Becoming Steve Jobs

How a reckless upstart became a visionary leader

By: Brent Schlender, Rick Tetzeli

Narrated by: George Newbern

Length: 16 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

We all think we know who Steve Jobs was, what made him tick, and what made him succeed. Yet the single most important question about him has never been answered.

The young, impulsive, egotistical genius was ousted in the mid-'80s from the company he founded, exiled from his own kingdom and cast into the wilderness. Yet he returned a decade later to transform the ailing Apple into the most successful company the world had ever seen.

How did this reckless upstart transform himself into a visionary business leader? The first comprehensive study of Jobs' career following his dismissal from Apple, written with unparalleled access and insight, Becoming Steve Jobs offers a startling new portrait of the most important business figure in modern history.

The most intimate biography yet of Jobs, written by the journalist who knew him better than any other, Becoming Steve Jobs draws on recently discovered interviews that have never before seen the light of day and answers for the first time the most pressing questions about what made this legendary business leader such a success.

©2015 Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli (P)2015 Hodder & Stoughton

Critic reviews

"Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli render a spectacular service with this book, giving fresh perspective on Steve Jobs' journey from inspiring but immature entrepreneur into an inspired and mature company-builder.... Becoming Steve Jobs gets the focus precisely right: not as a success story, but as a growth story. Riveting, insightful, uplifting - read it and learn!" (Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, coauthor of Built to Last and Great by Choice)
"Becoming Steve Jobs is fantastic. After working with Steve for over 25 years, I feel this book captures with great insight the growth and complexity of a truly extraordinary person. I hope that it will be recognized as the definitive history." (Ed Catmull, president, Pixar and Disney Animation)

Fantastic documentary of how Steve Jobs became Steve Jobs

Fantastic growth story unlike any other biography of Steve Jobs. Honest observation by an author who can clearly write very well.

A Lovely read

Be foolish, Be hungry ❤️
For people managing people and skills, this is highly recommended

Mental Fortitude

I struggled with the early chapter because of the technical but almost now obsolete technology (it however brought some nostalgia) but I truly enjoy from the time Steve left Apple to start his comeback. Inspiring stuff!

nothing compared to the authorised autobiography.

nothing compared to the authorised autobiography. the worst part is that the author out of his stupid anger missed the opportunity to go for a walk in last days of Steve's life. more of a news paper report rather than a real biography.

Great book and great narration.

This book narrated the life of Steve Jobs in a unique and very engaging way. I really loved the authors view on how Steve Jobs grew as a person, how his family and his work at Next shaped the person who we know today.

Best story about Steve

Loved the way the story went into more detail about the products and the personal side not heard before.
👍👍👍👍

Good book

First time listening to audiobook, the experience is really good. The book is good, the story in not boring even i aime facts aare completey wrong. I reccomend the book who is interested in pc story and apple story

Great listen

This is a great listen but seems a short compare to the over version.

Still worth while to hear another view on a great man.

Loved it

Very insightful, real side of Steve. What I didnt find in other books. Accent was not great but did justice

Becoming Steve jobs review

This book really mesmerized me on the story told by many but not in this detail as Brent and Rick revealed to us. Well done to the authors and the narrator

Compared to Isaacson's biog? Maybe not. Read on...

Any additional comments?

Having read Isaacson's book, I wasn't going to read this one, but I did so based on the news from Apple that it was a more accurate representation of Jobs - so lets deal with that bit first.

From Isaacson's book, I gathered that Jobs attention (and hence love and kindness) were only really ever focussed on what met his priorities - and everything else was callously cast aside. If what you did or were, were aligned with his priorities, then he would move heaven and earth to help or defend you - but you would also have to put up with blunt, harsh and often unkind words, if what you did was not up to Jobs version of excellence. This is how Jobs achieved what he achieved - and many, including family, were hurt along the way.

This book didn't really add a whole lot to that in spite of what those at Apple said. Maybe there were subtleties that only people who really knew him wold pick up on - or maybe they just wanted to kick Isaacson's "official" biog - or maybe its all marketing - who knows. Fact is, Steve chose Isaacson - and was rebuffing this guys bio material during the years leading up to his death.

This book did however reveal a little more about some of the personal relationships between Jobs and some of the Apple and Disney execs.

The contradiction about Apple releasing a TV is interesting - Isaacson says jobs was quite clear that he had figured it out while this book claims Jobs didn't like TV so would never do it. Again, who knows.

I found the style of writing here to be a bit rambling. It was broadly chronological, but nowhere near the history of the IT industry that you get from Isaacson. It didn't seem to me to tell the story quite so well, jumping around quite a bit. For example, see references to Web Objects - the middle of the book almost seems to be a history of Apple and Jobs from the perspective of Web Objects...

It tries to show how Jobs "grew" in maturity and as a leader/CEO and not just a visionary. However, I don't think it did this very convincingly as many of the examples of changes in behaviour were actually the same behaviour - but with better outcomes. So, for example, Jobs single minded focus and logic, ignoring everybody else, led to the failure of the Apple 3 and the NeXT workstation, but worked for iPod and iPhone. And all that business with former colleagues and the SEC show no real change in my view. Yes, he became more adept at manipulating people more effectively to get what he wanted - but the basic premise of only caring about people and things that mattered to the items on his radar - was still there.

Its impossible to say - maybe I'd have liked this book a whole lot more than Isaacson's book if I'd read it before that one. But hey, just like that one, I couldn't put it down and I read it in two sittings - and have the bags under my eyes to prove it!

I love Steve's aesthetic and it just boggles the mind that nobody else in the whole IT industry can come up with a desktop pc as pretty as the iMac. But if he was that much of a visionary, he should have seen what Bill Gates saw long before him - i.e. the power of software not hardware to be the human contact point. Just as well Bill and Microsoft had and still have no clue about the human side of things - as this is why Apple may still have a bright future - at least for a little while.

However, Steve would NEVER have allowed the iPhone 6 power button to be exactly opposite to the volume rockers - so that when you hold the phone to activate one, you continually activate the other!

This and the occasional withdraw of the priority of the home button from the processor's attention in recent versions of IOS, this all tells me that a real user / engineer is no longer controlling things. Again, Steve would never have allowed that - its starting to feel like an Android device already - driven by the market and economic, instead of by perfection.

It is interesting how Isaacson talks a lot about Steve setting Sir Jony Ive up to remain very powerful in the future of Apple - but this guy focuses more on Cook at the helm. Basically, Cook (not Jobs) comes across a lot better in this book then in the other one. Personally, I think that gives the game away just a little for this book - and it if represents reality, it may give the game away for Apple too.

Steve Jobs: The Man

This biography focuses more on the person Steve Jobs and portrays him as a more sympathetic human being than Walter Isaacson's biography does. The story of Apple, Pixar and Steve's personal life is less prominent in this biography.

This feels like a more human, realistic portrayal of Steve, but I think that Isaacson's bio is a more complete story.

The business

The book is much more about how Jobs the business person than the Walter Isaacson biography which concentrates on the life story. The final chapters are especially interesting.
The performance/reading was lacking in emotional pacing. It was almost robotic.

Fantastic insight into the man

Brilliant. Forget the others. This is the definitive works on Steve and how he inspires others.

This is the Steve Job book to read

Having read first Walter Isaacson’s ‘Steve Jobs’ I then read this as someone I follow on social media had said this was better

They were right.

The account of Steve Jobs life is told better in this book; his successes and failures, his growth through his life from his early start in Apple up to his death.

I believe this account of Steve is less critical of his failures read in Walters book, and instead has a greater focus on the man who learnt, changed, adapted and morphed into a really inspirational guy

There are moments in Steve’s life that we’re included in this book that I feel are crucial to understanding Steve as a leader and innovator and without them, you could misunderstand the genius part of Steve Jobs.

Being an A hole is easy, but it’s the other side to Steve that is really given the stage, and it was great to hear

iUltimate

This is the book you should pick up if you're given the wicked choice of reading just one book on Jobs, ever, i.e.. Take my word, this book gives the real insights into Steve, the human being, flawed character at times, the professional, ever so learning, committing mistakes and caring primarily for a cause, a mission... the driven entrepreneur that he was, this work has been able to do the justice to the greatest degree yet, and I've read quite a bit on this guy. I'm smitten, and I'm enriched after reading (err, listening) to this book. Good job!

Ok but just heard enough of Steve Jobs now.

No more Steve Jobs books. The story has been told enough times and enough ways.

A window into a very driven man's world

Excellent book, well pieced together and offers a truly different perspective on how Steve Jobs went about his work. Offering a neglected viewpoint on his "human" side.

Well worth getting for anyone from Apple fan boys to Microsoft super freaks!

X: Ex or Ten

The narrator pronounces OS X as "OS ex" instead of "OS ten" as Steve Jobs says it in his many Apple stage appearances! Not sure why they went with the "ex" pronunciation.

To the remembrance of Steve

Really nice work. In depth story and well read.
It is the background tail of an exceptionally man and all the good and bad side of a personality