Apple wouldn't be where it's at right now if Steve wasn't the biggest asshole in the planet.
Getting Apple and Pixar to where it's at (add juggling between the company) cost Steve his life.
The jury is still out for me as to how much of an impact Steve had on Pixar. Creatively, he really didn't do that much. The biography describes his as "the deal guy" and he also kept Pixar afloat with his own money. Perhaps they would have gotten screwed by Disney without SJ, but that creative spark was Lasseter.
Of course, I'm not trying to take anything away from SJ and I give credit where credit is due. Oh, and getting Apple and Pixar to where they're at didn't kill Steve. It might have hastened his passing, but it didn't kill him. Chapter 35 explains what most likely did.
How does that go? Is it like the Australian version: "Crikey!," Steve said about Android stealing from Apple, "I'm gonna fry them like a shrimp on the barbie."?
How does that go? Is it like the Australian version, Crikey!," Steve said about Android stealing from Apple, "I'm gonna fry them like a shrimp on the barbie."?
Is that like when Steve said, "that's not a tablet, (pulls out iPad) now that's a tablet." ?
You have an amazing ability to reduce any subject matter to the mundane and tedious.
Why not respond to the content? Or not? Why just throw personal insults into the mix?
I really believe that the vast majority of people don't much care about Steve Jobs, not even when he was alive, and that the number of people who do care about him, one way or the other, will drop off rapidly over the next few weeks.
He is not like Thomas Edison, who changed the world with his inventions like the light bulb. Apple makes entertaining gadgets, not life-changing, world changing things.
He is not like Thomas Edison, who changed the world with his inventions like the light bulb. Apple makes entertaining gadgets, not life-changing, world changing things.
I see you're still rewriting history and spreading FUD, but I'll file this one under you just not being bright enough to know the difference between inventing and practicalizing a previously invention, which is probably why you get upset at Apple for making the previous unpractical practical, because you can't differentiate between the two.
"Edison['s company] did not invent the first electric light bulb, but instead invented the first commercially practical incandescent light."
Did Apple under Steve Jobs invent the tablet? No. Did the invent the multi-touch capacitive touchscreen? No. But did they make these practical? Absolutely. Though I'd say Gates and Edison are more inline as businessmen who had no class or style.
PS: The more interesting story is how the current and un-arguably much superior design of the screw-on lightbulb after Edison refused to license his patents to the much more brilliant (though poor in business) Nkola Telsa due to a childish jealously. If Isaacson wrote a biography of Tesla I'd read that.
I've almost finished the book and I've found it disappointing. The parts covering the early days of Apple and the Mac are a cookie cutter regurgitation of stuff that has been written before. It's really bizarre to read it since Jobs just kind of drops in from time to time (Isaacson obviously relied heavily on Hertzfeld's account) and there's no attempt to reassess Jobs's early contributions at Apple in light of his return (which is absolutely essential and needs to be done; I think Isaacson really missed an opportunity there). The stuff on NeXT, too, is rather weak (for example, Isaacson focuses on the short-lived, failed hardware division and repeats Gates's claim that Apple never used any of NeXT's technology). The short account of Pixar and Jobs's role in its success is much more successful, perhaps because there was less existing material to draw from.
The last 1/3rd has been more interesting because there's a lot of new material but Isaacson still struggles to integrate Jobs's personality with his achievements in a convincing way.
This is dead on. I've finished the book and as someone who has followed and read about Apple for years, this book seemed profoundly scant on details. This book is the blandest thing I've read in a long time considering how many strong personalities were supposed to be involved. I bought it and if there's some way to donate my digital copy to a library it would already be there. It felt more like a long magazine profile than an in depth book.
[No response to this sort of off-topic nastiness.]
Quote:
If Isaacson wrote a biography of Tesla I'd read that.
Me too. I've read several already, but none of them very well-written. I've also read a bunch of transcripts of Tesla's speeches, and I've developed a lot of respect for the man.
Based solely upon the Jobs bio, I think Isaccson writes well, and he seems to be willing to explore the complexities at the core of the subject. He did not shy away, for example, from Steve's horrible personality defects. Instead, he used them to contrast his success as a businessman and CEO.
Tesla was also a complex individual. Very bright, extremely innovative, but a poor businessman. There is no indication that he was a jerk in his personal life, however.
Even in death the consummate salesman outsells everybody. I wonder how the Bio will affect Apple sales. SJ apparently said he wanted the book written so that his children could learn about him - understand why he wasn't always there for them. I don't doubt he said that or the he meant it but I wonder if somehow the salesman in him knew that it would be a surefire way to keep the buzz going well beyond his own time.
He also knew others were going to make millions of $$ selling books about him after he died so he beat them to it and his family gets the dough instead.
Why not respond to the content? Or not? Why just throw personal insults into the mix?
I really believe that the vast majority of people don't much care about Steve Jobs, not even when he was alive, and that the number of people who do care about him, one way or the other, will drop off rapidly over the next few weeks.
He is not like Thomas Edison, who changed the world with his inventions like the light bulb. Apple makes entertaining gadgets, not life-changing, world changing things.
After a while the subject becomes your incessant negativity. Why even bother comparing to Edison? Who the fuck measures level of greatness when the point was how many books haves been sold?
After a while the subject becomes your incessant negativity.
Well said. He casts an evil spell over every thread he dominates. And that is many a thread.
The dismissive comparison to Edison is particularly galling. Edison was an inventor. Jobs was an artist and impresario whose goal was to change human cultural evolution, which his products have only just begun to do. To the extent that Edison's inventions did, his work was more about media, less about knowledge amplification.
What I like about the Isaacson biography is that he bears down really hard on the perfectionist and aesthetic side of Jobs, who saw these attributes to be in the service of making his cultural tools attractive and delightful and thus more powerful.
This is something I don't remember getting quite so much from Andy Hertzfeld's Revolution in the Valley, for example, as great as that book was. Or from What the Dormouse Said, another great one, but not so focused on Jobs. Was the story of his dad's doctrine of hidden craftsmanship in any previous book? That is absolutely crucial to understanding Jobs and the machines we have from him. Now I know why I was shocked to see how beautiful the inside of my hemisphere iMac was when I put in its wifi card. This stuff matters like good genes matter to a plant or animal.
Edit: After a hundred more pages, including what got him thrown out of the company, lots more painful detail, the development of the NeXT hardware, the phrase "insanely great" takes on an edgier meaning -- more emphasis on the insane part, overshadowing the great part. No wonder Bill Gates could shrug off anything Jobs said about him.
I see you're still rewriting history and spreading FUD, but I'll file this one under you just not being bright enough to know the difference between inventing and practicalizing a previously invention, which is probably why you get upset at Apple for making the previous unpractical practical, because you can't differentiate between the two.
"Edison['s company] did not invent the first electric light bulb, but instead invented the first commercially practical incandescent light."
Did Apple under Steve Jobs invent the tablet? No. Did the invent the multi-touch capacitive touchscreen? No. But did they make these practical? Absolutely. Though I'd say Gates and Edison are more inline as businessmen who had no class or style.
PS: The more interesting story is how the current and un-arguably much superior design of the screw-on lightbulb after Edison refused to license his patents to the much more brilliant (though poor in business) Nkola Telsa due to a childish jealously. If Isaacson wrote a biography of Tesla I'd read that.
Boy, I sure would like to know more about Tesla. If Isaacson could unearth more of the information about the stuff he was working on that the government bought up the patents to keep them secret...
That's not a surprise though. Steve Jobs despite its fame in the technological world remains to have a private home life. I would even be interested in his life. I know he was still a man who had encounter different trials in life. I would really wan to know how he handled these problems to inspire me in facing my problems as well.
Buy his biographical e-book and all of these vexing questions will be answered in one magical reading!
Boy, I sure would like to know more about Tesla. If Isaacson could unearth more of the information about the stuff he was working on that the government bought up the patents to keep them secret...
There's just 2 things you need to know about Tesla:
1. He made a kick-ass album called The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.
2. He was the brain child behind the copier. He made a scores of copies of High Jackman.
Edit: I would love to read a Tesla bio by Isaacson. I'm halfway through Steve's bio and it is a very interesting read so far. I just don't feel like putting it down.
There's just 2 things you need to know about Tesla:
1. He made a kick-ass album called The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.
2. He was the brain child behind the copier. He made a scores of copies of High Jackman.
Edit: I would love to read a Tesla bio by Isaacson. I'm halfway through Steve's bio and it is a very interesting read so far. I just don't feel like putting it down.
For those not getting his reference, it from the 2006 film The Prestige where David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla and Hugh Jackman plays a magician. If you haven't seen the film I suggest you check it out without reading up on it. I think you'll enjoy it.
I have finished the book, and I also am disappointed. There are few good bits the involvement of Ellison for example is news to me. Seems they both hate google and MS.
The one thing I have learnt from it is I'm too nice with fools around me. I will act more like Jobs when needed trying NOT be a total asshole at it. Its a tough balancing act though.
Most assholes rarly get to be CEO because they never get promoted into postions where they alienate too many people . The company I work for has a few nasty assholes (who are very intelligent and knowelgeable, but have zero social skills) and have been shunted off to the side to keep them from destroying the teams.
Jobs was one of the few just like these people but because he made himself into a CEO was able to make people's lives around him unbearable. I doubt that Apple will be able to keep his legacy going because it will become balkanized without him. It's only a question of time before the in fighting starts to eat away at the culture he enforced.
I plan to start reducing my stock in APPL as this happens, I guess the process will be really starting by end of 2012. A lot will depends on Android competition and how it affects the revenues and also how well the apple HDTV/siri project is implemented and is marketed without him.
I find it ironic that he died of cancer, because employees who are like him are just like cancers too. Sad! Imagine if he could have done all this without needing to be an asshole!
Quote:
Originally Posted by poke
I've almost finished the book and I've found it disappointing. The parts covering the early days of Apple and the Mac are a cookie cutter regurgitation of stuff that has been written before. It's really bizarre to read it since Jobs just kind of drops in from time to time (Isaacson obviously relied heavily on Hertzfeld's account) and there's no attempt to reassess Jobs's early contributions at Apple in light of his return (which is absolutely essential and needs to be done; I think Isaacson really missed an opportunity there). The stuff on NeXT, too, is rather weak (for example, Isaacson focuses on the short-lived, failed hardware division and repeats Gates's claim that Apple never used any of NeXT's technology). The short account of Pixar and Jobs's role in its success is much more successful, perhaps because there was less existing material to draw from.
The last 1/3rd has been more interesting because there's a lot of new material but Isaacson still struggles to integrate Jobs's personality with his achievements in a convincing way.
I have finished the book, and I also am disappointed.
. . .
I plan to start reducing my stock in APPL as this happens, I guess the process will be really starting by end of 2012. A lot will depends on Android competition and how it affects the revenues and also how well the apple HDTV/siri project is implemented and is marketed without him.
What a bundle of negative contradictions we have here. The corrosive, mad CEO (I refuse to indulge in the American fetish for the word a'hole) departs, and instead of expecting the company to refocus and flourish under more benign leadership, you predict "Balkanization."
Depressive on its face. Chin up! The whole point of the book so far -- I'm halfway -- is that Jobs enforced a kind of natural selection on the people around him. Only the strongest, smartest, most dedicated survived. Those who could see past his scalding personality into the product's ethical and aesthetic mandates, as he saw them and they came to see as well, stayed to the finish.
As a result, Apple is now a product machine forged more in line with Jobs's goal of "changing the world" -- that phrase should be in the index -- than by kowtowing to Jobs's flawed ego.
Why were you disappointed by the book? Maybe by your dread of the future. Apple's drama is only beginning its second act. Expect great things.
Sorry for the tone, but I also have no patience anymore for the current fetish for doom, especially when it is reflexively applied to Apple's future. Not just you; we see it a lot here. This is serious business. The future of American innovative competence is on the line.
For those not getting his reference, it from the 2006 film The Prestige where David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla and Hugh Jackman plays a magician. If you haven't seen the film I suggest you check it out without reading up on it. I think you'll enjoy it.
One of my favorite movies. The subtle storytelling and acting in the movie just appears more brilliant upon subsequent viewings.
Comments
Apple wouldn't be where it's at right now if Steve wasn't the biggest asshole in the planet.
Getting Apple and Pixar to where it's at (add juggling between the company) cost Steve his life.
The jury is still out for me as to how much of an impact Steve had on Pixar. Creatively, he really didn't do that much. The biography describes his as "the deal guy" and he also kept Pixar afloat with his own money. Perhaps they would have gotten screwed by Disney without SJ, but that creative spark was Lasseter.
Of course, I'm not trying to take anything away from SJ and I give credit where credit is due. Oh, and getting Apple and Pixar to where they're at didn't kill Steve. It might have hastened his passing, but it didn't kill him. Chapter 35 explains what most likely did.
How quickly they translated the book into British
How does that go? Is it like the Australian version: "Crikey!," Steve said about Android stealing from Apple, "I'm gonna fry them like a shrimp on the barbie."?
How does that go? Is it like the Australian version, Crikey!," Steve said about Android stealing from Apple, "I'm gonna fry them like a shrimp on the barbie."?
Is that like when Steve said, "that's not a tablet, (pulls out iPad) now that's a tablet." ?
Is that like when Steve said, "that's not a tablet, (pulls out iPad) now that's a tablet."
You have an amazing ability to reduce any subject matter to the mundane and tedious.
Why not respond to the content? Or not? Why just throw personal insults into the mix?
I really believe that the vast majority of people don't much care about Steve Jobs, not even when he was alive, and that the number of people who do care about him, one way or the other, will drop off rapidly over the next few weeks.
He is not like Thomas Edison, who changed the world with his inventions like the light bulb. Apple makes entertaining gadgets, not life-changing, world changing things.
Is that like when Steve said, "that's not a tablet, (pulls out iPad) now that's a tablet."
LOL...that is awesome. You sir, win.
He is not like Thomas Edison, who changed the world with his inventions like the light bulb. Apple makes entertaining gadgets, not life-changing, world changing things.
I see you're still rewriting history and spreading FUD, but I'll file this one under you just not being bright enough to know the difference between inventing and practicalizing a previously invention, which is probably why you get upset at Apple for making the previous unpractical practical, because you can't differentiate between the two. Did Apple under Steve Jobs invent the tablet? No. Did the invent the multi-touch capacitive touchscreen? No. But did they make these practical? Absolutely. Though I'd say Gates and Edison are more inline as businessmen who had no class or style.
PS: The more interesting story is how the current and un-arguably much superior design of the screw-on lightbulb after Edison refused to license his patents to the much more brilliant (though poor in business) Nkola Telsa due to a childish jealously. If Isaacson wrote a biography of Tesla I'd read that.
LOL...that is awesome. You sir, win.
Aw shucks guys.
I've almost finished the book and I've found it disappointing. The parts covering the early days of Apple and the Mac are a cookie cutter regurgitation of stuff that has been written before. It's really bizarre to read it since Jobs just kind of drops in from time to time (Isaacson obviously relied heavily on Hertzfeld's account) and there's no attempt to reassess Jobs's early contributions at Apple in light of his return (which is absolutely essential and needs to be done; I think Isaacson really missed an opportunity there). The stuff on NeXT, too, is rather weak (for example, Isaacson focuses on the short-lived, failed hardware division and repeats Gates's claim that Apple never used any of NeXT's technology). The short account of Pixar and Jobs's role in its success is much more successful, perhaps because there was less existing material to draw from.
The last 1/3rd has been more interesting because there's a lot of new material but Isaacson still struggles to integrate Jobs's personality with his achievements in a convincing way.
This is dead on. I've finished the book and as someone who has followed and read about Apple for years, this book seemed profoundly scant on details. This book is the blandest thing I've read in a long time considering how many strong personalities were supposed to be involved. I bought it and if there's some way to donate my digital copy to a library it would already be there. It felt more like a long magazine profile than an in depth book.
you're still rewriting history and spreading FUD
you just not being bright enough
you get upset
[No response to this sort of off-topic nastiness.]
If Isaacson wrote a biography of Tesla I'd read that.
Me too. I've read several already, but none of them very well-written. I've also read a bunch of transcripts of Tesla's speeches, and I've developed a lot of respect for the man.
Based solely upon the Jobs bio, I think Isaccson writes well, and he seems to be willing to explore the complexities at the core of the subject. He did not shy away, for example, from Steve's horrible personality defects. Instead, he used them to contrast his success as a businessman and CEO.
Tesla was also a complex individual. Very bright, extremely innovative, but a poor businessman. There is no indication that he was a jerk in his personal life, however.
Even in death the consummate salesman outsells everybody. I wonder how the Bio will affect Apple sales. SJ apparently said he wanted the book written so that his children could learn about him - understand why he wasn't always there for them. I don't doubt he said that or the he meant it but I wonder if somehow the salesman in him knew that it would be a surefire way to keep the buzz going well beyond his own time.
He also knew others were going to make millions of $$ selling books about him after he died so he beat them to it and his family gets the dough instead.
Why not respond to the content? Or not? Why just throw personal insults into the mix?
I really believe that the vast majority of people don't much care about Steve Jobs, not even when he was alive, and that the number of people who do care about him, one way or the other, will drop off rapidly over the next few weeks.
He is not like Thomas Edison, who changed the world with his inventions like the light bulb. Apple makes entertaining gadgets, not life-changing, world changing things.
After a while the subject becomes your incessant negativity. Why even bother comparing to Edison? Who the fuck measures level of greatness when the point was how many books haves been sold?
After a while the subject becomes your incessant negativity.
Well said. He casts an evil spell over every thread he dominates. And that is many a thread.
The dismissive comparison to Edison is particularly galling. Edison was an inventor. Jobs was an artist and impresario whose goal was to change human cultural evolution, which his products have only just begun to do. To the extent that Edison's inventions did, his work was more about media, less about knowledge amplification.
What I like about the Isaacson biography is that he bears down really hard on the perfectionist and aesthetic side of Jobs, who saw these attributes to be in the service of making his cultural tools attractive and delightful and thus more powerful.
This is something I don't remember getting quite so much from Andy Hertzfeld's Revolution in the Valley, for example, as great as that book was. Or from What the Dormouse Said, another great one, but not so focused on Jobs. Was the story of his dad's doctrine of hidden craftsmanship in any previous book? That is absolutely crucial to understanding Jobs and the machines we have from him. Now I know why I was shocked to see how beautiful the inside of my hemisphere iMac was when I put in its wifi card. This stuff matters like good genes matter to a plant or animal.
Edit: After a hundred more pages, including what got him thrown out of the company, lots more painful detail, the development of the NeXT hardware, the phrase "insanely great" takes on an edgier meaning -- more emphasis on the insane part, overshadowing the great part. No wonder Bill Gates could shrug off anything Jobs said about him.
I see you're still rewriting history and spreading FUD, but I'll file this one under you just not being bright enough to know the difference between inventing and practicalizing a previously invention, which is probably why you get upset at Apple for making the previous unpractical practical, because you can't differentiate between the two. Did Apple under Steve Jobs invent the tablet? No. Did the invent the multi-touch capacitive touchscreen? No. But did they make these practical? Absolutely. Though I'd say Gates and Edison are more inline as businessmen who had no class or style.
PS: The more interesting story is how the current and un-arguably much superior design of the screw-on lightbulb after Edison refused to license his patents to the much more brilliant (though poor in business) Nkola Telsa due to a childish jealously. If Isaacson wrote a biography of Tesla I'd read that.
Boy, I sure would like to know more about Tesla. If Isaacson could unearth more of the information about the stuff he was working on that the government bought up the patents to keep them secret...
That's not a surprise though. Steve Jobs despite its fame in the technological world remains to have a private home life. I would even be interested in his life. I know he was still a man who had encounter different trials in life. I would really wan to know how he handled these problems to inspire me in facing my problems as well.
Buy his biographical e-book and all of these vexing questions will be answered in one magical reading!
Boy, I sure would like to know more about Tesla. If Isaacson could unearth more of the information about the stuff he was working on that the government bought up the patents to keep them secret...
There's just 2 things you need to know about Tesla:
1. He made a kick-ass album called The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.
2. He was the brain child behind the copier. He made a scores of copies of High Jackman.
Edit: I would love to read a Tesla bio by Isaacson. I'm halfway through Steve's bio and it is a very interesting read so far. I just don't feel like putting it down.
There's just 2 things you need to know about Tesla:
1. He made a kick-ass album called The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.
2. He was the brain child behind the copier. He made a scores of copies of High Jackman.
Edit: I would love to read a Tesla bio by Isaacson. I'm halfway through Steve's bio and it is a very interesting read so far. I just don't feel like putting it down.
For those not getting his reference, it from the 2006 film The Prestige where David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla and Hugh Jackman plays a magician. If you haven't seen the film I suggest you check it out without reading up on it. I think you'll enjoy it.
The one thing I have learnt from it is I'm too nice with fools around me. I will act more like Jobs when needed trying NOT be a total asshole at it. Its a tough balancing act though.
Most assholes rarly get to be CEO because they never get promoted into postions where they alienate too many people . The company I work for has a few nasty assholes (who are very intelligent and knowelgeable, but have zero social skills) and have been shunted off to the side to keep them from destroying the teams.
Jobs was one of the few just like these people but because he made himself into a CEO was able to make people's lives around him unbearable. I doubt that Apple will be able to keep his legacy going because it will become balkanized without him. It's only a question of time before the in fighting starts to eat away at the culture he enforced.
I plan to start reducing my stock in APPL as this happens, I guess the process will be really starting by end of 2012. A lot will depends on Android competition and how it affects the revenues and also how well the apple HDTV/siri project is implemented and is marketed without him.
I find it ironic that he died of cancer, because employees who are like him are just like cancers too. Sad! Imagine if he could have done all this without needing to be an asshole!
I've almost finished the book and I've found it disappointing. The parts covering the early days of Apple and the Mac are a cookie cutter regurgitation of stuff that has been written before. It's really bizarre to read it since Jobs just kind of drops in from time to time (Isaacson obviously relied heavily on Hertzfeld's account) and there's no attempt to reassess Jobs's early contributions at Apple in light of his return (which is absolutely essential and needs to be done; I think Isaacson really missed an opportunity there). The stuff on NeXT, too, is rather weak (for example, Isaacson focuses on the short-lived, failed hardware division and repeats Gates's claim that Apple never used any of NeXT's technology). The short account of Pixar and Jobs's role in its success is much more successful, perhaps because there was less existing material to draw from.
The last 1/3rd has been more interesting because there's a lot of new material but Isaacson still struggles to integrate Jobs's personality with his achievements in a convincing way.
I have finished the book, and I also am disappointed.
. . .
I plan to start reducing my stock in APPL as this happens, I guess the process will be really starting by end of 2012. A lot will depends on Android competition and how it affects the revenues and also how well the apple HDTV/siri project is implemented and is marketed without him.
What a bundle of negative contradictions we have here. The corrosive, mad CEO (I refuse to indulge in the American fetish for the word a'hole) departs, and instead of expecting the company to refocus and flourish under more benign leadership, you predict "Balkanization."
Depressive on its face. Chin up! The whole point of the book so far -- I'm halfway -- is that Jobs enforced a kind of natural selection on the people around him. Only the strongest, smartest, most dedicated survived. Those who could see past his scalding personality into the product's ethical and aesthetic mandates, as he saw them and they came to see as well, stayed to the finish.
As a result, Apple is now a product machine forged more in line with Jobs's goal of "changing the world" -- that phrase should be in the index -- than by kowtowing to Jobs's flawed ego.
Why were you disappointed by the book? Maybe by your dread of the future. Apple's drama is only beginning its second act. Expect great things.
Sorry for the tone, but I also have no patience anymore for the current fetish for doom, especially when it is reflexively applied to Apple's future. Not just you; we see it a lot here. This is serious business. The future of American innovative competence is on the line.
For those not getting his reference, it from the 2006 film The Prestige where David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla and Hugh Jackman plays a magician. If you haven't seen the film I suggest you check it out without reading up on it. I think you'll enjoy it.
One of my favorite movies. The subtle storytelling and acting in the movie just appears more brilliant upon subsequent viewings.