Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson is a great read for anyone interested in technology, good biographies, good reading, or anyone interested in reading about eccentric and childish megalomaniacal tyrants. Although the book covers Steve Jobs from birth to death, the book is quite long enough; I wouldn’t want it to be any longer (it is rumoured Issacson will be adding more material for a “second edition”— Isaacson having a plethora of information that didn’t make it into the book). To Isaacson’s credit, the book is researched and written well, and the supporting cast (Jobs’ friends and family) is round, full and vibrating with humanity. Jobs, not so much.
I wish I could go on and on about how great Steve Jobs was, but other than having a tyranical bent that enabled him to push and bully everyone around him (is that really all that awesome?), he truly wasn’t that “great” of a person. Driven, yes; passionate, oh yeah; charming, you bet — when it worked in his favour. Compassionate about others’ thoughts and feelings? Never in a million years. He also wasn’t an engineer, trained in computer sciences, or even a college graduate. To his credit, he was really good at stealing other people’s ideas and taking credit for them.
In the end, Karma is a bitch. Not heeding the advice of medical professionals and family, Jobs willfully left his cancer unchecked for well over a year, choosing only to drink health-food store potions that were “supposed” to make him better. That stubborn against the grain attitude didn’t get him very far.
After reading Steve Jobs, I am worried that there are probably countless wannabe CEOs out there lapping this shit up as gospel, morph into the next Steve Jobs with the hopes of starting “the next Apple.” It is really too bad: being a dick and treating people like garbage is not the way to go about it in the long run.