Dan's Reviews > Steve Jobs

I loved this book! It's been on my shelf for a couple of years, but I finally got around to reading it after seeing the Ashton Kutcher movie. Naturally, the book was better. It's chockablock full of great insights into Jobs' personality, management style, and product and business philosophies. He was an ass, which is old news by now, but I was continually impressed with the heights of his stubbornness. I tend to be less forgiving of these faults than others, and that's probably because I never knew him. There are better ways to motivate people than by constantly berating them. Yes, Jobs' approach produced results, but that's no proof that an alternative approach wouldn't have. It was simply his personality to bulldoze and insult.

His real genius was in his laser focus on products. The philosophy at Apple is to make a handful of key products, and to make them perfect. Jobs perhaps better than anyone else was willing to take whatever risks (no matter the cost) to ensure that his company's products were perfect and delightful. It'll be interesting to see how Apple continues without his leadership. I will say that I recently upgraded to iOS7 for my iPhone and iPad and have been continually asking myself "Would Steve have done this?" about various features. My takeaway is that one should always insist on excellence. People are capable of great things, we just need to stay focused on giving our best performance.

In short, Jobs was a big-time visionary with a lot of faults who nevertheless produced some of the most iconic products of his era. I feel bad for the people who had to live with him though, especially his adopted sister, Patty. She showed up exactly twice in the book and the second time was as an unfavorable comparison to his biological sister, Mona Simpson. I don't know anything about that relationship, but I get the feeling it wasn't too rosy.

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