Just finished Walter Isaacson's bio Steve Jobs, which had been a big hit when it came out around the time the Apple CEO passed away in 2011. I resisted reading it then, just like I have resisted the lemming-like allure of Apple products all these years, though there are plenty of them here in my house.
It is perhaps odd that I have stuck with Windows and then Android devices all these years. A large part of it is that I'm cheap, I just don't want to pay the Apple premium. I am also fundamentally predisposed to open rather than closed ecosystems. And Jobs and his arrogance always just flat out rubbed me the wrong way.
But it is impossible not to have followed his story. I knew a bunch of what was in the book just because Jobs has been such a master at getting his message out all these years and because Apple has done so well, you can't ignore it. But I learned a fair amount reading the book, and there is much to reflect on in thinking about how Jobs ran his life, the central paradox of this control freak perfectionist who was impossible to work for, but everybody loved him because he made such great products and build an organization that was itself focused on making them. And how most everyone looks back at having worked for him and at Apple as a positive experience, by virtue of how good their products are and how they've changed the world. Nor should we forget Pixar.
Isaacson is a good if not great biographer. He is no Robert Caro, but who is? In this case he was hamstrung by the fact that so much of his story was well known already. I have his bio of Ben Franklin on the shelf and will doubtless read it.
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