Steve Jobs Was an Amazing Person

Kudos to my wife for getting me Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson from the library!

It wasn't the first Isaacson book for me. I reviewed his book on Elon Musk, which I found very interesting. She had heard me mention that book and got it for me from the public library. I told her how good of a job I thought Isaacson had done, and she got me the Jobs book by surprise. She had read that a long time ago, as it was published in 2011 just ahead of Jobs's death at the young age of 56.

Isaacson had discussed similarities and differences between Musk and Jobs, and that had caught my attention. As I said in my review of the piece on Musk, I better understood Elon Musk from reading the book. I can say the same about Steve Jobs. Isaacson did a fantastic job!

I never knew that much about Jobs. I think I worked on one of the very early MacIntosh computers, but I was always more of a Windows guy. I never owned an Apple phone until 2014. I was a little late!

The first thing that jumped out at me is that Jobs was adopted. I had no idea. Isaacson shares all of the details about his birth parents and how Steve thought he was "special" for being chosen. As someone who was also adopted, I can relate to that feeling. I considered myself "chosen" when I was growing up. Still, being adopted can give feelings of abandonment, and Jobs certainly seems to have been influenced in this way too.

His biological parents, who got married after they gave Jobs up for adoption, had another child, and Jobs became friendly with his sister later than life. I have become friendly with my half-sister (daughter of my biological mother) over the past five years, so I know how great this can be. I never knew that Jobs fathered a child before being married. He was in denial when he learned that his friend had gotten pregnant, but he eventually welcomed his daughter into his life.

I had heard about the wife of Jobs, Laurene Powell Jobs, but I didn't know that she came from my world (bonds). She was working for Goldman Sachs as a fixed-income strategist. She left to get her MBA at Stanford. They were married in 1991, and she stayed with him until his end. The book does a good job of discussing her and how she handled what was not an easy job! She married him at age 25. She confirms my view that behind every great man is a great woman (or person!).

Isaacson did a wonderful job of telling the good and the bad about this great person. The book is very long, but I read it quickly. Readers will learn not only about Apple (and how he was booted out), but also his work at NeXT and Pixar and so much more. I understand him better now after 42 chapters.