Steve Jobs

by Isaacson, Walter

  • And Apple itself, which Jobs considered his greatest creation, a place where imagination was nurtured, applied, and executed in ways so creative that it became the most valuable company on earth.

  Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius. His imaginative leaps were instinctive, unexpected, and at times magical. He was, indeed, an example of what the mathematician Mark Kac called a magician genius, someone whose insights come out of the blue and require intuition more than mere mental processing power. Like a pathfinder, he could absorb information, sniff the winds, and sense what lay ahead.

  Steve Jobs thus became the greatest business executive of our era, the one most certain to be remembered a century from now. History will place him in the pantheon right next to Edison and Ford. More than anyone else of his time, he made products that were completely innovative, combining the power of poetry and processors. With a ferocity that could make working with him as unsettling as it was inspiring, he also built the world’s most creative company. And he was able to infuse into its DNA the design sensibilities, perfectionism, and imagination that make it likely to be, even decades from now, the company that thrives best at the intersection of artistry and technology.

  And One More Thing . . .

  Biographers are supposed to have the last word. But this is a biography of Steve Jobs. Even though he did not impose his legendary desire for control on this project, I suspect that I would not be conveying the right feel for him—the way he asserted himself in any situation—if I just shuffled him onto history’s stage without letting him have some last words.

  Over the course of our conversations, there were many times when he reflected on what he hoped his legacy would be. Here are those thoughts, in his own words:

  My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products. Everything else was secondary. Sure, it was great to make a profit, because that was what allowed you to make great products. But the products, not the profits, were the motivation. Sculley flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money. It’s a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything: the people you hire, who gets promoted, what you discuss in meetings.

  Some people say, “Give the customers what they want.” But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’” People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.

  Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science. I like that intersection. There’s something magical about that place. There are a lot of people innovating, and that’s not the main distinction of my career. The reason Apple resonates with people is that there’s a deep current of humanity in our innovation. I think great artists and great engineers are similar, in that they both have a desire to express themselves. In fact some of the best people working on the original Mac were poets and musicians on the side. In the seventies computers became a way for people to express their creativity. Great artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were also great at science. Michelangelo knew a lot about how to quarry stone, not just how to be a sculptor.

  People pay us to integrate things for them, because they don’t have the time to think about this stuff 24/7. If you have an extreme passion for producing great products, it pushes you to be integrated, to connect your hardware and your software and content management. You want to break new ground, so you have to do it yourself. If you want to allow your products to be open to other hardware or software, you have to give up some of your vision.

  At different times in the past, there were companies that exemplified Silicon Valley. It was Hewlett-Packard for a long time. Then, in the semiconductor era, it was Fairchild and Intel. I think that it was Apple for a while, and then that faded. And then today, I think it’s Apple and Google—and a little more so Apple. I think Apple has stood the test of time. It’s been around for a while, but it’s still at the cutting edge of what’s going on.

  It’s easy to throw stones at Microsoft. They’ve clearly fallen from their dominance. They’ve become mostly irrelevant. And yet I appreciate what they did and how hard it was. They were very good at the business side of things. They were never as ambitious product-wise as they should have been. Bill likes to portray himself as a man of the product, but he’s really not. He’s a businessperson. Winning business was more important than making great products. He ended up the wealthiest guy around, and if that was his goal, then he achieved it. But it’s never been my goal, and I wonder, in the end, if it was his goal. I admire him for the company he built—it’s impressive—and I enjoyed working with him. He’s bright and actually has a good sense of humor. But Microsoft never had the humanities and liberal arts in its DNA. Even when they saw the Mac, they couldn’t copy it well. They totally didn’t get it.

  I have my own theory about why decline happens at companies like IBM or Microsoft. The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important. The company starts valuing the great salesmen, because they’re the ones who can move the needle on revenues, not the product engineers and designers. So the salespeople end up running the company. John Akers at IBM was a smart, eloquent, fantastic salesperson, but he didn’t know anything about product. The same thing happened at Xerox. When the sales guys run the company, the product guys don’t matter so much, and a lot of them just turn off. It happened at Apple when Sculley came in, which was my fault, and it happened when Ballmer took over at Microsoft. Apple was lucky and it rebounded, but I don’t think anything will change at Microsoft as long as Ballmer is running it.

  I hate it when people call themselves “entrepreneurs” when what they’re really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so they can cash in and move on. They’re unwilling to do the work it takes to build a real company, which is the hardest work in business. That’s how you really make a contribution and add to the legacy of those who went before. You build a company that will still stand for something a generation or two from now. That’s what Walt Disney did, and Hewlett and Packard, and the people who built Intel. They created a company to last, not just to make money. That’s what I want Apple to be.

  I don’t think I run roughshod over people, but if something sucks, I tell people to their face. It’s my job to be honest. I know what I’m talking about, and I usually turn out to be right. That’s the culture I tried to create. We are brutally honest with each other, and anyone can tell me they think I am full of shit and I can tell them the same. And we’ve had some rip-roaring arguments, where we are yelling at each other, and it’s some of the best times I’ve ever had. I feel totally comfortable saying “Ron, that store looks like shit” in front of everyone else. Or I might say “God, we really fucked up the engineering on this” in front of the person that’s responsible. That’s the ante for being in the room: You’ve got to be able to be super honest. Maybe there’s a better way, a gentlemen’s club where we all wear ties and speak in this Brahmin language and velvet code-words, but I don’t know that way, because I am middle class from California.

  I was hard on people sometimes, probably harder than I needed to be. I remember the time when Reed was six years old, coming home, and I had just fired somebody that day, and I imagined what it was like for that person to tell his family and his young son that he had lost his job. It was hard. But somebody’s got to do it. I figured that it was always my job to make sure that the team was excellent, and if I didn’t do it, nobody was going to do it.

  You always have to keep pushing to innovate. Dylan could have sung protest songs forever and probably made a lot of money, but he didn’t. He had to move on, and when he did, by going electric in 1965, he alienated a lot of
people. His 1966 Europe tour was his greatest. He would come on and do a set of acoustic guitar, and the audiences loved him. Then he brought out what became The Band, and they would all do an electric set, and the audience sometimes booed. There was one point where he was about to sing “Like a Rolling Stone” and someone from the audience yells “Judas!” And Dylan then says, “Play it fucking loud!” And they did. The Beatles were the same way. They kept evolving, moving, refining their art. That’s what I’ve always tried to do—keep moving. Otherwise, as Dylan says, if you’re not busy being born, you’re busy dying.

  What drove me? I think most creative people want to express appreciation for being able to take advantage of the work that’s been done by others before us. I didn’t invent the language or mathematics I use. I make little of my own food, none of my own clothes. Everything I do depends on other members of our species and the shoulders that we stand on. And a lot of us want to contribute something back to our species and to add something to the flow. It’s about trying to express something in the only way that most of us know how—because we can’t write Bob Dylan songs or Tom Stoppard plays. We try to use the talents we do have to express our deep feelings, to show our appreciation of all the contributions that came before us, and to add something to that flow. That’s what has driven me.

  Coda

  One sunny afternoon, when he wasn’t feeling well, Jobs sat in the garden behind his house and reflected on death. He talked about his experiences in India almost four decades earlier, his study of Buddhism, and his views on reincarnation and spiritual transcendence. “I’m about fifty-fifty on believing in God,” he said. “For most of my life, I’ve felt that there must be more to our existence than meets the eye.”

  He admitted that, as he faced death, he might be overestimating the odds out of a desire to believe in an afterlife. “I like to think that something survives after you die,” he said. “It’s strange to think that you accumulate all this experience, and maybe a little wisdom, and it just goes away. So I really want to believe that something survives, that maybe your consciousness endures.”

  He fell silent for a very long time. “But on the other hand, perhaps it’s like an on-off switch,” he said. “Click! And you’re gone.”

  Then he paused again and smiled slightly. “Maybe that’s why I never liked to put on-off switches on Apple devices.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’m deeply grateful to John and Ann Doerr, Laurene Powell, Mona Simpson, and Ken Auletta, all of whom helped get this project launched and provided invaluable support along the way. Alice Mayhew, who has been my editor at Simon & Schuster for thirty years, and Jonathan Karp, the publisher, both were extraordinarily diligent and attentive in shepherding this book, as was Amanda Urban, my agent. Crary Pullen was dogged in tracking down photos, and my assistant, Pat Zindulka, calmly facilitated things. I also want to thank my father, Irwin, and my daughter, Betsy, for reading the book and offering advice. And as always, I am most deeply indebted to my wife, Cathy, for her editing, suggestions, wise counsel, and so very much more.

  SOURCES

  Interviews (conducted 2009–2011)

  Al Alcorn, Roger Ames, Fred Anderson, Bill Atkinson, Joan Baez, Marjorie Powell Barden, Jeff Bewkes, Bono, Ann Bowers, Stewart Brand, Chrisann Brennan, Larry Brilliant, John Seeley Brown, Tim Brown, Nolan Bushnell, Greg Calhoun, Bill Campbell, Berry Cash, Ed Catmull, Ray Cave, Lee Clow, Debi Coleman, Tim Cook, Katie Cotton, Eddy Cue, Andrea Cunningham, John Doerr, Millard Drexler, Jennifer Egan, Al Eisenstat, Michael Eisner, Larry Ellison, Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Gerard Errera, Tony Fadell, Jean-Louis Gassée, Bill Gates, Adele Goldberg, Craig Good, Austan Goolsbee, Al Gore, Andy Grove, Bill Hambrecht, Michael Hawley, Andy Hertzfeld, Joanna Hoffman, Elizabeth Holmes, Bruce Horn, John Huey, Jimmy Iovine, Jony Ive, Oren Jacob, Erin Jobs, Reed Jobs, Steve Jobs, Ron Johnson, Mitch Kapor, Susan Kare (email), Jeffrey Katzenberg, Pam Kerwin, Kristina Kiehl, Joel Klein, Daniel Kottke, Andy Lack, John Lasseter, Art Levinson, Steven Levy, Dan’l Lewin, Maya Lin, Yo-Yo Ma, Mike Markkula, John Markoff, Wynton Marsalis, Regis McKenna, Mike Merin, Bob Metcalfe, Doug Morris, Walt Mossberg, Rupert Murdoch, Mike Murray, Nicholas Negroponte, Dean Ornish, Paul Otellini, Norman Pearlstine, Laurene Powell, Josh Quittner, Tina Redse, George Riley, Brian Roberts, Arthur Rock, Jeff Rosen, Alain Rossmann, Jon Rubinstein, Phil Schiller, Eric Schmidt, Barry Schuler, Mike Scott, John Sculley, Andy Serwer, Mona Simpson, Mike Slade, Alvy Ray Smith, Gina Smith, Kathryn Smith, Rick Stengel, Larry Tesler, Avie Tevanian, Guy “Bud” Tribble, Don Valentine, Paul Vidich, James Vincent, Alice Waters, Ron Wayne, Wendell Weeks, Ed Woolard, Stephen Wozniak, Del Yocam, Jerry York.

  Bibliography

  Amelio, Gil. On the Firing Line. HarperBusiness, 1998.

  Berlin, Leslie. The Man behind the Microchip. Oxford, 2005.

  Butcher, Lee. The Accidental Millionaire. Paragon House, 1988.

  Carlton, Jim. Apple. Random House, 1997.

  Cringely, Robert X. Accidental Empires. Addison Wesley, 1992.

  Deutschman, Alan. The Second Coming of Steve Jobs. Broadway Books, 2000.

  Elliot, Jay, with William Simon. The Steve Jobs Way. Vanguard, 2011.

  Freiberger, Paul, and Michael Swaine. Fire in the Valley. McGraw-Hill, 1984.

  Garr, Doug. Woz. Avon, 1984.

  Hertzfeld, Andy. Revolution in the Valley. O’Reilly, 2005. (See also his website, folklore.org.)

  Hiltzik, Michael. Dealers of Lightning. HarperBusiness, 1999.

  Jobs, Steve. Smithsonian oral history interview with Daniel Morrow, April 20, 1995.

  ———. Stanford commencement address, June 12, 2005.

  Kahney, Leander. Inside Steve’s Brain. Portfolio, 2008. (See also his website, cultofmac.com.)

  Kawasaki, Guy. The Macintosh Way. Scott, Foresman, 1989.

  Knopper, Steve. Appetite for Self-Destruction. Free Press, 2009.

  Kot, Greg. Ripped. Scribner, 2009.

  Kunkel, Paul. AppleDesign. Graphis Inc., 1997.

  Levy, Steven. Hackers. Doubleday, 1984.

  ———. Insanely Great. Viking Penguin, 1994.

  ———. The Perfect Thing. Simon & Schuster, 2006.

  Linzmayer, Owen. Apple Confidential 2.0. No Starch Press, 2004.

  Malone, Michael. Infinite Loop. Doubleday, 1999.

  Markoff, John. What the Dormouse Said. Viking Penguin, 2005.

  McNish, Jacquie. The Big Score. Doubleday Canada, 1998.

  Moritz, Michael. Return to the Little Kingdom. Overlook Press, 2009. Originally published, without prologue and epilogue, as The Little Kingdom (Morrow, 1984).

  Nocera, Joe. Good Guys and Bad Guys. Portfolio, 2008.

  Paik, Karen. To Infinity and Beyond! Chronicle Books, 2007.

  Price, David. The Pixar Touch. Knopf, 2008.

  Rose, Frank. West of Eden. Viking, 1989.

  Sculley, John. Odyssey. Harper & Row, 1987.

  Sheff, David. “Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs.” Playboy, February 1985.

  Simpson, Mona. Anywhere but Here. Knopf, 1986.

  ———. A Regular Guy. Knopf, 1996.

  Smith, Douglas, and Robert Alexander. Fumbling the Future. Morrow, 1988.

  Stross, Randall. Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing. Atheneum, 1993.

  “Triumph of the Nerds,” PBS Television, hosted by Robert X. Cringely, June 1996.

  Wozniak, Steve, with Gina Smith. iWoz. Norton, 2006.

  Young, Jeffrey. Steve Jobs. Scott, Foresman, 1988.

  ———, and William Simon. iCon. John Wiley, 2005.

  NOTES

  CHAPTER 1: CHILDHOOD

  The Adoption: Interviews with Steve Jobs, Laurene Powell, Mona Simpson, Del Yocam, Greg Calhoun, Chrisann Brennan, Andy Hertzfeld. Moritz, 44–45; Young, 16–17; Jobs, Smithsonian oral history; Jobs, Stanford commencement address; Andy Behrendt, “Apple Computer Mogul’s Roots Tied to Green Bay,” (Green Bay) Press Gazette, Dec. 4, 2005; Georgina Dickinson, “Dad Waits for Jobs to iPhone,” New York Post and The Sun (London), Aug. 27, 2
011; Mohannad Al-Haj Ali, “Steve Jobs Has Roots in Syria,” Al Hayat, Jan. 16, 2011; Ulf Froitzheim, “Porträt Steve Jobs,” Unternehmen, Nov. 26, 2007.

  Silicon Valley: Interviews with Steve Jobs, Laurene Powell. Jobs, Smithsonian oral history; Moritz, 46; Berlin, 155–177; Malone, 21–22.

  School: Interview with Steve Jobs. Jobs, Smithsonian oral history; Sculley, 166; Malone, 11, 28, 72; Young, 25, 34–35; Young and Simon, 18; Moritz, 48, 73–74. Jobs’s address was originally 11161 Crist Drive, before the subdivsion was incorporated into the town from the county. Some sources mention that Jobs worked at both Haltek and another store with a similar name, Halted. When asked, Jobs says he can remember working only at Haltek.

  CHAPTER 2: ODD COUPLE

  Woz: Interviews with Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs. Wozniak, 12–16, 22, 50–61, 86–91; Levy, Hackers, 245; Moritz, 62–64; Young, 28; Jobs, Macworld address, Jan. 17, 2007.

  The Blue Box: Interviews with Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak. Ron Rosenbaum, “Secrets of the Little Blue Box,” Esquire, Oct. 1971. Wozniak answer, woz.org/letters/general/03.html; Wozniak, 98–115. For slightly varying accounts, see Markoff, 272; Moritz, 78–86; Young, 42–45; Malone, 30–35.