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
It was Steve Jobs who made computing personal. Many can invent – few can apply.
I’m reading Jobs’s biography now, and agree with some of Gruber’s points, but disagree with others.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with Gruber is irrelevant: what is important is that Steve Jobs trusted *anyone* to write his biography. Had he not, this biography would never have been written, nor would any biography dependent on so many primary sources: many people who spoke to Isaacson would have refused to be interviewed, given their loyalty to Jobs and Apple, and what they would have perceived as an invasion into Steve’s private life, and an attempt to capitalize on it. The fact that Jobs encouraged everyone to cooperate with Isaacson allowed for a biography that could never have otherwise been written. No matter who wrote the biography, or what that biographer would have written, there would always be people who felt the book was great, was mediocre, or sucked.
So, be as critical as you want about Isaacson’s book, but be thankful that Steve Jobs held him in high enough esteem–it being a miracle that he trusted anyone that much–to allow him to write it.