So we went camping with relatives last weekend, what a great time! And during part of that time, I finally had the chance to start reading the recent Steve Jobs bio from Walter Isaacson that I got for christmas last year. This was an interesting read, if you like biographies, but I had mixed reactions to it, for the following reasons.
1) Much of the story was already familiar to me, as I grew up with those original Macs (and Amigas, and PCs, etc.) and have used most of them along the way at some point or another (I have an older Mac Pro at present, among my other bazillion computers at home). I am not a zealous Mac fanboy by any means, they serve their purpose and definitely do it well. My notable Mac gripes are beyond the scope of this review, so I’ll leave those out. I am glad they are still around, as much to keep Micro$oft honest (because Windows still sucks for the most part) as to point out what you can really do when you push hard for design and integration in a consumer OS, even when you arguably don’t have to.
2) While reading the book, it’s obvious Isaacson has made strong efforts to be balanced, even though it’s just as clear he’s a big Jobs fanboy from the very start. So while he is happy to show many (because sadly there are many) instances of Jobs being a huge jerk, Jobs being irresponsible, Jobs lording it over everyone around him, etc. – there are just as many triumphs along the way, and those are put on equal display. Some of them I think are a little overblown or hyped in a way that I would more expect to see in a press release, but this is definitely not a book that avoids showing the bad side of Jobs, and that’s a good thing.
3) One factor here I am not sure is brought out as much as it could have been is the luck factor. Like so many successful business types, regardless of industry, to hear them tell it, you’d think they planned their ridiculous success from the minute they were born and it was simply fate that led them to the pinnacle. But anyone paying actual attention knows that LUCK plays a huge part in these stories as well.
It’s true that highly focused, smart people like Jobs and similar are often the best-equipped to take overwhelming advantage of chances that come their way – and in Jobs’ case, his ‘reality distortion field’ often permitted him in many cases (but not in the end with cancer, certainly) to push his way through obstacles to create the reality he wanted and believed in. In some ways, he was both the Immovable Object or the Irresistible Force no matter what he did, because the guy simply didn’t budge. Period. But he was also very, very lucky – you can argue both sides of many of his successes that he was the key driver – but he was also just as much riding on the success of the team(s) that supported him. And (noted in the book somewhat too) if it wasn’t for the iPod (and to a lesser degree, iTunes), the second coming of Apple might have turned out very differently (because they would have ended up as part of Oracle or Sun, most likely, and possibly not even around anymore). The iPod gave them the crazy money and breathing room to really aim for the stars again, even with the Mac OS X reboot beforehand. That would never have been enough on its own.
4) One of the more interesting aspects to me about this story is of course the contrast between Bill Gates and Jobs, which isn’t the focus of the book but certainly comes up several times. And if you’ve ever watched Pirates of Silicon Valley, you’ve seen this scenario play out – arguably not really exaggerated for effect even in the movie – where Jobs gets karma put right back in his face by Gates in a direct, undeniable way. Possibly one of the few times it really happened, when you consider the book and story as a whole. Here Gates is painted a bit more nice than Jobs – but I’d wager he was just as hard to deal with and just as ‘cornholio’ in his own way – ask the crushed and discarded Micro$oft ‘partners’ or early computer companies along the way that were run over by far worse business practices than Apple ever came up with. There’s plenty of abusive behavior to go around when these kinds of stakes are at issue, and it’s certainly not confined to the tech industry, either. Ask the banks, for example.
So do I admire Steve Jobs? I admire several of his character traits – the drive, the focus, the willingness to sacrifice so much to stick to his vision in many cases, the willingness to be the lone voice even in his NeXT years, where he literally *was* the lone voice for his beliefs. And I am glad he played a central role in bringing us Pixar, a story I knew only a little about beforehand but the book tells in great detail.
But I have seen SJ’s hyper-abusive management style at work even in my own career, and it greatly tempers my admiration for his success in the end. No one has to behave that way to be successful, and there are plenty of examples out there that prove my point. It’s truly sad that so many leaders in Corporate America believe otherwise. But as SJ found out, karma is real, guys – change your ways while you still can!
And I’m not completely convinced that designing cool consumer devices (computers or otherwise) is ‘changing the world’ the way Jobs constantly evangelizes. Because changing or enriching consumer behavior is one thing – but really changing society for the better is quite another, and I’m not convinced that (just) building cool technology is a necessary means to that end. I think that it is a uniquely *American* viewpoint to believe and centralize that perspective, but the era of ‘what’s good for GM is good for America’ is long, long since past, and the same applies for Apple.
A great read and great fodder for beer-table debate, to be sure. Especially if you have an Apple or Micro$oft (yes, somehow they too exist) fanboy in your midst. 🙂
candybowl
