Last May, my friend Aditya gave me his copy of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. As much as I wanted to start reading the book then and there, it was the end of the school year and finals were occupying most of my waking hours. Eventually, once the semester wrapped up, I found myself paying more attention to the 600-page book that had been sitting on my desk during the weeks prior.
That summer, I ended up living in the Bay Area for an internship, and one of my (seemingly easy) summer goals was to get through the biography. Although I flew back home at the end of the summer still working away at it, I can say that as of nearly 17 months later, I have finally finished reading all 600 pages of this fascinating biography. I effectively read the first 80% of the book during my summer in the Bay Area and postponed reading the remaining 20% until last weekend. Despite the year-long halt in the middle, it still feels as if the content from the first sections of the book is clear in my mind.
As for the book itself, the author was tasked with an incredibly difficult biography. I’m sure most people who have read this book have heard of Jobs’ countless controversies and incidents of questionable behavior, so it’s easy to imagine that interviewing Jobs and his colleagues must have been challenging for Isaacson at times. Despite these obvious frustrations, Isaacson crafted an incredibly coherent story that puts equal attention on all aspects of Steve Jobs’ life. It would have been easy to focus strictly on the Apple part of his narrative, but I’m glad attention was drawn out to other parts of his life. Perhaps it is because I was well aware of Jobs’ personality prior to reading the book, but I found myself learning the most about him from the sections that had relatively little to do with his time at Apple.
If the physical weight of the book wasn’t enough evidence, the content supports the idea that Isaacson clearly did his research before writing each section of the narrative. Instead of accepting Jobs’ interviews as the truth, the author does a fantastic job challenging some of Jobs’ flawed claims. Interviews, clashing perspectives, family insights, competitor remarks, and so much more were used to show a more complete series of events than what Jobs often portrayed. Even more respectably, in my eyes, was that his challenges to Jobs’ misleading claims were never disrespectful. At times, Isaacson interjected his opinions where he felt necessary. Some may disagree with this choice given the biographical nature of the book, but I felt like those injunctions were necessary to stop readers from being otherwise misled.
Over the year I spent reading this book, I was frequently surprised at how often I had already known certain discussed topics. Themes including Jobs’ peculiar dieting strategy, his obsession with the first Apple Store, and his pure hatred for Microsoft were just a handful of topics receiving attention in the book that I had already known. Given his influence on the world, it follows intuitively that many of these more shocking stories have circulated in the media over the years. On the flip side, I was equally shocked by how many seemingly major events I had never heard about.
As I mentioned earlier, I started reading this book when I was living in the Bay Area which helped parts of this book resonate with me on a deeper level. Hearing towns, parks, and restaurants being mentioned as pivotal locations in Jobs’ narrative made the book stand out even more as I was able to visit some of these spots throughout my summer. And many years before that, I was one of those Apple enthusiasts who would keep up with rumors throughout the year and live for the day of their keynote product releases. As I’ve grown up (combined with the stagnancy of new product features), I’ve moved past this phase of life; however, my intense obsession with Apple’s product releases only serves as more evidence of Steve Jobs’ ability to innovate and market new products.
In my last book review, I ended up leaving my 10 favorite quotes. Unfortunately, I didn’t read this biography with a highlighter in between the pages, so I decided to reduce it to one quote. One recurring theme of the book was how clearly Steve Jobs despised Microsoft as a company to the point where, after Bill Gates visited his home for the last time, Jobs was immediately quoted calling Microsoft products ‘shitty’. When Jobs was asked about releasing an iTunes client for Windows computers, he remarked that, “It’s like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell.”
Aditya: thank you for giving me your copy of this book. I’m shocked I never read this earlier in my life given how much I had heard about it before I saw you reading it. But I’m fortunate that you happened to finish reading it at the same time that I became interested in that greyscale picture of Jobs facing the cover. I’m not sure how I’ll get this copy back to you, but until then, it’ll be safe on my windowsill.
Rating: 4/5