steve jobs

This book took me two months to finish because it was so long. But I really enjoyed Isaacson’s writing. Here are my three main takeaways:

1. Everything about Apple, down to why Flash doesn’t run on iOS, is a result of Jobs’ legacy. Jobs favored closed systems. Unlike the hacker culture of the Homebrew Computer Club, which encouraged hobbyists tweaking the products they used, Jobs wanted just products his products to be unmodifiable. Just like a tasting menu at a fine dining restaurant, a work of art can’t be modified or tailored. 

2. Jobs’ reality distortion field: Job had an uncanny ability to empower the people around him to achieve beyond their potential. He used his charm and manipulation to motivate them and break them down. 

3. The integration of technology and humanities: Jobs was a firm proponent for the integration of engineering and design. Divisions at Apple were run under product lines; visionaries like Jony Ive worked closely with engineers. Jobs himself was not a great engineer, but he was able to spot good ideas and create great products (good artists borrow, great artists steal). Jobs wanted Apple products to be beautiful, meticulously crafted with smooth edges and curves, like a Porsche or Bösendorfer piano; Pixar, too, was born from Jobs’s passion for artistry. This same legacy of pursuing the liberal arts in conjunction with STEM is still a core tenet of Stanford’s teaching philosophy.

I think what I liked the most about reading this book was seeing how profoundly Steve Jobs impacted the Valley - even down to Elizabeth Holmes’s unblinking gaze and black turtleneck - and this generation of entrepreneurs. I remember having a similar feeling after reading David Reynolds’ Empire of Liberty and thinking to myself, wow, this is why the East Coast is the way it is, why New York and New Jersey’s deep water harbors made them more metropolitan, why they are more open to immigrants, why there are more colleges north of the Mason-Dixon Line. I understand why so many Stanford freshmen read this book now. Next up, Zero to One.