I haven't finished this book yet; in fact, I've just started the chapter called "Restoration," (a great title and absolutely the one I would have chosen for this chapter).
But at this moment I feel moved to make a comment. I imagined that this book would help to explain why Jobs was so admired by so many people. So far, I wouldn't say that the book is really explaining that to me; instead, I find myself wondering why so many people around Jobs allowed themselves to be manipulated by him.
In the place in the book I'm at right now, Gil Amelio has decided to bring Jobs back into the company by buying NeXT. The reason he did that was because he wanted Apple's software. But I find that I'm astounded by that decision. For one thing, I find myself feeling that he should have foreseen that Jobs would want to take over the company and that Jobs' desire to take over the company would create destructive conflict. It would have been more efficient to simply offer Jobs the title of CEO from the outset if Amelio didn't mind Jobs taking control of Apple. If he didn't want Jobs to take control of Apple, it seems to me that he should at least have tried to structure the deal differently.
I'm puzzled by how startling the "warts and all" view of Steve Jobs presented here is, given the reverence and real sense of loss when he died.
Trying to make sense of it all, I started to look around at reviews on the web. Sue Halpern's piece reflects my concerns and I think her answer is correct: We have such high regard for people who are successful in business: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jan/12/who-was-steve-jobs/?pagination=false
I think that Isaacson's account emphasizes event and what Jobs has to say about the events of his life and especially his business career. I'd say that I personally feel a little whipsawed between Jobs' assessment and that of others. At times Isaacson does address the question of why Jobs is idolized and or identified with - that is, why he's a popstar himself. Isaacson points out that Jobs saw himself as a rebel and that this idea was the centerpiece of the "1984" ad for the Macintosh. As I write this, I find myself wondering if my lack of identification with the concept and Jobs' persona is more remarkable than his success.
I still haven't finished the book, but I can't help feeling that a theme, intended or not, is that of failure. The Lisa was a failure, the Macintosh had many serious problems that prevented it from being as successful as it could have been (lack of storage and lack of processing power), NeXT lost its hardware division and was headed toward bankruptcy or dissolution before it was sold to Apple. The oft-mentioned "reality distortion field," was clearly helpful in some instances and clearly not in others. Finally, one thing that I feel that the Macintosh episode showed was that Jobs was clearly interested in the intersection of aesthetics and technology but not as interested as he ought to be in whether and how things worked. I can't help if he learned the lesson of Detroit auto culture from his father too well, in a sense. In a world in which there are many brands of a product that work, essentially, equally well, brand differentiation through design, color, and features may seem like everything but it isn't. The question of how well something meets the needs of the consumer is important, too.
Andrew Sullivan argues that Steve Jobs is important because he fuses the counterculture with what he calls the "counter-counter culture" (presumably, today's young people):
But at this moment I feel moved to make a comment. I imagined that this book would help to explain why Jobs was so admired by so many people. So far, I wouldn't say that the book is really explaining that to me; instead, I find myself wondering why so many people around Jobs allowed themselves to be manipulated by him.
In the place in the book I'm at right now, Gil Amelio has decided to bring Jobs back into the company by buying NeXT. The reason he did that was because he wanted Apple's software. But I find that I'm astounded by that decision. For one thing, I find myself feeling that he should have foreseen that Jobs would want to take over the company and that Jobs' desire to take over the company would create destructive conflict. It would have been more efficient to simply offer Jobs the title of CEO from the outset if Amelio didn't mind Jobs taking control of Apple. If he didn't want Jobs to take control of Apple, it seems to me that he should at least have tried to structure the deal differently.
I'm puzzled by how startling the "warts and all" view of Steve Jobs presented here is, given the reverence and real sense of loss when he died.
Trying to make sense of it all, I started to look around at reviews on the web. Sue Halpern's piece reflects my concerns and I think her answer is correct: We have such high regard for people who are successful in business: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jan/12/who-was-steve-jobs/?pagination=false
I think that Isaacson's account emphasizes event and what Jobs has to say about the events of his life and especially his business career. I'd say that I personally feel a little whipsawed between Jobs' assessment and that of others. At times Isaacson does address the question of why Jobs is idolized and or identified with - that is, why he's a popstar himself. Isaacson points out that Jobs saw himself as a rebel and that this idea was the centerpiece of the "1984" ad for the Macintosh. As I write this, I find myself wondering if my lack of identification with the concept and Jobs' persona is more remarkable than his success.
I still haven't finished the book, but I can't help feeling that a theme, intended or not, is that of failure. The Lisa was a failure, the Macintosh had many serious problems that prevented it from being as successful as it could have been (lack of storage and lack of processing power), NeXT lost its hardware division and was headed toward bankruptcy or dissolution before it was sold to Apple. The oft-mentioned "reality distortion field," was clearly helpful in some instances and clearly not in others. Finally, one thing that I feel that the Macintosh episode showed was that Jobs was clearly interested in the intersection of aesthetics and technology but not as interested as he ought to be in whether and how things worked. I can't help if he learned the lesson of Detroit auto culture from his father too well, in a sense. In a world in which there are many brands of a product that work, essentially, equally well, brand differentiation through design, color, and features may seem like everything but it isn't. The question of how well something meets the needs of the consumer is important, too.
Andrew Sullivan argues that Steve Jobs is important because he fuses the counterculture with what he calls the "counter-counter culture" (presumably, today's young people):
The reason he strikes such a huge chord with an entire generation lies, it seems to me, beyond his immense technical and business and design skills. It was because he became the bridge between the 1960s and the 1980s, the counter-culture and the counter-counter-culture. He was the hippie capitalist. He was the fusion of two great American forces - personal actualization and a free market.All I can say is that right now, I'm still not feeling it.
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