Summary

Walter Isaacson enters into the mind of Steve Jobs, presenting a self-titled biography based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs and interviews with over 100 of his acquaintances. Jobs waived his rights to have any impact on the book other than the cover and Isaacson strove to draw a balanced view of him that didn’t sugarcoat his flaws. Jobs lived a fascinatingly unconventional life with interesting twists and turns throughout.

Key Takeaways

• “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”
• “Customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them”
• “It’s better to be a pirate than join the navy”
• “Material possessions more often clutter life than enhance it”
• “Dropping acid was one of the 2 or 3 most important things I’ve done in my life”

Notes

Pre-Apple (Chapters 1-4)

• Adopted, parents didn’t finish HS
• Bored, skipped a grade (considered 2)
• Marijuana and LSD since 15 years old
• Vegetarian, Buddhist, spiritual, acid, rock
• Because vegan, no showers or deodorant
• Woz and Jobs met pre college, blue boxes
• Chose expensive Reed College, hippy place
• Traveled to India to find himself
• “Don’t use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition instead”
  • Far more developed than elsewhere
• Zen and meditation
• Reality distortion field

Early Apple (Chapters 5-8)

• Hippy counterculture embraced new forms of expression through personal computers
  _
• Home brew club: group of early leaders in personal computer experimentation
• Jobs was marketer and spokesperson, Woz was hardware and brains
• Apple’s founding marketing philosophy (Mike Markkula):
  • Empathy: customer understanding
  • Focus: Eliminate unimportant opps.
  • Impute: Present a well-polished product. “Understand that people do judge a book by its cover.” “A company must convey its values and importance in everything it does from packaging to marketing.”
• Had child at 23, refused to claim doing
• After ↑ resolved, matured in some respects
• Less drugs, vegan, zen retreats
• Stylish haircuts, nice shirts + suits
• “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”
• “People who are serious about software should make their own hardware”
• Xerox: invested in Apple in exchange for Crown Jewels: computer networking, OOP via smalltalk, and bitmapped GUI screen

Post-IPO (Chapters 9-13)

• Net worth at 25: $250m+
• Bitter, always acted in own self-interest
• Not materialistic, eye for craftsmanship, only what he was passionate about
• Raskin: Mac name, mass-market computer
• Low-pass filter: when working with Jobs, reduce amplitude of high frequency signals, less jittery moving avg of revolving attitude
• Strong, calm, confident earned respect
• “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”
• Intuitively obvious
• Rounded shapes were hard, but Jobs insisted on rounded rectangles
• Viewed competitors as evil enemies
• Would pit internal teams against each other
• Strong belief in tight vertical integration
• “The customer is not always right”
• “Customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them”
• “It’s better to be a pirate than join the navy”
• Obnoxious, brash behavior

Sculley, Oust (Chapter 14-17)

• Intolerant to ppl who can’t meet demands
• First person he respected, could teach him
• Best friends, Sculley infatuated while Jobs sensed differences but played along
• Mac price disagreement, marketing budget
• 1984 ad Jobs’ idea, aired on super bowl
• Unveiling was ballsy, but massive success
• 1982: Microsoft developed apps for Mac
• Gates signed non-compete but Mac delay meant Microsoft could announce its own GUI OS in ‘83
• Mac factory painted in white: “ensure a passion for perfection”
• Apple 2 still outperforming Mac
• Woz left, started own company using Frog Design, disputed by Jobs
• ↑ Apple’s direction tremendously wrong
• Jobs bogged down in details, Sculley had no interest in product development / details
• Spring ‘85: came to a head, Sculley asked Jobs to step down as head of Mac since sales weren’t doing well, very abrasive
• Sculley got wind of Jobs’ plan for coup, confronted at board meeting
• “It’s me or him”, everyone voted for Sculley
• Day after: Jobs one last unsuccessful plea

NeXT, Pixar (Chapter 18-23)

• NeXT: new company to build powerful and personal workstation (for R&D, higher ed)
• Left chairman role, took 5 Apple employees
• Hard break, sued by Apple
• Settled non-financially with lots of clauses
• Logo done by world class designer, e for education, excellence, e=mc^2
• Short on runway, offered 10% stake for $3m stake to VCs, offered Ross Perot 16% for $20m after he empathized with Jobs, NeXT
• Carried perfectionist mentality to NeXT
• Perot embellished and sold Jobs’ story
• Gates refused to develop software for NeXT
• NeXTSTEP license talks with IBM, Dell etc.
• Elaborate, exciting unveiling (3 hours)
• Delicately skirted high price, late release
• Jobs bought Pixar, $10m for 70%
• Pixar: HW+SW, little in-house animation
• Lasseter created short, academy award
• Believed in environment over heredity for life outcome
• Found biological family, sister
• Narcissistic personality disorder?
• Jobs had ability to shift intense, laser focus
• “Material possessions more often clutter life than enhance it”
• Toy Story: collaboration with Disney, lots of input, rekindled Jobs’ Pixar hopes, passion
• Grew brand, equal rights with Disney

Apple Return (Chapters 24-29)

• NeXT → license software / OS, no HW
• Hardware was always Jobs’ passion
• NeXT acquired by Apple for OS, Jobs
• Negotiated way onto board, path to CEO
• During Mac World current CEO gave poor speech, Jobs long welcoming applause
• Offered CEO at Apple, declined at first as Pixar became public
• Mission of reinventing the company
• Brought on new board members
• Announced unlikely partnership, investment from Microsoft
• Think Different campaign: top-5 brand in world, not product-based, customer + team
• “He has the greatest intuition of the impact he wants his brand to have on people”
• CEO of Pixar and Apple 7am - 9pm, attributed to later health problems
• Simplified to one product per grid box: consumer and pro, desktop and portable
• Johnny Ive: equally engrossed in design, marketing etc., Jobs’ closest confidant
• Design drives engineering (norm: opposite)
• iMac: colorful, friendly, daring, expensive
• Tim Cook: Supply chain / ops master
• Jobs had a great eye for talent
• Apple’s hiring process is cross-functional
• OSX intro: Unix / NeXTSTEP (NS) included
• Obsessed with every aspect of brick and mortar store, emphasis on simplicity
• “If something isn’t right, you can’t just ignore it and say you’ll fix it later”

Music and Mobile (Chapters 30-35)

• Early ’00s: computer as hub, software focus
• “Dropping acid was one of the 2 or 3 most important things I’ve done in my life”
• 1.8” HDD allowed iPod to exist
• Everything available in 3 clicks
• White is pure, bold, and conspicuous
• Jobs’ understanding of music / creativity, technology perfect for inception of iTunes
• Jobs’ rule: never be afraid of cannibalizing yourself or someone else will
• iTunes gave 200+ million users + credit cards, foundation for future
• Jobs and Bob Dylan collaboration
• U2, Product RED deals with royalty, etc.
• Jobs embraced face-to-face collaboration, championed open office, central atrium
• “Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings”, unplanned collaborations
• Disney acquired Pixar for $7.4b after gaining leverage, animated movie success
• Lassiter → head of animation at Disney, a reverse acquisition of sorts
• Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, tried natural treatments before removal surgery
• Tim Cook took over operations while on surgery leave (9 months post diagnosis)
• Alex Hailey: “The best way to begin a speech is ‘let me tell you a story…’”
• Memento Mori: “Remembering you are going to die is the best way to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked, there is no reason not to follow your heart.”
• Jobs takes contrary positions to encourage more discussion, may lead to better result

iPhone, iPad, Cancer (Chapters 36-38)

• iPhone conceived to avoid new phones eating into iPod sales
• Multitouch dev for Mac tablet, Mac touchpad, phone more important though
• Obsession with thinner being better
• Jobs insisted on highly restrictive diets (same meal), fasts that were damaging
• Controversy over concealment of Jobs’ health issues, Apple’s public standing
• The Cook Doctrine: future of Apple
• iPad: Lackluster Intel power efficiency, high complexity led to ARM licensing, chip design acquisition, A4 mobile chip debut
• Intel, Jobs had price, design disagreements
• First iPad focused on content consumption, Jobs wanted return to content creation
• iPad with in-house chip shows latest attempt at complete vertical control
• App Store represents return to 80s ISPs of sorts (pre World Wide Web), walled garden: charge fees but with more functions
• Jobs strict with App Store payment, audiobooks, newspaper subscriptions

Bookend (Chapters 39-42)

• Google developed Android despite execs being on Apple board during iPhone dev
• Jobs felt duped, copied many iOS features
• Like Microsoft Windows, Android open to other manufacturers
• Not for money, but to control whole user experience, make great products
• App Store: Jobs wanted to figure out how to draw line without being a censor
• iPhone 4 antenna gate caused by putting design before engineering, secrecy
• Rewrote PR playbook with antenna gate response, well-received even with no recall
• Building yacht was a recognition that Jobs wanted to live longer
• Jobs had vision for desktop → cloud as digital hub for future
• MobileMe was a first failure
• Innovator’s dilemma: Inventors are usually the last ones to see past it
• iCloud will be free, lock in the customer
• The Spaceship HQ was Jobs’ final effort
• Took medical leave in 2011, had a series of visitors: Zuck, Page, Clinton, Gates…
• Intensity, focused
• Mastered the details and big picture
• “Keep moving”

What drove Steve Jobs:

“Most creative people want to express appreciation for being able to take advantage of the work that’s been done by others before us… 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… 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”