Product DescriptionWalter Isaacsons enthralling (The New Yorker) worldwide bestselling biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobsthe inspiration for the movie Steve Jobs starring Michael Fassbender Kate Winslet Seth Rogen and Jeff Daniels directed by Danny Boyle with a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin.
Based on more than forty interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over two yearsas well as interviews with more than 100 family members friends adversaries competitors and colleaguesWalter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers animated movies music phones tablet computing and digital publishing. Isaacsons portrait touched millions of readers.
At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.
Although Jobs cooperated with the author?? he asked for no control over what was written. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. He himself spoke candidly about the people he worked with and competed against.
His friends?? foes?? and colleagues offer an unvarnished view of the passions?? perfectionism?? obsessions?? artistry?? devilry?? and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.
His tale is instructive and cautionary?? filled with lessons about innovation?? character?? leadership?? and values.<"on.com ReviewAmazon Best Books of the?Month?? November 2011: It is difficult to read the opening pages of Walter Isaacson??s Steve Jobs without feeling melancholic. Jobs retired at the end of August and died about six weeks later. Now?? just weeks after his death?? you can open the book that bears his name and read about his youth?? his promise?? and his relentless press to succeed. But the initial sadness in starting the book is soon replaced by something else?? which is the intensity of the read--mirroring the intensity of Jobs??s focus and vision for his products. Few in history have transformed their time like Steve Jobs?? and one could argue that he stands with the Fords?? Edisons?? and Gutenbergs of the world. This is a timely and complete portrait that pulls no punches and gives insight into a man whose contradictions were in many ways his greatest strength. --Chris Schluep
Q: It's becoming well known that Jobs was able to create his Reality Distortion Field when it served him. Was it difficult for you to cut through the RDF and get beneath the narrative that he created? How did you do it?
Isaacson: Andy Hertzfeld who worked with Steve on the original Macintosh team said that even if you were aware of his Reality Distortion Field you still got caught up in it. But that is why Steve was so successful: He willfully bent reality so that you became convinced you could do the impossible so you did. I never felt he was intentionally misleading me but I did try to check every story. I did more than a hundred interviews. And he urged me not just to hear his version but to interview as many people as possible. It was one of his many odd contradictions: He could distort reality yet he was also brutally honest most of the time. He impressed upon me the value of honesty rather than trying to whitewash things.
Q: How were the interviews with Jobs conducted? Did you ask lots of questions or did he just talk?
Isaacson: I asked very few questions. We would take long walks or drives or sit in his garden and I would raise a topic and let him expound on it. Even during the more formal sessions in his living room?? I would just sit quietly and listen. He loved to tell stories?? and he would get very emotional?? especially when talking about people in his life whom he admired or disdained.
Q: He was a powerful man who could hold a grudge. Was it easy to get others to talk about Jobs willingly? Were they afraid to talk?
Isaacson: Everyone was eager to talk about Steve. They all had stories to tell?? and they loved to tell them. Even those who told me about his rough manner put it in the context of how inspiring he could be.
Q: Jobs embraced the counterculture and Buddhism. Yet h