While the stories were engaging, I was expecting it to be more about Steve Job's leadership style than a memoir about Jay Elliot's career path.

It seems the main point of the book is to let the reader know that Jay Elliot is very important. After you are able to get past the constant name dropping you will find a nice collection of stories written by a person that worked closely with Jobs.

I would not recommend this book to someone looking for leadership skills. But if you are wanting a concise history of Apple and some insight into Steve Jobs you could do worse.

Written and based on Steve's life before his passing, this insiders, colleague written view of his morals, practices, and often stubborn-for-the-best-user-experience attitude is an excellent observational based reading on the work life of Steve Jobs. Given the explosion of since-released biographies, I'm interested in

The title does provide a nice account of the history of Apple, including detailing some of the detours from Jobs at NeXT and Pixar.

But it markets itself as a view into the leadership ways of Steve Jobs, and though it does mention lots of tidbits related, most of the time it just ends up as some sort of shrine for him: "only Steve Jobs could have done this", "only Steve Jobs could have thought this", etc.

I haven't read it yet, but I bet Isaacson's official biography is probably a much better read than this, both for people interested in his life and for people interested in his leadership skills.

This reading kept my interest all the way through except for the last 20 minutes. I’m not an Apple fan by a long shot, but I do appreciate the lives of winners. This book was interesting from the aspect of Steve’s highs and lows in his career and how charisma, persistence, a sharp mind and lady luck can create a Midas persona. It really didn’t address any leadership nuggets except Steve’s particular style which would be hard for anyone to mimic.

The last 20 minutes is where the book takes a turn for the worse. Mr. Elliot shifts gears and expounds on his own ventures after he is detached from Steve’s hip – all of which are failures. I’m not sure what he’s trying to prove by including this in his book except that maybe it is utterly impossible to emulate Jobs’ entrepreneurial leadership. If you are looking for a different perspective into Steve Jobs, then this is a good book to listen to. If, on the other hand, you are looking for some amazing leadership tips and tricks from a master, you will be disappointed.

On a side note, this book was purchased before Steve’s death and I listened to it after his passing.

I really enjoyed this book, but I kinda felt mislead. I thought that this was going to be more of a leadership book, but it turned out it was more biographical about the Steve Jobs at Apple. It was good, but not what I was expecting.

Insight well presented directly from the source.
Apple is part of our history,
This is a historic book

A must read and reread again. I like to come back to this book again and again.

This was a very good book that provides an intimate look at Steve Jobs. The book uses Jobs' approaches to problem solving as examples of business leadership. Largely, I think the book succeeds. It is a bit fawning (to be expected) and the author promotes himself at times (not surprising). The book moves along and is not repetitive. Quite enjoyable.

I really enjoyed this book. Great insider look at the person, the process, and the culture of the company. I enjoyed that it was written by a fellow executive - gives the sensation that you've been observing Steve Jobs from his shoes. While I agree with another review that I read that the main takeaway from this book is that you are not Steve Jobs and you never will be, I still think there are tons of great ideas to draw on. Plus, it's just an interesting story. The only thing that I would have liked to be different was for the story to be organized chronologically rather than by theme. However, that's probably because I wasn't familiar with the Steve Jobs story to begin with.