please send copy to Millard Branch for pickup

My takeaways from the initial buzz about Steve Jobs were: 1) He was kind of jerk, and 2) He ate a lot of weird orange food. 650 pages later, I agree that Jobs would’ve been a tough guy to work for, yet I admire his determination to bring his visions to life without sparing any egos. Isaacson entertained me with dishy stories about Jobs’ early hippie ethos -- his obsession with meditation, veganism, LSD and Bob Dylan sparked a lifelong tension between fighting versus becoming Big Brother. But the big shiny jewel of the biography is its treatment of closed versus open systems. While I’m fundamentally an open systems kinda girl, Steve Jobs’ infamous “reality distortion field” finally has me persuaded that closed systems win the prize for most poetic user experience.

An innovative and creative biography, just like the man it's about. The reality behind a multibillionaire, a great read. Recommended for adults.

Very much enjoyed this book. There are many brilliant people who changed the world who weren't assholes so in that regards Steve Jobs disappoints. This also contradicts the importance for emotional intelligence:)

An excellent read! First, I really liked learning about the skills that Jobs leveraged to build a multibillion dollar company from basically nothing. From what I gathered, Jobs' main role early on was coming up with a vision for Apple's various products and then recruiting exactly the right people to implement each feature. For example, when making the Apple II, Jobs decided that it shouldn't have a fan because it would be too noisy for consumers. Instead, he talked an engineer that he met at the Homebrew Computer Club into working for him, because the engineer had figured out how to design an oscillating power source that would allow the computer to run at a much lower temperature. Every computer since then has depended on this innovation. Second, it was interesting to learn more about Jobs' character. Before reading this book, I had already read elsewhere about how Jobs was simultaneously a charismatic visionary and an insufferable egomaniac. What I didn't know what that he was extremely prone to tears, in addition to his crazy temper tantrums. Anyone who is interested in learning about how someone who was such a jerk managed to lead such a great company will find this a very good read indeed!

Excellent book, excellent story. I am in awe.

Lot o’ ground covered, much more to cover. Isaacson chosen to document for straight record. He gathered a lot of testimony and put it together very well, as Steve figured he would. No technology here. No apprehension of the vision Steve apprehended and shepherded to the physical plane. A good feeling of the personality. A lot of anecdotes that are revealing. Not the real story, however. Steve chose an extreme personality perfectly placed in circumstance to zap all the ingredients, and to do it as a visionary, one who grasps and holds the big picture and presents it to fruition. A Shaman, medicine man, black curtain man, artist. Various names in various places. The ip revolution is part of the same dream of ‘60s all the rest is from: a spiritual revolution, still happening now. John Markoff’s What The Dormouse Said, mentioned by Isaacson, fills in the missing link and lets us know what a miricle computers/internet is. Steve was the Magic Carpet that flew us here. Steve, with Syrian bazaar trader skills combined with short medium and long range vision of what is happening/will happen, allowed him to pull, as he described, aikido moves on his opponent. Time after time he used martial art skills to perfection to shanghai old school types. He old-old-schooled them. He got the ‘Dragon’ to ‘eat it’s own tail’ (example: ‘plasma bottles’ used in flying saucers, ours and theirs. Use the resonant frequency of an element’s metal to hold it in place w/o extreme temp/pressure. You thus have one thing acting as two.). For some more examples read the Steve Jobs chapter of Steve Knopper’s, Appetite For Self-Destruction. Some new metaphysics now: Steve was the end of the end. This is marvelous. He was in touch with all the ‘over-tones’ of the set of the status quo and, of course, the over-tones of the beginning of the new, which we are creating post Mayan calendar-style right now. Microsoft (now Google) was the Old, Steve finished them off. Being the true end of a set is also to be in touch with the pre-beginnings and over-tones of our new ‘Great Work’. Jobs brought us to the end of Phase One of the computer/internet Miracle, portable wireless computers, iPhone and iPad. Implants too. Isaacson tries to make sense of Job’s ‘Mission Impossible’ by citing union of hardware/software et al and various of Steve’s espoused Eastern Philosophic understandings. But really, Steve rode the Vision (he was in love throughout) and brought about what ever ‘next step’ was needed. Seeing and understanding this Vision/Dream explains all. Clarity and Excellence, ‘Tree of Life’ qualities. So it’s not really about cloning hardware or licensing software; just what ever is needed at the time. You love it and appreciate it’s Truth and Beauty. And you know.

a very good read on the evolution of Steve Jobs from the boy who started a garage-company into the leader who rebuilt a broken company to change the world as we know it today. A very good read, definitely.

Although I am not a member of the cult of Apple, I found this biography enlightening of Jobs and the corporate empire he created.

Read this book. Just do it. You don't even have to be a fan of Jobs to enjoy it. And maybe, just maybe, we can all learn something from it. http://www.examiner.com/review/book-review-steve-jobs-by-walter-isaacson