Steve Jobs

By: Walter Isaacson

Narrated by: Dylan Baker

Length: 25 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Featuring a new epilogue read by the author.

From the author of the best-selling biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, this is the exclusive biography of Steve Jobs.

Based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs conducted over two years - as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues - Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the 21st century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.

Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple's hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

©2011 Walter Isaacson (P)2011 Simon & Schuster

Excellent book!

This is a very inspirational story of a legend! I would recommend anyone that ever dreamed of being an inventor read and learn through the perseverance of Jobs!

This book is inspiring!

Would you listen to Steve Jobs again? Why?

Yes, it is an excellent book. I love hearing the history of the computer industry and perspective of Steve Jobs and the people around him.

Any additional comments?

This was a fabulous book. Love or hate Steve Jobs, he was a very interesting individual with vision and was able to make things happen. He didn't believe that things could not be done and I find it inspiring! I absolutely recommend this book. The narrator was excellent. The author was wonderful. He did a great job of interviewing so many people to bring in numerous perspectives. I loved it!

intricately interesting american genius

great book, good narration that kept me listening throughout. i thought isaacson did a great job capturing the many, many different and conflicting attributes of jobs.

Brilliant People Operate Different The Rest

What was one of the most memorable moments of Steve Jobs?

It was fascinating to hear how Steve Jobs and team(s) transformed the industries he did.

Jobs was obviously a brilliant and turbulent man. Personally, I could have done without so much drama about Job's difficult personality.

Anyone who has known brilliant creative people know that they are often difficult, moody, reclusive, etc. It's not easy being around them, but it is those difficulties that often fuel the creativity, or at least are part of the equation. The prolific musician or poet may often have bouts with melancholy and even depression.

It's not to say that being mean to people is excusable, but why Isaacson felt the need to write so much about it is an example of what's wrong with media today.

I know Isaacson said he was trying to give a complete picture of Jobs, but it was apparent that he didn't like jobs and therefore made it hard for the reader to have empathy for Jobs.

It would have been a more powerful story, I think, if Isaacson would have come at Job's personality with more curiosity and empathy that criticism.

Fascinating

If you could sum up Steve Jobs in three words, what would they be?

My entire weekend was sucked up listening to this. I loved the way the story of Jobs unfolded, and how he gave gave Isaacson the leeway to tell the story Jobs in the manner he felt appropriate. Is it true Jobs said he wouldn't read the book in order to give Isaacson this freedom? When you learn about Jobs, it seems his control-freakish ways would never allow this, but the man we learned about wouldn't have approved of some of this material. I wish it had come with digital pictures though! Did it and I missed them? This book has stayed with me since I first listened to it several weeks ago. I bought the book just so I could re-read it. Wish I had done that during the listening of the book!

As honest as a biography can be.

What did you love best about Steve Jobs?

It seemed to be an even handed honest look at Jobs' life. What made him tick, why he acted the way he did. It was an exciting inside look at the mind and life of a brilliant (and crazy) man.

SUPERB!!!!

Any additional comments?

This was just overal excellent... I learned so much about Jobs through this book.

A great listen

This was a fantastic book. I got the hardcover edition as a gift a while back, but it's really long, and heavy, thus I avoided reading it. I listened to the last half of the Audible version in one afternoon. The story of Apple's turnaround is enthralling, and I believe this to be a balanced, well researched biography of Apple's visionary, if mercurial leader. I couldn't stop listening. I liked it so much, I added his biography about Einstein to my wish list, and it'll probably be my next book.

This book was not.... shit.

Steve Jobs would have approved of this book. He truly was the one and only.

What's behind the cover?

What made the experience of listening to Steve Jobs the most enjoyable?

A fascinating (read) listen about a man that I'd not known anything about, other than he was born in the same year I was.

What did you like best about this story?

Steve Jobs was obviously a brilliant man, yet common as all of us in many, many ways.

Any additional comments?

I can't help but wonder, if the mapping problems the iPhone 5 has at its recent release would it have been released with Jobs present? Things that make you go hmmm. Because of that mapping release, I can't help but wonder will Apple be able to maintain its perfectionism?