Book Club Book 'Steve Jobs' by Walter Isaacson

Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson (4)

When polled for a rating of this book, the group agreed on a ‘4’. When asked if there was anything to like about Steve Jobs (based on the book), all agreed it was ‘no’. That pretty much sums up this very well researched and written book about an admired, but extremely unlikable fellow.  We all agreed it was admirable (and totally out off his control-freak nature) that Mr. Jobs allowed this book to be written without reading or interfering in it. Given the lens through which he viewed himself, I think he may not have comprehended how negative he would come across.  All this being said, one doesn’t have to like the subject to find the book interesting.  The book is very well written and was able to engage both the technophile and the technophobe.  Our group has a good spread of people from those who never owned an Apple product nor knew the lore and stories (of Apple-NeXt-Pixar-Apple), to those who owned the first Macs and knew the specific Palo Alto restaurants frequented in the book.  Everyone found something interesting and discussion worthy.  You learned how someone could violate almost every rule in the manager’s handbook, yet inspire people to join him in the Reality Distortion Field and do magical things. (Note the bad side of that is the scads of CEOs who will think they can treat people poorly but do not have a brilliance elsewhere that makes up for it).  I will mention that when Mel asked ‘what surprised you the most’, I first thought of the possible eating disorder, but I had to finally agree with her that it was the wide spread crying mentioned in the book! By many men…. In the 80’s…. in Business! Given how men tend to treat women when the cry (like it’s a weakness), it was appalling to hear that, behind closed doors they were crying like babies!  As you can see, like all good books this one provoked emotions. Overall we all agreed that Mr. Jobs had an unquenchable desire for perfect things and that his obsession brought wonderful products to consumers. Unfortunately, that same obsessive personality also likely took him away sooner than necessary.