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

Inspiring

I liked the story and I liked the narrator. I also liked the writer’s style. I recommend this book to all leaders and all MBA students. I recommend this book to all the kids who are in high school and college. I wish I have listened to this audiobook when I was 16 years old

Amazing biography (narration ok)

Many have commented on Isaacson’s masterful biography, and I agree it’s a gem!

My one quibble is the narration: the tone of voice really doesn’t capture Jobs’s at all, much more nasally and annoying. I know the narrator is not an actor per se, but I found the dissonance jarring

At first I didn’t get it but then I got it

I always wanted to believe that Steve Jobs was nothing more than a prickly, thin skinned and egotistical salesman but I grew to appreciate him when I realized how much of his influence had affected my life.

I’m writing this on an IPhone after listening to this book with my noise canceling AirPods while struggling to find some sort of way to diminish the influence that he’s had on our world.

The guy talked the talk but also managed to walk the walk. If you want to listen to a story of divine inspiration and personal redemption you can either read the Bible or read this biography.

Almost perfect.

Minor nitpick, but the reader kept saying the OS name incorrectly. Mac OS X is pronounced "Oh Ess TEN". It came after Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9. It was version 10. The reader kept saying "Oh Ess ECKS", like, the letter X. This would have driven Steve Jobs INSANE!

Amazingly addictive

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, Steve Jobs is an enigmatic figure and while I am too young to remember his first run with Apple everyone has been impacted by his second stint delivering the iphone and ipad. He was a flawed man, with many peculiarities, but that adds to the story. Non fiction can be dry, but this biography is far from it.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Obviously Steve is the focus here.

Modern genius, pure artist and quality leader

I always admired Steve Jobs genius innovative mind that he has for the world to combine his train of technology and art able to really read this book and understand how he come this far

Well Done

This is a well done biography done by someone that was talking to the subject just before his death. I cant give much more than interesting listen as its always been known this Steve Jobs was never an easy person to deal with and it sometimes came out in the book.

wonderful book about a man who built our new world

great book .. very clear to hear and understand and now i finally relatively know Steve jobs thank you Walter Isaacson

A most amazing man that I'm glad I never met

Would you consider the audio edition of Steve Jobs to be better than the print version?

While I was listening to this, I really wished I had a hard copy version of the book to see the photos---Jobs' family and bio family, the buildings he designed, and all the designs that are central to the story. The visual elements are so important that I wondered whether there is a way for Audible to include photos with an audiobook like this. Tina Fey posted photos on the web to accompany the audio version of her memoir, "Bossypants". Couldn't at least that much be done for books like this?

What other book might you compare Steve Jobs to and why?

Of course, Benjamin Franklin. John Adams.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

I thought Dylan Baker did a good job, but I found his mispronunciations to be distracting. For example, he never quite got "demur" right (the second syllable should be pronounced like "infer") and he ended up pronouncing it somewhere between "demur" and "demure".

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It actually did make me cry, even though Jobs was such an S.O.B.

Any additional comments?

I am not a Mac person, but reading this helped me appreciate many people's enthusiasm for Apple products. I recommend this book as an intriguing read.

An AMAZING journey into the mind of a man who changed the world!!

This is a deep, well researched and well written journey into the life of an amazing individual. Despite its length, the book keeps you engaged and amazed at what the man was able to accomplish.