I finished Steve Jobs over the weekend, and wanted to share my two biggest impressions:
Steve was broken
I can’t even count how many times Steve is portrayed in the book as crying or breaking down. He would fall apart in meetings, on phone calls and on walks.
Steve often befriended someone, just to use and discard them later. He struggled with the fact he had been adopted and later abandoned his own daughter for a time.
His issues weren’t just with abandonment. Jobs fought with what can be described as eating disorders. He took drugs. While he mellowed as he aged, there’s no debate that he was a complex man.
Steve was hands-on
Steve did things no other CEO has done. He met with content providers personally. He touched and played with countless versions of products while Jonathan Ive was designing them. In the book, Isaacson reports that the 9.7" LCD on the iPad was decided upon after Jobs played with numerous mockups of different sizes.
More striking to me, however, was just how often Steve invited people over to his home or for a walk. For all of his flaws, Steve liked connecting with people in a private manner. He tendered his relationships in person as often as he could.
In closing
All in all, while the book may have had some technical errors and didn’t discuss modern Apple as much as I would have liked, I believe Isaacson was fair in his treatment of Jobs — showing all sides of his complex personality. It was a good read, and I’m glad I spent the time to move through it slowly.