Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

I have been a big Steve Jobs admirer ever since we got our first Mac, back in 1984--we were in the first APple wave, which was amazing for it's time, and foretold of what would come with the second Apple wave. But I wasn't looking forward to reading the biography--all the press I read and heard about it really focused on what a difficult person Steve Jobs was. I would agree with that assessment. I wish I had had diner with him but I wouldn't want to spend much more time than that--he was not a genius who if you spent more time with him you would have learned how he did it. He was impatient with things that didn't suit him, and he wouldn't hesitate to let you know that. Ok, fine, but not something that makes for social fun. He was a guy who you would never have to guess what his opinion was==he would let you know. His genius was in seeing what technology bent to it's limits would do right now, and then forcing it into a pleasing package. He wouldn't settle for something that didn't work smoothly and elegantly. Close was not enough, it had to be perfect.

Well, you could see how tiresome that could be on a day in day out basis. He lived for a long time in a house that was essentially unfurnished because he would rather live with no furniture rather than furniture that wasn't suited to him--which made him inherently monastic. The only time I thought I might have something in common with him was when it came to wearing a uniform. He traveled to Sony in Japan, and all the workers were wearing the same outfit. It was a nice outfit--Issey Miyake designed them. When Jobs brought the idea back to Apple, his employees absolutely hated it, but it struck a chord with him, so Miyake designed the black turtleneck he always wore for him, and gave him a 100 of them. After that, it is all he wore--black turtleneck with jeans--which is definitely the phase of my life that I am in--black shirt, black pants (my shirt is not Miyake, it is L.L. Bean, but then I am a child of Maine, where as Mr. Jobs was a billionaire--different budgets, different backgrounds). There were several surprises in here for. One was that Jobs was seriously involved with Joan Baez (he is a huge Dylan fan, so this is ironic at best), but given their age differences and the fact he wanted more children, it was not to be. Another was that he had a liver transplant--I did not know that (he was kind of fanatical about privacy around his health and I am not at all good at keeping apace with gossip, so not doubt this was widely known, but it surprised me). Lastly, I had an impression of him as socially awkward based on all the sound bites about him--but that is not the impression that the book conveys--he was charismatic in a single minded kind of way, and very consistent. What he loved he loved, and you could count on that. A complicated man, and a well written and entertaining biography.