Apple CEO Steve Jobs “understood technology but was not an engineer,” John Gruber writes for Daring Fireball, discussing “Walter Isaacson’s flawed Jobs biography.”
Jobs “had profoundly exquisite taste but was not a designer,” Gruber writes. “What it was that Jobs actually did is much of the mystery of his life and his work, and Isaacson, frustratingly, had seemingly little interest in that, or any recognition that there even was any sort of mystery as to just what Jobs’s gifts really were.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Malcolm Gladwell gets Steve Jobs wrong – November 14, 2011
Open thread: What did you think of Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography? – November 10, 2011
Gruber is full of shit, as usual.
I dunno. I think he has a point here. The biography was kinda tame
So says x … remind me x, how many people tune into your blog or podcast to hear your astute and erudite thoughts?
x as used to indicate a mistake or incorrect answer ✔
This seems to hit the nail on the head. I too greatly admire Steve Jobs and have supported Apple with loyalty since 1985 and own 3050 shares BUT I never saw Steve Jobs as an engineer or designer. I believe his gifts were the ability to sell people on an idea, to ask for and get the best from employees, to continually strive for excellence and to link the technical world with the artistic, visual, aesthetic and virtuous worlds. The biography missed that entirely in my opinion.
I don’t know…the biography makes those points repeatedly. He even makes a point to say that after each description of Jobs’ tantrums; that he saw potential in certain aspects of tech (think PARC meeting) and made others believe it could and SHOULD be done.
MacGruber should blow himself up, again… Just had to say that.
Spare us your facile knee jerk stupidity. Gruber’s criticisms are entirely valid, and he uses the fact that Gladwell comes to erroneous conclusion about Jobs as a direct result of Issacson’s flawed bio as clear evidence the Jobs bio is not a complete work.
Completely full of shit.
Hey guys! I have a wacky, crazy idea! Instead of basing our criticisms on the short summary here, why click though and actually read the f***ing article?! So we’ll have some idea of what the f*** we’re talking about when we criticize! Is that doable, or is it too “out there” for today’s busy internet consumer?
FFS, the Gruber article isn’t a put down of Jobs at all, not in the slightest. Gruber opinion is that Issacson, and the book review he’s quoting, are not making an attempt to understand Jobs.
This knee-jerk bile-spitting at anyone perceived to have leveled the slightest criticism of Apple or Jobs just reinforces the “Apple fanboy” stereotype we all hate so much.
——RM
Very good idea!
A lot of people misunderstood the way Jobs was. They even talk about RDF and other things to explain to themselves the things Jobs imagine and deliver. But I think that is because they didn’t see the whole picture Jobs had. iPod was just a piece of a profound objective: to change the music industry as a whole not just the way we listen to music (that is the objective of the iPod, at least in part). But all we can see, we see from our small slot of existence.
Shit happens®
…more than I like it to happen.
Gruber made a great point in his podcast: if Steve Jobs got a technical person to do the bok, they’d ask lots of technical questions, and might publish some company secrets, which would hurt Apple in the market. Moreover, the book was mainly writter for Steve’s close family, hence, a book about Steve the man, not Steve the CEO. The last thing his kids want to read is a book about his boardroom dealings etc.
Lots of people “invent things”.
Steve jobs had an uncanny ability to see where the typical person would want to be in electronic device capability and usability 10, 20 and 30 years down. Many have done this too.
Then Steve did what is different. Steve started down the 3 decade track by start to fill up the train’s boxcars with the core items needed to make the multi-decade vision happen…
Mice, Easy User Interface, Typography
High speed data ports & networking.
Modular software system for programming on UNIX.
Steve Jobs executed.
For fans of Steve Jobs, the book really provided very little insight into the man. For those that have seen PiratesOSV and read the un-official biographies, there was really nothing new.
But, maybe that’s OK. I read the book over a couple of weeks on my iPad and felt it was my last opportunity to greave over the loss of the Thomas Edison of my generation. The last few pages of the book when Steve resigned and was dealing with his illness where difficult to read and choked me up a bit.
Walter wrote an opinionated book which reflects his viewpoint but consistently reflected a negative view of Jobs. I think it was slanted by the interviews of any ex employee would obviously be negative. read with a grain of truth but realize Jobs was much more than walter’s limited perception.
And Walter was NOT strict about his fact-finding. I find some of his blunders quite annoying.
“Steve Jobs really did re-imagine the world. The thing is, he actually made it happen, too.”
Limited minds will forever be attempting to shove Steve Jobs into a box. Not gonna happen. He was a genius who put his hands into everything that caught his interest, then he IMPROVED IT. No one else in our era has done that so thoroughly or successfully.
And kids, like it or not, improvement is the bread and butter of ‘invention’. The past and present are the foundation of the future. You can’t escape perspective.
Don’t forget, the book was a tome for Jobs children more than anything. A very private and eccentric man let someone into his life to share his life with his children.
Gruber has many good point about this – as does John Siracusa. Jobs picked the wrong guy to write the book – But he wanted the guy who wrote the biography of Einstein – so that’s what he got.
+1
Zen and the art of Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs ad the art of Zen
Steve Jobs – A True Zen Master.
Thomas Edison had many “inventors” working for him for many years doing much of the actual work. One in particular was Tesla one the greatest inventors in history. Does that mean Edison was not an inventor, engineer or visionary? Of course not.
Jobs was in today’s times no different than Edison or Ford was in their era. Ask yourself this, how much coding has Bill Gates done in the past 30 years? Answer not a whole lot since the earliest days of Microsoft around the same time The Steves were building circuit boards in a garage!
There is NO DOUBT that Jobs changed the world in many ways and was one of the greatest innovators of our lifetimes. Even if you never bought an Apple product you benefited from his genius.
“Even if you never bought an Apple product you benefited from his genius.”
An excellent comment Stephen. Steve Jobs changed and improved the world. Unlike Edison, he wasn’t driven to take all the credit and money. He was a collaborative leader, the best kind IMHO.
Edison’s products tended to be rather lacklustre or behind-the-curve, rather than ahead of it. Other people made light-bulbs, and generators and phonographs as good as his. His company was late in changing from cylinders to discs, and VERY late adopting electric recording and “lateral” recording grooves, as opposed to vertical. He refused to have jazz on his records for a long time. That’s why his belated attempt to catch-up – Edison lateral discs – are so exceedingly rare.. He was no visionary, although he often bullied other pioneers out of the way and claimed the discovery! Steve Jobs could look into the future, and was far brighter.
Edison once electrocuted an Elephant to prove a point.
Just finished the Isaacson book last night. What a horrible book. The author did not understand Jobs at all. There is not description of the genius, the love, the passion, the purity, the quest the Steve made of his life. What is there is a cataloging of a person seen as having a Narcissistic Personality Disorder and not much more.
Everyone has many facets to them. There is only one dark vision of Jobs in this book.
Isaacson really seemed to relate to Bill Gates though.
Someone needs to rewrite the book so the reader can understand events from Steve’s perspective and to convey an understand of the just unbelievable progress he was able to make in building technology for mankind. Apple kept bringing amazing new products and the rest could not even copy it very well. Why is that?
+100
Agreed, a sad and superficial effort by Isaacson. But, judging by the fifth grade reading level, perhaps all he was capable of, Here’s hoping that someday an author with more intelligence, empathy and insight will take on the challenge of authoring the definitive bio.
There’ll be plenty of more books about Jobs once this Isaacson biography has its run. This book is alright but I’m sure there’ll be better ones delving into things not covered in this book.
Of course, Jobs was engineer, and he was designer.
SJ understood technology, had an eye for and understood design esthetics, and understood the need for a simplified human interface and how to accomplish it. Lastly he knew how (had the wisdom to) to marry these 3 aspects into one. This is why he is called a true “Visionary Genius!” This does not fit into any one category but stands alone on its own above the shoulders of all. Name an inventor, designer, or engineer -and there will be very very few who accomplished what SJ did so eloquently in marrying different facets into one.
I thought the book was great.
Sure it had some dark parts in regards to jobs but most geniuses have a dark side.
Stuff about apple is cool but i can find that all over this book got into steve’s life and I liked that.
I’m not at all surprised that you would like the book. Having read quite a few of your comments here, I have a strong impression that you knew and understood very little of Steve Jobs and his work. This book really was written by and for people like you.
Ive been more about technology than any one person over the years.
I agree the book was written for people who did not already know much about Steve, i only took the time to learn anything about him in the last couple of years.
The bio is possibly the most ive read about any one person.
The biography was a great, well-written perspective on the life of Steve Jobs. But Steve was way too complex for one book or one man’s perspective. That is why none of the seeming endless yet not nearly enough articles, interviews, stories told after Steve’s death were redundant- there is still so much that hasn’t been revealed. Trying to analyze genius is like trying to analyze sex or music- even the geniuses can’t do it. “We just want to make great products.” Right…
I found the biography pretty straightforward with not a lot of surprises. So I would agree it’s tame. But I also think the author captured the guts of what Steve Jobs did. Remember too that it’s a biography–it’s about the man Steve Jobs, and not necessarily just about his work.
Did he actually READ the book?
You’re kidding, right? Both Gladwell and Gruber read the book, and you’d know that had you read either article.
Responding to quotes in a headline of an article will always end badly for you.
I love all these people of limited ability writing about what Steve Jobs was or wasn’t.
How the F*** would any of you know?
I have said it before that I didn’t like Walter Isaacson’s work. I think he did very poor job, squandered a golden and one-time opportunity to write an authorised biography of a man who is no longer around to correct his mistake in trusting the wrong guy anew.
All Mr. Isaacson did was read up a few existing books on Mr. Jobs and Apple, matter of fact you can even see the points he just lifted/followed through from Mr. Jobs’ Stanford speech in the book and simply offered an elaboration (as opposed to coming up with a unique and maybe non linear structure for a bio like Ali’s or Pushkin’s biographers did decades earlier). Isaacson had admittedly listened in but had mostly discarded Mr. Jobs’ opinions of himself, never probed Mr. Jobs for any insights on his work and innate philosophy, was embarrassingly lazy with his research and had mostly phoned in the book allowing embarrassing number of factual errors, had shown no signs of empathy towards his subject, yet that didn’t deter him from making uninformed opinions throughout the book (matter of fact Isaacson comes across too eager to tarnish/peg down the character just to come across as unbiased and even handed, squaring down the round pegs to fit the square holes), and finally the book showed supreme ignorance and apathy towards Steve’s work (which I feel contains his real bio), so much so that this book has lost much of whatever credibility it had left to many of us long time Jobs admirers.
I applaud Mr. Gruber for calling it out like this. He is a recognised and better informed fan of many things Apple, Steve Jobs and their workings; and understandably so his opinions carry a lot of weight to many people. Thank you, Mr. Gruber for keeping it honest. I feel Steve would have appreciated your calling out this gross disservice to his trust. You didn’t let him down.
Those “writers” are so jalouse.. To not, by Jobs himself, have been invited to write Steve’s life story.
I read the article, John Gruber was right. Anyone who doesn’t see that has his or her head too far up their ass.
The Life of Steve Jobs needs a 5 episode Ken Burns documentary narrated by Jony Ive.
‘Nuff said!
Jobs was like a Creative Director. May not do the nuts and bolts work but was the orchestrator of talent that created the synergy of the final product. Creative Directors conceive of and masterfully see the product or idea thru to completion. Art, talent, technical prowess are all part of it. Steve should get credit where credit’s due!