The Second Coming of Steve Jobs

By: Alan Deutschman

Narrated by: Charles Stransky

Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

From the acclaimed Vanity Fair and GQ journalist–an unprecedented, in-depth portrait of the man whose return to Apple precipitated one of the biggest turnarounds in business history. With a new epilogue on Apple’s future survival in today’s roller-coaster economy, here is the revealing biography that blew away the critics and stirred controversy within industry and media circles around the country.

©2000 by Alan Deutschman
(P)2000 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A fascinating portrait of the Apple Computer founder…A mesmerizing, outstanding read, this book crackles with energy. Some of the passages will make your mouth drop open."--Dallas Morning News

"Deutschman illuminates the attributes that have made Jobs not only a success but also an influential innovator in two major industries. THE SECOND COMING…includes fascinating details about Jobs…anyone interested in the culture of Silicon Valley should find it well worth a read."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Alan Deutschman’s delicious Steve Jobs biography is a psychological profile with a fruit-flavored iMac punch line. The book is a pleasure to read, but not surprisingly, Jobs wishes you wouldn’t."--Chicago Sun

An excellent portrait of the comeback kid

Steve Jobs has always amazed me with his eye for what consumers want and his aptitude for creativity. The man's downfall and rise back to the top are highlighted in this book.

It's a great story about what Steve was up to between his disappearance from Apple and his comeback to save the company.

Excellent

A terrific audiobook. Both the story and performance were great. This was the first thing I listened to on my new iPod.

Great book, not such a great man

This book does a great job is showing many sides of Steve Jobs. In short he is a fascinating person. However what this book does a great job of is showing where his real brilliance is versus where his lucky guesses have been. Also it give startling accounts of his tyrannical leadership that has become synonymous with Steve Jobs. In the end it shows there is a lot more to this man than Apple and Pixar.

Interesting but technologically ignorant

This book was quite a good read and provided a lot of interesting background information about Steve Jobs, but the author's total ignorance of the technology on which Jobs' entire career is based makes you wonder about the accuracy of everything else. For example, he clearly doesn't know what a computer operating system is, nor is he aware of the difference between an operating system and an application program. He seems to think that you build a computer and then put some "software with icons" into it as a kind of afterthought. He is embarrassingly unaware of both the details and the broader view of the software and hardware technology in the development of both Apple and Steve Jobs' career. Nor does he understand anything about the impact that the technology has had on society. It's worse than getting things wrong, he just doesn't see it at all. It's an article about a high-technology story by a gossip columnist who barely understands that there is a difference between a computer and a typewriter.

This makes one wonder how accurate the rest of the book is. It makes for entertaining reading, but as another reviewer has pointed out, it is very, very fluffy. It is more a society piece than any kind of portrait of the phenomenon that is Steve Jobs.

If even a fraction of the stories about Steve Jobs reported in the book are true he is one of the most obnoxious and unsavory characters in the computer industry -- a narcissistic, immature and emotionally violent tyrant with delusions of grandeur and spirituality that are belied daily by his vicious and unfeeling behavior. But at the same time, the author comes across as an equally unsavory gossip columnist with an ax to grind -- at one point he slips in briefly that he felt badly snubbed by Jobs -- so all the reports should probably be tempered with a couple of pinches of salt. If Jobs is really the way he is described here no intelligent or creative person would ever work for him.

No iPod?

I enjoyed listening to this. Unlike other reviewers, I thought it depicted Jobs in a singularly unflattering way. One major disappointment: the books stops well short of the iPod era. I would have liked to have heard some of the story behind that.

50% Interesting 50% Fluff for People Mag.

I heard Jobs' Stanford Speech and wanted to read more about him and his businesses. This book filled in some gaps, but I still want to know more of what I wanted when I got it.

This author drapes many good stories in so many sheets of fluff that it is clear in his effort to write an 'all-telling' account of Jobs he really just didn't have enough good material- or an interview with him.

Some of the fluff is humorous, but there's just so much of it. I suppose a die-hard Jobs fan might like to know ALL the dirt, but I was hoping to learn more about about his business career and less about his personal life.

That said, I did cruise through the book, although I often wished it moved faster. The reader did a nice job but it was hard to tell- was it he or the writer (or both) that was so dang jealous of and disgusted with Jobs?

One major fault I had with the book was the repetition. The author not only loves the word maniacally, but he gives us so many similar examples of Jobs' negative side (along w/ his 'incredible genius') that I wondered why the title was Second Coming instead of "Inside the Man."

The information about his decisions and where they led was very interesting along with his business role in Next and Pixar, and if the book had been less repetitive and added a chapter on his earlier Apple Days and why he got fired, etc., it might well have been a five-star book.

I'm all for criticism, but I got the feeling he had been one of Jobs' interviewers once who had been made to cry and was trying to get back at him by digging up all his dirt- kind of like Kenneth Star. What the guy does in his personal life might be interesting, but it just gets old.

I recommend the listen, but it's probably not one you'd want to hear twice.

Great Book!

I enjoyed this book. Interesting to hear the detailed background of a top IT executive.

One of my all-time favorites

I've probably listened to this story six or seven times now and its one of my favorites. The narration is excellent, the audio quality is very good, and best of all its a true story full of drama and conflict.

I just wish that a follow-up book were available since Apple has really taken off since the return of Jobs, and I'd like to know some of the details .

The Second Coming

Love him or hate him, after listening to this book, you will understand his passion, eccentricity and mood swings. A very good read to look inside a genius’s mind.

Great Insight about Steve

At the begining it sounded more like an "idealization" of Steve Jobs personality from the author, but actually, as the story develops, it actually ment to provide so much detail about Steve.
Further more, gives enough understanding about things or "headlines" that had made history. At least in the IT industry.
Story, Detail and good narration. I would have to say that it is a great book!