“Probably no figure in Silicon Valley history has inspired more curiosity or attained a greater mythical status than Steve Jobs, the icon behind Apple,” Jon Swartz reports for USA Today.
“For decades, journalists have toiled in vain to offer a peek behind the curtain of the Wizard of Cupertino, Calif.,” Swartz reports. “Not for lack of trying.”
“Jobs has famously remained tight-lipped and cloistered in secrecy, offering interviews to few reporters. And, on those rare occasions, yielding little or no insights into his personal thoughts. In many ways, he is tech’s version of Charles Foster Kane, the mysterious protagonist in Citizen Kane,” Swartz reports.
“There have been book attempts. The best of the lot — Alan Deutschman’s The Second Coming of Steve Jobs
“Now comes a fresh, noble perspective from Leander Kahney, news editor at Wired.com and a longtime follower of Apple and its mercurial co-founder,” Swartz reports. “Rather than float on the periphery of the Jobs gestalt, he’s decided to get inside the man’s head. (Jobs did not respond to Kahney’s requests for an interview.)”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We have to wonder if, among all of the other things Kahney imagines, does he also conjure up an annual figure for Jobs’ undisclosed charitable donations?
Saw that earlier on USA Today but I think it’s kinda weird since he didn’t get an actual interview with Steve.
This is a hatchet job. Why is MDN promoting it?
Leander is not ‘canny’ enough to get in anyone’s head. Try Balmer.
This guy Kahney is a dick, plain and simple.
Did he actually say “snappily”?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
if kahney never got an interview with steve, wouldn’t a better title be “what my thoughts are about steve, since i never even spoke with him”
The price of fame. Kane and others can heap all their envy, spite, and frustration on Jobs if they choose, Jobs can handle it. Besides Jobs is probably too busy in the “war room” than be concerned with likes of Kane.
Get to work, Steve. I need “one more thing”. Er, make that a couple more things and pronto, bub.
ron is right. Interview Ballmer. You’ll get loads of insightful, fresh and intelligent thoughts from a true pioneer in the tech industry. Besides, the revolutionary vision flowing from Ballmer will be copied by Jobs in 5 years anyway.
Why try to get in Jobs’ head? There isn’t anything there. If there was Apple wouldn’t have a puny 2% market share and his crappy computers would play games.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Maybe he found a portal to enter Steve’s mind.
Somebody check the New Jersey Turnpike…..
Not sure this is worthy of promotion MDN…
ironically enough, I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday, and I saw this book in the New Release section. I picked it up, and read the back.
It’s kind’ve the size of a pocket book, but a hard cover, and retailed for $23.99. I thought that was a bit much, but I was contemplating buying it. I think it also goes into how he turned the company around and what he had to do for Apple to get back on track…
MDN, please stop promoting anything that this jackass writes about. The guy is a prick and he doesn’t seem to care about getting his facts straight either. He’s a Dvorak starter kit.
hhmmm….
you call the users of Apple products cultists, and you wonder why he won’t give you an interview?
this guy is a choad.
I would recommend viewing him more as an artist than a technologist. Everything I have ever read about the man suggest that he is more artistic driven than technology driven.
Jobs is one of the great innovators of our era, and history will mark him as such. Bill Gates will be a footnote no matter how much he tries to buy Sainthood. Right or wrong, good guy or bad, Apple under the leadership of Steve Jobs is changing the world.
@TT,
“Somebody check the New Jersey Turnpike…..”
Just looked. Still a POS.
Drop a few hits of good acid and then start looking.
In order to know where someone going it helps to know where they’ve been.
Whoa, take it easy, Jim. Bill Gates did plenty. I don’t approve of Microsoft’s methods but the company did help bring computing to common people and a ‘standard’ of computing (Windows, Office). Apple may never have been in the awesome position it’s in now if MS didn’t do what it did over the years. I’m not saying i like Windows (i own a Mac) i’m saying Microsoft did help push computing forward. Now, it’s Apple’s turn to take a leading role.
@Bill Gates did plenty
Damn right. You obviously have a clear handle on the facts, and you know tech history quite well.
Read it and weep, MAC dorks.
Apple owes every bit of any success they may have to Microsoft—the true revolutionary innovators in computing. Always have been.
Your potential. Our passion.™
I’d like to jump to my own defense here. The best thing about the book is that it’s the first positive book written about Steve Jobs. And even though Jobs didn’t sit down for an interview, I did talk to a lot of people who have worked with Jobs — some who’ve never talked before — as well as experts and analysts. I certainly didn’t make anything up (everything was very carefully checked by lawyers). I think it’s a well-researched book that — I hope — is pretty insightful. I thought I knew a lot about Steve Jobs until I sat down and researched the book. Hopefully, it’s got some interesting things to say about how Steve Jobs and Apple operates.
Well, I will read it …
once my Library gets it in.