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Official Steve Jobs biography set for November 21 release
- olivercameron 15y agoYou can tell this is going to be an amazing read: "I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, such as getting my girlfriend pregnant when I was 23 and the way I handled that, he said. But I don’t have any skeletons in my closet that can’t be allowed out." - Steve Jobs
- damoncali 15y agoI look forward to comparing it to Woz's autobiography, which doesn't paint Jobs in a very appealing light.
- barista 15y agoThere will always be two sides of a story just like Paul Allen's biography didn't particularly describe Bill Gates in a very appealing light. But that does not undermine the status of these two figures(Jobs, Gates) as the heros of our era. Looking forward.
- marcamillion 15y agoYou mean 3 sides. Your side, my side and the truth.
- rblion 15y ago"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..." Respect.
- DavidTO1 15y agoFantastic. Can't wait.
- nhangen 15y agoI've been waiting for something like this for years. Cannot wait to read this one, if nothing else, for the inspiration.
- justanotheratom 15y agoI was starting to wonder what his next billion dollar business is going to be.
- ary 15y agoGiven that so many books have been written about Apple and Steve Jobs with nothing but tea leaves for sources I'm interested to see where this goes. It is stated that Jobs cooperated with the author, but requested no control over the content (bravo). You can bet he had something to say about the previous title and cover [1] though. [1] http://www.redmondpie.com/isteve-the-book-of-jobs-official-biography-on-steve-jobs-now-available-for-pre-order/ http://www.redmondpie.com/isteve-the-book-of-jobs-official-b...
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- kristofferR 15y agoI'm really looking forward to this book, so much so that I just preordered it (which I normally don't do for books). Walter Isaacson is a great biographer. His Einstein and Benjamin Franklin biographies are amazing, definitely worth a read. Since this is Isaacson's first biography of a living person, I'm really looking forward to reading the result. I guess it'll cover a lot of things we didn't know about Jobs and go even more in depth than his previous biographies have. A lot of both positive and negative things can be said about Jobs, but no one can dispute that he is an interesting character with an astonishing record. November 21 can't come soon enough.
- niels_olson 15y agoIsaacson's biography of Einstein changed how I think about the entire genre. Pre-ordered Jobs.
- sebkomianos 15y agoIs it really that good?
- cma 15y agoI didn't think so =/
- MikeCapone 15y agoYou basically said everything I was going to say. Isaacson is a master biographer, and being able to interview his subject should (in theory) help him do an even better job (Jobs?). I'm pre-ordering it too.
- Zolomon 15y agoSo this was why he took a sick leave? tongue-in-cheek
- daimyoyo 15y agoI find it very odd that Steve would cooperate with a project like this without so much as the right to read it before it's released. Honestly I wonder why Steve would agree to that. Any theories?
- tjogin 15y agoI agree it sounds unlike Jobs, or at least my preconceived notions about Jobs. Maybe it's because he specifically wanted Walter Isaacson to write it, based on admiration of his previous work?
- cma 15y ago(not to mention that it would put him up there with Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein...)
- kenjackson 15y agoA few reasons: 1) Trust. Jobs trusts this author. Many have wanted to write this book, this is the man Jobs trusted to do it. 2) Jobs isn't going to live forever. In some sense I think he rightfully understands that this book will partially define his legacy and he wants the record to understand that it isn't filtered through his lens. In 100 years he may well be the only technologist of our era people readily remember. He's our modern Edison. I'm glad he's taken this book seriously.
- nkassis 15y ago2) You wouldn't they they would also mention Gates? I think there battle could be seen similarly as the Leibniz vs Newton calculus war.
- danilocampos 15y agoThis is a man who is staring his mortality in the face. A man with a truly fascinating story – which can be seen in many, many lights, not all of them positive. I think he knows he won't live forever and wanted the opportunity to have his story told with his input, instead of it leaving it to chance once his voice was silenced by human impermanence.
- prbuckley 15y agoI hope this is available as an ebook straight out of the gate. It would be ironic in some ways if this was only available as a paper book and the ebook was delayed.
- radicaldreamer 15y agoIt's already available for preorder on the iBooks store and as a Kindle ebook.
- sudont 15y ago"This book will be auto-delivered wirelessly to your Kindle on March 6, 2012” Possibly not soon.
- flyt 15y agoAmazon says "This title will be auto-delivered to your Kindle on November 21, 2011." for me
- radicaldreamer 15y agoThat was the old release date for the book before it was moved up. I'm sure the changes haven't propagated through all channels yet, but I would be very surprised if it didn't launch simultaneously with the physical copy.
- bitwize 15y agoChapter 1. On February 24, 1955, a strange star appeared over San Francisco...
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- goblgobl 15y agoSounds amazing. Jobs is such a remarkable business figure, but I often wonder if people like him are rare, or if people like him are rarely given positions at the top of companies? Depending on who you ask, people will tell you companies should be run by either MBA types or engineers. Jobs doesn't seem to fit either of these archetypes. Of all the big tech execs, he has to be the strongest systems thinker. I think outside of the business success and technological innovation at Apple, one of Jobs largest contributions has been to bring the 'design process' to the center of management. Engineering has great models for problem solving, as does management theory, but design thinking is often the most overlooked. Its not given enough credit. Often when people talk about design they are really talking about aesthetics. When Jobs talks about design, he's talking about process. Hope the book sheds light on this.
- philwelch 15y agoI think it's fairly obvious that Apple is exceptional, and Jobs is exceptional. How do we know people like Jobs are rare? Well, have you heard of any others? Then again, maybe it's the combination of Jobs, Silicon Valley, and that formative era that is rare. Take a young Steve Jobs and put him anywhere else, and who knows what would happen? I doubt he would end up in business--not a legitimate one, at least.
- keenerd 15y agoHis first business was quasi-illegitimate, he and Woz were selling Blue Boxes so the average Joe could cheat MaBell. (I believe they bragged about thermite lined units for the mafia.) Funny how 40 years later he's got one of the most restricted phone systems.
- zachcb 15y agoCheck out Alan Mulally. I think he's an underrated CEO. While he is an engineer, I still admire his business acumen. I would think (and I know I'm going to get criticized for this) he might actually be better than Jobs. If not, it's 1A and 1B. Steve is in Alan's class, not the other way around. You must view Alan's body of work and what he's done to turn around a company from the very bottom to where it is today. Totally different brand image. He's done it twice.
- rmason 15y agoI hope that it reveals more of his business philosophy, reasoning behind some of the decisions he has made. For example: Does he regret hiring John Sculley? With the benefit of hindsight what mistakes did he make with the original Mac? What mistakes does he feel he made at NeXt? What was his pitch to Gates when seeking Microsoft's investment into Apple? I hope the book answers some of those questions. I am no Apple fanboy but he is quite simply one of the best business leaders in the past fifty years.
- alanfalcon 15y agoYou can find answers to some of those questions on the internet, often straight from Steve's mouth. For example, on John Sculley: "I hired the wrong guy ... He destroyed everything I'd spent ten years working for. Starting with me." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK7TQVFSA1Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK7TQVFSA1Y (Watch the end of the video. The answer is better with context, and there's more to the quote.)
- Anechoic 15y ago>What was his pitch to Gates when seeking Microsoft's investment into Apple? Something to the effect of: "you invest some $$ and we will discontinue the multi-billion dollar lawsuit we're pursuing against you - win, win!"
- philwelch 15y agoApple had a lot of leverage in that lawsuit, too. It wasn't this vague "look-and-feel" nonsense that was dismissed before--Apple had MS dead to rights stealing the source code to QuickTime.
- nQuo 15y agoI'm thrilled that it'll be released on my birthday. Can't wait.
- marcamillion 15y agoI wish I could buy futures on the amount of sales this will get.
- marcamillion 15y agoI wonder if this will be available for the Kindle...or iPad only for a certain period of time.
- brainsqueezer 15y agoI will try to read it. But I don't really need to know how he left pregnant a girl. I need to know how does he work psychologically to motivate people and get the best of them. Common Jobs, you already did your job in the history, now give your knowledge to the next generation. I can't afford having him as company advisor so a book would be ok. Maybe Jobs is not the right person to write the book about the Jobs way. Any book recomendation my fellows?
- wisty 15y agoI don't know that much about Jobs, but at a guess: 1) He "manages by end state and intent", just like the Marines are trained to do. Instead of trying to tell engineers how to do their jobs, he tells them what the customer should see, and why that's important. All good non-technical managers do that. 2) He has a rough idea of what all the elements of the system are, how they interact, and how they scale. For example, he talks about how some decisions will reduce API complexity, which increases developer productivity. Few technical managers do that well, and very few non-technical managers understand what technical constraints to focus on. I'm guessing this is something he's improved at, over the years. He screwed up a lot with in his earlier years (doing stuff that wouldn't scale well), and learnt his lessons. Every CEO tries to "understand the big picture". Steve seems to actually get it right. 3) When somebody sounds like they are fudging or hedging, he starts interrogating them to figure out what they are trying to imply. Engineers can be very indirect when they suspect a problem is looming. Steve picks this up, and goes after it like a terrier. It's scary stuff when he does this in public, with a reporter. I'd imagine it's even scarier when he does it with his employees. 4) He's got pretty good taste, and can hire good designers and people with good soft skills. 5) He was lucky enough to hire a few brilliant techies, at the start (Woz, in particular).