Steve Jobs

Front Cover
Simon and Schuster, 2021 M10 5 - 672 pages
Walter Isaacson’s “enthralling” (The New Yorker) worldwide bestselling biography of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.

Based on more than forty interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in 21st century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

Although Jobs cooperated with the author, he asked for no control over what was written. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.

Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

Steve Jobs is the inspiration for the movie of the same name starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, and Jeff Daniels, directed by Danny Boyle with a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin.

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Contents

Abandoned and Chosen 1
1
CHAPTER
21
CHAPTER THREE
31
CHAPTER FOUR
42
CHAPTER FIVE
56
He Who Is Abandoned
86
CHAPTER EIGHT
92
A Man of Wealth and Fame
102
CHAPTER TWENTYFOUR
305
CHAPTER TWENTYFIVE
327
CHAPTER TWENTYSIX
340
CHAPTER TWENTYSEVEN
348
CHAPTER TWENTYEIGHT
358
CHAPTER TWENTYNINE
368
CHAPTER THIRTY
378
CHAPTER THIRTYONE
394

CHAPTER
108
CHAPTER ELEVEN
117
CHAPTER TWELVE
125
The Journey Is the Reward
135
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
148
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
159
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
171
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
180
Prometheus Unbound
211
CHAPTER NINETEEN
238
CHAPTER TWENTY
250
CHAPTER TWENTYONE
267
Buzz and Woody to the Rescue
284
CHAPTER TWENTYTHREE
293
The Sound Track of His Life
411
CHAPTER THIRTYTHREE
426
CHAPTER THIRTYFOUR
444
Memento Mori
452
CHAPTER THIRTYSIX
465
CHAPTER THIRTYSEVEN
476
CHAPTER THIRTYEIGHT
490
CHAPTER THIRTYNINE
511
CHAPTER FORTY
525
CHAPTER FORTYONE
538
The Brightest Heaven of Invention
560
Acknowledgments
585
Copyright

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About the author (2021)

Walter Isaacson is the bestselling author of biographies of Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. He is a professor of history at Tulane and was CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2023. Visit him at Isaacson.Tulane.edu.

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