The first half really makes him look like an utter wretch, and almost suggests that his success was a mistake. It basically talks about what an asshole Jobs was, and how he would yell at everyone, etc, and it wouldn't talk about what actually made him a success in his early years. There was almost nothing on it, just anecdotes from people about how he smelled, he was rude, he cried all the time, and made people hate him. I would have loved a more balanced approach to hearing about how he was able to bring the Macintosh team together through inspiration. It basically felt like "Jobs was able to get the Macintosh team together by manipulating and exploiting them with his reality distortion field." I didn't find it very good at all. I also would have liked to have read more about NeXT and what problems he had besides overspending, etc. Were there successes?
The second half of the book was more interesting, because it stopped ragging on Jobs being an asshole and talked more about what he did. There were far more anecdotes, I guess maybe because he interviewed more people from this era. But at least I got a sense of what he actually did for Apple, vs feeling like he was more lucky than good.
Overall, I think the biography stunk. It's useful in that he did get access to Jobs in the final months, and getting insight into his illness, etc, was interesting and sad, but still overall I think he did a very poor job, especially about the early years.
Sorry the biography wasn't stimulating enough.
I take it you are a Jobs fan. Someone you look up to at and admire. So...
...would Jobs quit 2 chapters from the end? Or would he finish?
Most people spend their lives engaged in a kind of Keynesian beauty contest, always trying to do or be what they think they are supposed to do or be. A true visionary has their own internal sense of beauty.
I think it's a little funny that people who don't personally know Steve Jobs have so many strong opinions on what he exactly was, and don't seem to want to give much credit to Isaacson for writing down what Jobs "chose" to share. I started reading Mark Twain's autobiography, and his assertion is that basically any autobiography is incomplete, as a person will end up backing out of telling the unflattering truth. So, while I may not be a huge fan of Jobs, the fact he let Isaacson paint a picture that wasn't total flattery is probably one of more impressive things about Jobs, in my eyes.
When there's a big cultural and news event, it's a huge marketing opportunity, and timeliness trumps other considerations. Because we live in a very fast and competitive media environment, this dynamic plays a very big role.
Siracusa pulls no punches and each and every one of his criticisms is well thought through.
One of Siracusa's main objections to the Jobs bio is that Isaacson does not understand technology enough to separate the important from the trivial.
Isaacson has faced this kind of problem begore. It seems from this review that he had advice from Brian Greene on his Einstein bio:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/books/09masl.html
I wonder if Isaacson did not have enough help with the tech on the Jobs book?
What would all of you have liked it to be?