Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson


This is an amazing biography about amazingly unique man. Isaacson covers everything - from Jobs having to work the night shift because of his insistence that his vegetarian diet stopped him from smelling bad(he was wrong) so he refused to bathe regularly, to his incredible success as the leader of Apple. He took on the world on his own terms, rarely letting the real world influence his decisions. In fact, the people who dealt with him had a name for it, Steve's "reality distortion field." Being seduced by the charismatic Jobs could make you believe, as he did, that the impossible was possible.

He was well known as a narcissistic and cruel man. This extended to his family, including a daughter who he denied was his for many years. His professional life was fraught with fights and tantrums. Yet, I find myself admiring what he did accomplish. He focused on his vision, obsessing over details, and ended up creating innovative and beautiful products that changed how we communicate and even how we behave. You may not have wanted to work with him, but by the end of book, I found myself believing that, if not for him, the computer would have been a very different machine, in many important ways, and the lesser for it. Or maybe I was just sucked into Jobs' "reality distortion field."