What's Up Mac?

What's Up Mac?

By Bill Rose

I just got done reading Walter Isaacson's "Steve Jobs".

Wow!!!

There have been other books about Steve Jobs, all in my personal Apple library and including "iCon" and "The Second Coming of Steve Jobs", and they have been revealing but this book with it's unfettered access to Steve Jobs himself is one of the best biographies I have ever read. I find it ironic that there is an article about there is an article about turning Jobs into a "saint" but if you read the book he is anything but a saint. In fact the book does an amazing job of humanizing a cultural icon instead of just glorifying him.

Isaacson did a wonderful job of reinforcing a long held personal belief of mine.

I could never, ever work for Steve Jobs. I would have gone ballistic had he launched into one of his famous and all too frequent profanity laced tirades. I realize this was Jobs way of both culling the pack of the weak and motivating the strong but unlike "The Godfather" he made it personal and not just business. On the other hand his devotion to Apple and to making the best products possible is what set him apart as a business Head of State. In a world where "OK" is the standard Jobs sought perfection. I loved how he was just as concerned how things looked on his products that were not visible to the consumer but were to him. His attention to detail may have been exasperating at times to those who worked for him but most times he was dead right and his personal quest that all of his products be "Insanely Great" or "Put a dent in the universe" is exactly what makes Apple products so unique.

The book did a masterful job of peeling away the layers of an extremely complicated and oft times contradictory man. Jobs spent a good part of his youth immersed in the hippie and Zen cultures and he considered himself a Buddhist and spiritual man but at every turn of his personal and professional life he rejected peace for war and calm for histrionics. Jobs could be highly vindictive as illustrated by refusing Apple's industrial designer subcontractors (FrogWorks) to work on a Steve Wozniak project (a universal remote control) after Woz left Apple. He felt Microsoft, Samsung and Google blatantly and illegally copied Apple products yet one of his favorite mantras was Picasso's "Good artists copy, great artists steal".

Jobs would not suffer fools but his definition of fools was ambiguous and today's fool could be tomorrow's genius. Often an idea he dismissed as "stupid" would be recirculated by Jobs himself as an original "Insanely Great" idea. Steve Jobs was an arrogant and petulant man. There is no denying his character flaws but again the word "contradictory" comes to mind. He was adopted and yet he tried to deny paternity for his daughter Lisa from his ex-high school girlfriend. He lived a very modest life for such a rich man and yet he wanted, and got, a personal jet airplane from Apple and at the time of his death he was building a custom yacht. Steve Jobs Yin and Yang were in constant combat. At the time Apple awarded Jobs his Learjet he was making $1 a year as Apple CEO. He had just removed the "i" from CEO and he felt the jet was adequate compensation but Apple also offered him stock options which was generous of the Apple Board. Jobs demanded more options than Apple offered and eventually received them. Why? He had a Learjet but he lived in a regular home in Palo Alto with no staff or security. He had several Mercedes Benz cars but he drove himself. His personal car never had a license plate because Jobs didn't think a person like him should waste his time getting one even though a plate could have been easily obtained by one of his minions.

Then there is the other side of Steve Jobs. Even when he made mistakes he made them spectacularly and he failed not because of execution but generally because he misread the market. That was a mistake he didn't make often. He was a workaholic and he loved Apple. He was as demanding of himself as he was of employees, associates and subcontractors. He had an innate sense of what Apple could accomplish and even though he rarely took the expected path to his goals he still obtained them. He confounded the "experts" time and time again. The original iMac revitalized Apple at it's darkest hour even though pundits thought it a "pretty toy". Nobody thought he could produce a consumer electronics product or unite the diverse music industry but he did with the iPod and the iTunes Store and he singlehandedly revolutionized the music business. Gateway had failed famously with branded stores selling their products when Jobs conceived and executed the concept of the Apple Store and despite almost universal negative opinions from every front the Apple Stores succeeded well past even Jobs wildest dreams. Apple didn't invent the computer, the notebook, the MP3 player, the smartphone or the tablet computer but they did make them better than anybody else imagined.

Jobs devotion to style being served by substance was revolutionary. Often Apple products were designed before any thought was given to the engineering. The engineering fit the style and not the other way around. While most companies opened up their products Apple closed theirs in making each component not just dependent on the other but perfectly in synch with each other and not compatible with the products of other companies. Again, this "vertical" thinking was widely panned but it worked and along the way set a new standard for product planning.

I think it illuminating into the real Steve Jobs just how much he planned every detail of his products from the product itself to the packaging, peripherals and marketing. To all you Apple owners out there tell me I'm wrong that you haven't marveled over the packaging of your new Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Time Machine, etc. coming out of the box. Every detail is perfect in conception and execution. Jobs and Apple Head Designer Jonny Ive spent countless hours designing things as mundane as the Apple "Brick" power supply for Apple notebook computers. No detail was too small not to escape notice from Jobs be it the design of his stores, the iPhone, Macs, his new corporate HQ or even that jet he got from Apple. It took six months to outfit it to his exacting specifications before he would use it.

Steve Jobs will be lionized for making Pixar Studios one of the great forces of the entertainment industry and rescuing a dying Apple and turning it into one of the world's most valuable companies. He will be idolized by the Apple faithful for his string of great computers, MP3 players, smartphones and tablet computers. Steve Jobs deserves all the accolades because he earned them the old fashioned way by marrying his own unique genius and a maniacal work ethic that bordered on obsessive. I think Walter Isaacson's book serves to remind us how flawed this genius was and at times what the price he paid for his genius. In his 20's Steve Jobs was convinced he would die young so he was determined to make his mark in whatever time he had left on this earth. He succeeded on a level far past even his considerable expectations. Along the way he made mistakes and enemies as well as friends and allies. I think when he was diagnosed with cancer and certainly when he knew he was terminal the "other" side of Steve Jobs came out. Even with his great arrogance and impatience he knew he was often wrong and could be a jerk. He didn't dwell on his triumphs near as much as he pondered his many mistakes. In fact this book is Steve's ultimate and fittingly final gift to everybody from family to friend to fan to enemy. Throughout his life very few famous people were as private and guarded as Steve Jobs was about his life. This book is full of his candor and while there are examples of his famous "reality distortion field" this is the real Steve Jobs unfiltered and uncensored by his own request. He never got a chance to read his book and as he told the author he's sure parts of it "would piss him off" but it's real, it's honest and most impotent of all it's accurate because it comes from Steve himself.

Get the book and read it. Apple and Jobs changed my life by giving me a passion and a voice but after reading this book I think it ignited something deep in my own soul not to settle but to strive. That's pure Steve Jobs at work.