Monday, December 31, 2012

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

I'm not a very business minded person but I do have a shameful number of this guy's products in my house, so I figured I'd better read his biography. I started this sometime last fall and only got about half way through before putting it away for a while - there was only so much of his weird anti-social behaviour I could tolerate.

"Jobs had an almost willful lack of tact. It was more than just an inability to hide his opinions when others said something he thought dumb; it was a conscious readiness even a perverse eagerness, to put people down, humiliate them, show he was smarter."

Come December, though, I knew I'd be busy with holiday preparations so I didn't want to start anything too new or involved, so I picked this up again and kept right on going from where I'd left off.

Wow. What an incredibly focused and visionary guy Steve Jobs was. I wouldn't have lasted an hour in his company but I sure do appreciate his creativity and singleminded business sense. Towards the end of Walter Isaacson's wonderfully written biography I couldn't help rooting for Jobs as he leaves his nay-sayers in the dust. All these other big name tech companies missed the boat big time, said it couldn't be done, or spent too much time 'researching' and bickering. Meanwhile Jobs just went ahead and did whatever had to be done to make his dream happen. He was so busy handing companies like Sony their lunch back that he forgot how to be a nice guy. Oh well. Lucky for the rest of us.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. 

Amen to that.

4 comments:

Nomad said...

and I always imagined him to be a great and visionary leader with amazing people skills...

So nice to see you guys and sorry we did not have time to reconnect.

Look forward to seeing you next summer!
:-)

Nomad

Trish said...

No. No people skills :-/

So great to see you, even for a short visit! All the best in the new year. See you when you get back into town :)

laughingwolf said...

jobs didn't make super people, just super things... the good looks by designer, jon ive

Nomad said...

Maybe it is easier to get at the THING that way, you do not have to waste any energy on anyone, feelings or otherwise. He got it done, that is for sure, but it sure must have been lonely.

??

Nomad