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DECEMBER, 2011

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BOOK REVIEW

The *$&@% whochangedtheworld

BY RICHARD MURPHY
Lets get it out of the way up front. Steve Jobs was a jerk. An Olympic Gold level jerk. However, in the weasel words of Winston Churchill explaining Britains World War I debt default, it is true but, not exhaustive. The man was much more than the unpleasant aspects of his personality. Unless you have been living under a rock for a few decades, you have to be aware of some of his accomplishments. You may have one on your desk. Maybe, its in your pocket. When Oliver Cromwells portrait was being painted, He told the artist to do his pox-scarred face warts and all. Ollie may have been a religious fanatic, but he never deluded himself. His picture would not be a lie. Walter Isaacson was sought out by Steve Jobs to be his biographer. Jobs probably knew that he had not chosen a sycophant as the man to tell his life story. The tome is warts and all. Fortunately, there was more to his life than blemishes. Upon Jobs death, much of the encomia ran to he changed the world verbiage. This is all too often stuff we hear when a celebrity dies. In Jobs, it was actually true. Had he not lived, we would have had personal computers, later. The graphical user interface would have come about, later. All the i thingies would have never happened. We would still have their equivalents, later and without the elegance. Or maybe that is too optimistic and we would only have a Gatesian Windows world. Steve Jobs life began with abandonment, fortunately for him. He would always be conflicted about it, but it was a lucky break. His adoptive parents loved him and ac-

STEVE JOBS ByWalter Isaacson Simon & Schuster, 2011

571 pages

List price: 35.00 Amazon: 17.88

ISBN-13: 978-1-4516-4853-9

commodated him with devotion. His birth mother had one condition for his new blue-collar parents; they would have to send him to college. The parents accepted the condition and would move to the Cupertino, California school system to better his chances. The boy was precocious and demanding. He knew he was smart and so did his mother and father. More revealing, he knew at a young age he was smarter than his parents and they knew it as well. He was much influenced by his craftsman father, Paul Jobs. Dad would restore cars and sell them. His work was precise. Paul made a point of making sure the unseen parts were as perfect as the visible details. It was a lesson Steve would never forget. In reflecting on his life and parental influence, Jobs has come down for nurture on the nature versus nurture debate. Yet he never connected with his adopted sister. She rates hardly a mention in the book. When he met his biological full sister, the rapport was instantaneous and lifelong. It is for the reader to judge. Mom and Dad Jobs would keep the education promise. Steve started at the prestigious Reed College in Portland Oregon. Always the autodidact, he would soon drop out, but stick around to audit the classes that he felt valuable. Warning to any parents reading this. You would not have wanted Steve to talk to your kids school about drugs. He more than dabbled in them and would cite the value of LSD in influencing his worldview. If dropping acid led to the iPad, well what do you say to discourage your little junior or juniorette? Jobs, on his way to changing the world, also spent time finding himself like many 60s era young people. He

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studied eastern religions and ate vegetarian. Steve trekked to India to learn. Unlike many in his age cohort, it was not a fad. A Zen monk would preside at his wedding decades later. Taking into consideration jobs devotion to eastern thought and its emphasis on compassion, a reader cannot avoid being struck by an obvious contradiction. Despite his religious inclination, Jobs had an empathy deficiency. He could be cold and mean to people. Isaacson sees this as the binary nature of his personality. Someone was either a genius or a bozo. A product was either worthless or insanely great. He was not a warm fuzzy guy, as was Steve Woz Wozniak, his partner in inventing the personal computer. One can see this as part of the process of product development. His hectoring of product teams to improve what he saw as almost pathetic led them to get from junk to the Mac or the iPod. Could a kinder, gentler guy have done the same thing? Maybe, but there wasnt one. Woz might have been a lovable genius, but after the Apple, he was never a force in development. Steve Jobs would be forced out of Apple. He went on to found NeXT computer. Maybe NeXT was insanely great, but not enough other people thought so. He saw potential in George Lucas Graphics Group, and bought it. It became Pixar. The result was Toy Story and a new world of cartoon making. Though when he was forced out of Apple, it was probably time to go, his successors were hapless in running it. In 1997, he would return as nothing less than savior from the bozo running it. It almost seems inevitable now that we have had the cascade of products that have been industry leaders. Reading Isaacsons book reinforces that

Steve Jobs believed in himself and his vision and he was mainly right.

Courtesy, Apple Inc.

notion. Steve believed in himself and his vision and he was mainly right. The flame that was Steve Jobs shone brightly for a time. He has been well served by his chronicler. Will he be remembered? Maybe not. The world of technology he was so much a part of moves so fast that everything he has made will be superseded eventually. Entrepreneurs will arise and have their brief hour. It might be only our generation that remembers him. Still, lets be glad he gave us a beige free zone with the first iMac.

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