Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader

This is a fascinating biography that I enjoyed very much, but before getting into the details of the book itself I want to quickly go back in time to when Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011 (it's hard to believe that three and a half years have already gone by since that date). At that time, the Walter Isaacson biography ( Steve Jobs ) had already been written.Jobs had agreed to be interviewed by Isaacson over the course of the final two years of his life, and when Isaacson's biography of Jobs was published less than three weeks after his death, on October 24, 2011, it immediately became a bestseller. His book was taken as the most thorough and authoritative description of Jobs that had been written. It did have the cooperation of Jobs himself, and did become the benchmark biography of Jobs (until today). It pulled few punches in describing Jobs volatility throughout his life and in managing his businesses. The view of most was probably that the Isaacson book was tough but fair, because the stories of how difficult Jobs could be were well known and undisputed.Now that a couple of years have gone by and people have had a chance to adjust to Jobs death and reflect, it turns out that there was a need for a more balanced look at his life, one that doesn't overlook his failings but also gives more credit to not only his great technological leadership but also his humanity and his great talents as a leader of men and women. Especially interesting are the stories of his growth as a person, and how he did learn to be more understanding and compassionate in dealing with people. We learn through reading this book that this was something he acknowledged and worked hard at improving. He knew he had faults and he tried to limit them (not always successfully). We are all aware of his accomplishments - he led and inspired (and demanded) the talented people at Apple to innovate and exceed their own expectations time after time, and although he was a stern taskmaster he also drove them to design and engineer products that were sensational to use and experience. They were transformative to industries. Jobs may not have been perfect, nobody is claiming that, but these things do not happen solely through bullying, there has to be more to it than that.And there is more to it than that. This new biography of Jobs brings out those other aspects of Jobs life and personality. And no doubt it benefits from the time that has gone by since his death, which has given everyone involved a chance to get some distance from the events of his life and put them in perspective.This book also has an even more significant difference, I feel: the authors, Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, are two gentlemen who have known the computer industry and Jobs for many years. Schlender in particular had a relationship with Jobs that spanned almost 25 years. He did not meet Jobs for the first time when they began working on the book (and this is one of the most important differences in comparing this book to the earlier biography, because Isaacson did not know Jobs prior to working on that book, and he did not have the strong background in the computer industry that both Schlender and Tetzeli possess. He was, and is, an accomplished and well respected biographer and business executive, and among other things has been the CEO of the Aspen Institute for a number of years). Bringing out this personal connection right at the beginning, the book starts with Schlender talking about his first meeting with Jobs, in April of 1986, when he was working for the Wall Street Journal and stationed in San Francisco and he drove down to Palo Alto to meet with Jobs at the NeXT headquarters.A couple of years ago, when Schlender and Tetzeli approached Apple with their plan to write this book, they were not able to obtain the cooperation of the company or its executives. Then, after a year and a half of continued effort, the door was finally opened. They were able to meet with Apple people, as well as with Jobs widow, and the resulting fresh materials, together with the notes and documents they had already gathered, going back many years, gave them an unequalled resource of information to produce this new biography.This book provides a more comprehensive look at Jobs full career, not just the Apple years (parts I and II). There is a great deal of material describing his time at both NeXT and Pixar that I was unfamiliar with. Those years when he was separated from Apple were very important in understanding and illustrating the evolution Jobs went through as a manager and as a person over the course of his life. The executives Ed Catmull, and John Lasseter at Pixar, and Bob Iger at Disney, for example, were very influential to Jobs and this was interesting to read about. (This is a time period of his life that was almost completely overlooked in the earlier Isaacson biography).This 13-year period, beginning in September, 1985, when Jobs resigned from Apple after John Scully essentially stripped all of Jobs responsibilities from him, until late 1998 when he returned to Apple following Apple's acquisition of NeXT and the removal of Gil Amelio as CEO, is covered in detail in this book and was, to me, most interesting. It was during this period that Steve tried unsuccessfully to reproduce the magic of the Mac in the new NeXT computer, acquired a creative and well-functioning team at Pixar that resisted his micromanaging and taught him how to more skillfully lead a high performing creative group. It was also during this time that he met his future wife, Laurene Powell, married and began to raise a family. Pixar achieved it's first major success when the movie Toy Story was produced in 1995; that eventually led to his return to great wealth when Pixar was sold to Disney. All of these experiences combined over time to produce a more thoughtful and measured manager who, by the time he was asked to lead Apple again, was a far different person than the imperious and demanding 20-something who had co-founded Apple and then skyrocketed to fame and fortune when he was probably too young to handle it.And while some are now criticising this book as being more forgiving regarding Jobs, especially when compared to the Isaacson biography, I'll add one story that speaks volumes to me regarding this 'other side' of Jobs. When he returned to Apple in 1998, he faced a terribly difficult situation, the company had it's least inspiring product lineup ever, employee morale was seriously depressed, and there was a desperate need to chart a path to recover the magic that the company had held in its early days. In one of his very first leadership decisions at Apple, in learning that the stock options of the employees were all 'underwater' and valueless, he insisted that the board re-issue all those employee stock options so that they were priced at the stock value on July 7, the day that Amelio's firing was made public. He informed the employees of this in an 'all hands' memo that went out over his signature, a singular move that immediately revitalized the financial prospects for the companies employees. And he had no personal stake in that decision, because at that time he had no personal stock options of his own. The depth of his dedication to the employees of Apple could not have been more clearly shown than it was in that single action.As I read this book, having read many other stories about Jobs and having a familiarity with his life and how it developed, it can be both sad and frustrating to read once again about his failures and mistakes. At NeXT, for example, recounting the many errors made - selecting expensive magnesium for the computer case, requiring it to be built as a cube with sharp edges rather than easier to manufacture rounded corners, building the state-of-the-art factory in Fremont that would never be used to its full capability - I found myself lamenting that he hadn't been able to learn those lessons of management and discipline earlier in his life. A great waste, in many respects. Still, it is a part of his story (and a number of the innovations from NeXT would go on to live well beyond those days). Great leaders always talk about how their failures were critical to their development. Likely he would not have grown into the man he eventually became if he hadn't made those mistakes, painful though they are to replay. He was just 30 when he began NeXT, 33 when the first NeXT computer was unveiled, in grand Jobs extravaganza style at the Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. He was world famous and yet still a very young and immature man. The attention to detail and importance of design that was so important to him from the very beginning, even when it was impossible to implement or led to products that were too expensive to succeed commercially, would blossom in later years as the iPhone and other devices were developed and led to Apple's greatest successes.To me, the most moving story from the book was when Tim Cook realized that he and Jobs had the same blood type. That meant that Cook could potentially help Jobs fight his illness by donating a part of his own liver. But Jobs wouldn't even consider it, and the deep personal nature of that exchange, between those two men and at a time when Jobs realized that his remaining days were dwindling, was very poignant. The last part of the book is especially sad as we live through his final days, when he knew that his time was coming to an end.There are many other interesting stories here, some of which can be found elsewhere in the other reviews or on the internet already, as the early reviews are out and most of them share favorite stories or new insights that were gained from reading the book. I'll just add that this is a very human portrayal of Jobs, it is one that I believe will appeal to people who like to read biographies of business leaders, people who are fans of Apple and are looking for more insight into how it works and the people behind the products, and it will also appeal to readers who are interested in what makes a brilliant leader tick, how does the mind work and what magic must take place in order for those visions to become manifest in products and in a company that, soon after Jobs death, became the largest in the world.I also think that it is remarkable to see the support that Apple executives are now putting behind this book now that it has been released. Tim Cook, Apple's current CEO and Jobs hand-picked successor, Jony Ive, Apple's long standing head of design, and Eddy Cue, Apple's head of software and internet services, have all endorsed it. A cynic might view their praise of the book as support of something that may help to reshape Jobs image in a more flattering light, but I think that there is more to it than that. This book does not whitewash Jobs or overlook his faults.My earlier comparisons to the Isaacson biography, which until today may have been the benchmark for a Jobs biography, may sound like too much of a criticism of that book, so I will add that anyone interested in Apple and the story of the company and of Steve Jobs is probably going to want to read both books. I purchased the Isaacson book as soon as it came out, and I'll probably go back and read it again now. There are portions of Jobs life and Apple history that are covered in the Isaacson book and not so much (or at all) in this new book. I think that one of the other reviewers makes the point that the two books should be viewed as complimentary, and I think that is the right way to look at it.By the time of his death, Steve Jobs had become an icon of the business world, having achieved a stature that only a few American business executives have ever reached (Jack Welch at GE being perhaps the most recent, prior to Jobs). This is a fascinating look at him and his company, and after reading it I have the feeling that I may be just a bit closer to understanding what he was like. I wouldn't try to claim that this book is definitive - Jobs was complex enough and accomplished so much during his life that no single biography is going to provide everything that could be written about him. I do have the feeling that it may be the closest yet.

I'll start by explaining a little about me so you can decide how much weight to give to my book review. Prior to reading "Becoming Steve Jobs" I had read "Little Kingdom," "The Macintosh Bathroom Reader" and its successor "Apple Confidential 2.0," "Revolution in the Valley" (which is as much about Steve Jobs as the early tech he guided others to create), "iCon Steve Jobs," and Walter Isaacson's Biography on Jobs. I have also read a host of other books pertaining to the Mac which offer tidbits on Steve Jobs, including Guy Kawasaki's "The Macintosh Way" and "Macintosh! Complete" by Doug Clapp. Moreover, I became a subscriber of MacUser magazine at its inception in 1984 and have maintained my subscription even as they were folded into Macworld magazine in the 1990's. My first home computer was a Macintosh 128k in 1984, and I currently own an iMac, and iPad, iPods, PowerBooks and a host of other Apple goodies. I've watched most of the movies on Steve and Apple that have come out, including Pirates of Silicon Valley, Jobs (with Ashton Kutcher), Welcome to Macintosh, and MacHEADS. I suppose on some level I am a fanboy in terms of my interest in studying up on Apple and using their products regularly and holding AAPL stock, but I am no stranger to Windows or the world outside Apple. I haven't always agreed with the decisions made by Steve or Apple through the years, but I have always given them a critical yet fair analysis relating to their products and services.I read many of the Amazon reviews posted here (to date), and all the negative reviews. My feeling is that I am not the same as most of those reviewers. Some people seem to have given the book 5 stars because they believe Jobs was an overbearing idiot. Others seem to have rated the book highly simply because its another book on Jobs. But like Steve Jobs, I've always been somewhat of an oddball by choice, not necessarily wishing to side with the majority or even minority opinion.Because I've read so many books about Steve Jobs, you might wonder why I even cared to purchase this book. Quite honestly it was because I read very positive comments about the book made by Tim Cook and Eddie Cue. I was surprised at that since Apple insiders usually don't offer such strong book endorsements. I also read that Steve Jobs' wife provided detailed insights about their family life, which of course I had heard very little about. Prior to purchasing this book, my understanding was that "Becoming Steve Jobs" would treat Jobs more fairly and show his more "human side" which previous books failed to properly capture. Even "Becoming Steve Jobs" itself mentions in more than one place that previous books about Steve Jobs have always left the reader with the wrong impression about Jobs — "one-dimensional myths," the author calls them. The author also says, "I wanted to offer a fuller picture and deeper understanding of the man I had covered so intensely [when writing for Fortune magazine]." I read one web page where Jony Ive was even quoted saying "My regard couldn't be any lower" regarding Isaacson’s biography, implying that Ive was pleased with "Becoming Steve Jobs."But despite all the hype about this book, and despite the book itself claiming to be different from all prior Steve Jobs books, the bulk of its content is largely the same as other books on Jobs. That did not bother me as much as the surprising negativity. As I progressed through the first half of "Becoming Steve Jobs," I was shocked at how much the book lambasts Steve Jobs just as much if not more than all the previous books about Steve Jobs that I have ever read. And although the book started to get much better as I entered the second half, toward the end of the book, the author goes back on his rampage against Steve Jobs, giving the reader set of highly personal opinions that leads one to wonder if the author didn't have some level of deep-seated grudge against Steve Jobs. And although the book was actually written by two different authors, it is impossible to discern which author wrote which part of the book, so we must group them together as the same person, both of whom bear responsibility for the words written. No doubt, if Jony Ive read "Becoming Steve Jobs" he would hold it in even lower regard than Isaacson’s book.Here are the following passages in "Becoming Steve Jobs: which I personally feel throw an unnecessary hand-grenade at the memory of Steve:Page 85:"Truth is, the Mac that Steve had delivered was deeply flawed... No wonder sales dried up. In his effort to realize a vision, Steve had slighted the machine's utility."Pages 95-96:"...NeXT would turn out to be the full, unfortunate blooming of Steve Jobs's worst tendencies at Apple... he was in fact a slave to so much else: to his celebrity, to his unbalanced and obsessive desire for perfection in the most innocuous of details, to his managerial flightiness and imperiousness, to his shortcomings as an analyst of his own industry, to his burning need for revenge, and to his own blindness to these faults. He was immature and adolescent in so many ways—egocentric, unrealistically idealistic, and unable to manage the ups and downs of relationships. Steve was too self-centered to see how much of Apple's success had depended upon a combination of perfect timing and the work of others. Nor did he recognize how much he had contributed to its many problems."Page 105:"Steve's overbearing need to weigh in on everything—to get those "twenty thousand decisions" exactly right—slowed everyone down. This micromanagement was the primary example of the fact that Steve did not know how to prioritize in any kind of holistic way at this stage of his career."Page 111:"He added an unnecessary level of complexity, meaning yet more money spent for more engineers working more hours to accommodate a design that contributed nothing meaningful to the final product."Page 122 (referring to the first NeXT Cube computer):"...Steve's persnickety meddling had delayed the machine and driven up its cost."Page 125:"If Steve had started NeXT with a clear mind and even an ounce of humility, Sun [Microsystems] is the company he would have acknowledged as his most dangerous competitor—and potentially his best role model."Page 132:"Without the lessons he learned at Pixar, there would have been no great second act at Apple."(NOTE: The author conveniently neglects to mention that had there been no NeXT or NeXTstep OS, both created exclusively because of Steve, there would have been nothing for him to sell to Apple in 1996 and most likely would have prevented Steve from ever returning to Apple. Imagine where Apple would be today had Jobs never returned!)Page 137-138:Catmull reflects. "He knew something about running a consumer products company, but early on he actually had nothing of value to say [about Pixar], and a lot of his advice to us turns out to have been bad advice..." "And in the late 1980's, Steve Jobs was a long way from being a sophisticated businessman. His ideas for Pixar truly were of little or no help at all."Pages 367-368:"...Steve failed to do an effective job of tempering some of his weaknesses and antisocial traits, and to consider how, when, and why some of them continued to flare up even during the years of his greatest effectiveness as a leader. With all his heady success at Apple since the turn of the century, there seemed something incongruous about the occasional, stubborn persistence of certain problematic behaviors."(NOTE: The author said the above after he mildly derided other books on Jobs which had left their readers with the impression that Steve Jobs was "half asshole/half genius from birth to death." This illustrates that the author(s) of "Becoming Steve Jobs" do not really understand the human condition. A part of who we are as a child remains with us all our lives. The author(s) could not comprehend how what they perceived as "Steve's weaknesses" could possibly be tied to his greatest strengths. After this, on page 368, the author proceeds to knife Steve in the gut with strong accusations over Steve having criticized a NY Times reporter, for Steve having allowed Foxconn suicides to occur, for the eBook scandal and daring to force Amazon to raise book prices, and for allowing former Apple executives to take the fall over the SEC investigation on backdating of stock options. )Page 369:"No one I have spoken to has a unified theory for the staying power of Steve's childish behavior, not even Laurene."(NOTE: The author then continues to deride Jobs over feeling negatively about people who had caused him great trouble in the past, and then he adds a surprising remark about Adobe Flash:("Eisner remained a curse word to him. Gassée's 'sin' of telling Sculley that Jobs intended to oust him as CEO occurred way back in 1985; a quarter of a century later, Steve still snarled whenever the Frenchman's name came up. Steve saw [Adobe's support of Windows when Apple was foundering] as a betrayal... Adobe had done a good job with Flash...")Page 371:"Venting Steve's anger against Google had cost the company at least $60 million in lawyer's fees. Steve, whose intense forces was a huge competitive advantage, had created a massive legal effort that will likely prove, in the long run, to have been nothing but a distraction."Page 377:"Steve hadn't changed much. He put the needs of the company ahead of any work relationship... Steve cared more about the potential buying power of his customers than he cared about propping up departing veterans whose contributions he deemed waning. He prioritized ruthlessly..."(The author yet again fails to consider what it takes to run a successful multinational corporation, and forgets to consider the millions of dollars in compensation those poor old veterans received during their tenure at Apple. Their monetary compensation was and should have been thanks enough.)Page 410 (the author regretting words he exchanged with Steve in the summer of 2011):"He asked if I wanted to go for a walk with him and chat... instead of responding to his invitation I lit into him, telling him my grievances about our relationship, especially my anger at the fact that he had refused to work with me on "Fortune" (magazine) stories after my battle with meningitis... I made a halfhearted attempt to schedule a visit with his assistant, but when there was a slight complication I quickly gave up."Twice in the book, the author talks about his dislike of being interrupted by Jobs during an interview — "seriously … why was I letting this guy interview me?" That says less about Steve Jobs than it does about the author.I cannot help but wonder if Tim Cook and Eddy Cue and Lorraine Jobs were given the complete text of the book when they made their comments praising it. Or did they praise the book because the book presented them in a mostly positive light? Quite honestly, those three people were very close to Steve and even to this day view him with the highest regard. No one who knew Steve Jobs so closely for so many years and who continued to view him with such high regard could ever view this book as being "positive" to Steve Jobs or "worthy of praise." I fully understand that no person on this earth is perfect, and that there is much bad mixed in with good. Steve did stupid things like we all do, and maybe a bit more than we do. But overall, the tone of this book is quite harsh and negative towards Steve. It discounts his successes and brilliance and instead focuses on how little Steve cared to fondle the emotional needs of others. If this book had been written when Steve was alive, Steve Jobs would, without a doubt, have never spoken to the author(s) again.While this may sound like I regret my purchase, I do not. There were some very good points to the book, my favorite part being about Steve and Ron Johnson (pages 278 to 283) and the creation of the Apple retail stores. I also enjoyed the color photos, and the parts about Steve's family life were appreciated. Other positive gems include the full transcript of Steve's 2005 Stanford speech on pages 316-322, Laurene Jobs' remarks at Steve's 2011 memorial service on page 408, and various quotes from Tim Cook, including his willingness to give part of his liver to save Steve's life. Because of those few especially good portions of the book, I do not regret my decision to buy and read it. However, because the book is largely negative against Steve (and undeservingly so), and because I was somewhat duped into thinking it would be a more upbeat and positive book, I cannot in good can't conscience give it more than 3 stars. It's probably more along the lines of 2.5 stars, but we cannot assign such a rating, so I rounded up to 3 stars.Although I do still recommend this book, you need to adjust your expectations before you buy it. Buy it with the understanding that the way it's advertised is not necessarily going to be what you find in the book. Don't give excessive weight to the large number of 5 star reviews. I'm not an overly negative person, and I most often given 5 star reviews when I really like a book, product or service. But this time I cannot give such a high rating. Even though Steve did a lot of negative things in his life, this book overemphasizes those negative points more than other books on Steve have done. Nevertheless, the book did give me an upbeat feeling about Apple and its future. I feel that Apple is in good hands with Tim Cook in charge. Hopefully Steve Jobs’ legacy will continue to exert a positive influence on Apple management for foreseeable future in spite of this book.

Easily the most comprehensive, well-researched, well-written and *objective* biography of Steve Jobs I've read. Much better than the authorised version by Walter Isaacson, unfortunately. Really gets to the detail of how and why Jobs came to be where he was, and how the skills and insights he had - many present very early on in his career, albeit in rough or unfocussed form - were sharpened and refined over time.Benefits greatly from the authors' experience and technical literacy to properly understand the subject matter, whilst presenting a complex and often convoluted sequence of events in a clear and engaging way. Highly recommended.

Had so much more depth than Walter I's biography: delves deeply into the shades of grey rather than using broad strokes to rehash the same stories told by every Jobs biographer. Reading the book, you will find that those milestones, which were the support beams for other stories, fade into the background, and the intent and the motivations of Steve come through with a much sharper focus. Must read, even / especially if you have read the others.

Got this this because of the good reviews. Sorry to say I find it lacking, the first chapter did little to inspire me to read on, although I did. The writing style I have found to be one that is hard to follow. Whilst there is a lot of good information, the writing style and lack of material to invigorate the reader has left me rather disappointed.

Outstanding book. A very deep and complex approach to Steve’s professional journey and achievements and deep personal empathy and growth. I’d wholeheartedly recommend this book, especially to younger entrepreneurs to understand the depths of Steve’s contribution. It was truly profound.

A great insight into the maturation of one of the leading lights of the tech industry. The story is told in a compassionate yet honest tone that makes this a compelling and enjoyable read.