When his death was imminent, Steve Jobs asked author Walter Isaacson to write his biography. He wanted it to be a biography that was completely honest, outlining both his strengths and weaknesses.
Jobs changed the way we think about technology. And in over 40 interviews, Isaacson has changed the way we think about Jobs.
Isaacson, the former editor of TIME Magazine, had already written a load of popular biographies, including those about Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. When Jobs asked him to write it nine years ago, he didn’t realize why he was asking him while he was so young; but Jobs was about to undergo surgery for pancreatic cancer.
It was two years ago and Jobs, now very ill, and Isaacson began their interviews. Nothing to be covered, nothing to be whitewashed. Nothing portraying a guy who wasn’t. Isaacson interviewed over one hundred people to get the job done, including friends, family, co-workers and competitors.
A demander of perfection, Jobs’ childhood could be attributed to this. He was adopted by a working class couple from California. His father taught him to make things, stressing to him the importance of dedication.
Jobs was a gifted child, raised in a good home. Though he had his wilder teenage years, he eventually met up with Steve Wozniak, a computer guru at Berkeley. Together, they copied and improved an illicit device called a “blue box,” which could make free long distance calls. They sold about 100 of them, and Jobs called that the beginning of Apple.
After dropping out of college, he went back to live with his parents and began to work for Atari. His coworkers weren’t too fond of his hippie-ness, and he took a leave, wandering across India for 7 months. Upon his return, he felt he learned intuition, and that simplicity is the best form of sophistication.
Jobs and Wozniak reunited and began to build a basic computer, purely for hobbyists. They started with a $1,300 investment, and, soon after, they founded Apple computer in his parents’ garage.