’s the entire point. Not everyone is a stalker fanboi who absorbs all trivia over years and needs a pure diet of only previously untold anecdotes.
      - astrodust 9y ago
        It's not that I'm a "stalker fanboi" so much as you've apparently been living under a rock for the last thirty years if you haven't heard this shit before. Did you know Bill Gates founded Microsoft? No way! Did you know Steve Wozniak built the original Apple? Get out! This is not mind-blowing news. It's also irrelevant. This ended up being some bullshit compendium when, given the unprecedented access, you'd expect better. They could've written this book based on anecdotes and old press. That's the problem.
        bborud 9y ago

LeifCarrotson 9y ago

That's a commendable lack of susceptibility to the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. [1] It would be easy to take this biography of someone we don't and can't know, and take it as fact, when he failed to do a good job on the biography of someone we did know. > Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. > In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. [1] http://larvatus.com/michael-crichton-why-speculate/ http://larvatus.com/michael-crichton-why-speculate/