Filip Brož “The Steve Jobs book the world needed. Smart, accurate, informative, heart-wrenching, and at times absolutely heartbreaking… Steve Jobs: The Birth of a Visionary will become a vital source of information for many decades to come.” – comment blogger John Gruber accurately describes the latest book about Steve Jobs.
Jobs is said to have created the bicycle of the human mind. It is a computer for ordinary people for everyday use. Thanks to Steve, we can really talk about the computer as a personal device. Many publications have already been written about his life and several films have been made. The question arises as to whether anything else can be said about the life of this genius and undoubtedly interesting person.
Journalist matadors Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli succeeded, however, because they had the opportunity to draw on exclusive and unique access to Steve Jobs. Schlender literally grew up with Jobs for more than a quarter of a century, knew his entire family and had dozens of off-the-record interviews with him. He then summarized his observations in the new book Steve Jobs: The Birth of a Visionary.
This is by no means a dry biography. In many ways, the new book goes beyond the only authorized biography of Jobs written by Walter Isaacson. Unlike the official CV The birth of a visionary focuses more on the second part of Jobs' life.
Thanks to this, we can reveal in detail how Steve worked at Pixar, what was his share in the then famous animated films (Toy Story: The story of toys, The life of a bug and more). It is certain that Steve did not interfere in the creation of films, but he acted as an excellent moderator in burning issues. According to Schlender, the team was always able to point people in the right direction, and thanks to this, incredible projects were created.
"Steve has always cared about Apple the most, but don't forget that he got rich mostly from selling Pixar to Disney," says co-author Rick Tetzeli.
The Pixar studio didn't just help Jobs financially, but he got several imaginary mentors and paternal role models here, thanks to which he was able to finally grow up. When he initially led Apple, many people told him that he behaved like a small child, that he was not ready to lead such a large company. Unfortunately, they were right in many ways, and Jobs himself repeatedly admitted this in later years.
An equally important point was the founding of the computer company NeXT. NeXTStep OS creator Ave Tevanian, later Apple's chief engineer, created the perfect operating system that became the cornerstone for Jobs to return to Apple. It's no secret that computers with the colorful NeXT logo did not do well in the market and were total flops. On the other hand, it's possible that if it weren't for NeXT, OS X on the MacBook would look completely different.
"The book paints his full, most comprehensive portrait - as it corresponds to our present mind and knowledge. Maybe we will learn more about him in the coming years and the world will change his mind. However, Steve was first and foremost a human being and his personality did not have just one side," says Brent Schlender.
Until this time, many people portrayed Steve as a narcissistic and evil person, who is prone to impulsive and aggressive behavior, as for example he largely showed the latest film Steve Jobs. However, the authors of the book also show his kind and empathetic side. His positive relationship with his family, even though he made several missteps, for example with his first daughter Lisa, the family was always in the first place, together with the apple company.
The book also includes a detailed description of how breakthrough products such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad came to light. On the other hand, this is information that has mostly already appeared in some publications. The main contribution of the book remains primarily private conversations, insights into Jobs' life and family, or a very emotional description of the funeral and Steve's last days in this world.
The book by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli reads very well and is rightly called one of the best publications about Steve Jobs, his life and career. Perhaps also because Apple managers themselves collaborated with the authors.
