Monday, January 28, 2013

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs
by Walter Isaacson
Simon and Schuster, 2011. 630 pgs. Non-fiction

Steve Jobs is regarded as one of the giants, if not the most celebrated individuals, in the tech world. Given the outsized and celebrated public personality of Steve Jobs, the author did a good job to draw a well rounded, honest and fair illustration of his subject. Like many other entrepreneur/innovator/leader types of the past, Jobs possessed a combination of arrogance, insight and charisma that both enabled him to transform his industry and society and caused some of his personal and public failures. He could be mercurial, temperamental and regarded everyone as either a genius or a "bozo". However, his combination of charisma, relentless pursuit of excellence and not a bit of luck enabled him to create innovative, well designed products and content. The world was changed with the advent of the Macintosh, the Iphone/pod/pad products as well as the highly successful animated films of Pixar, a firm he founded while an outcast from Apple. This is a very engaging and fascinating book about a larger than life person, the like of which may not be seen again for years.

CHW

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