The Book
The book is told by Jeffrey Young and William Simon with comments from the various characters who interacted with Steve during his career. The book begins at his humble beginnings, where the would be superstar was showing some serious attitude issues.
Then the book moves onto the setting up of Apple at the age of 21. The book is full of insider information on the Apple series, the Macintosh series and the more interesting and destructive series of internal ego wars between Steve Jobs and almost everyone else at Apple.
Apple soon became the cynosure of lot of techno-freaks, but its internal squabbling was allowing others to sneak up on it, amongst them was a small company providing software by the name of Microsoft. The latter success of Microsoft and the failure of Apple due to its internal politics was to result in a lifelong public enimity between Steve and Bill, the two men who have shaped the Information Age more than anybody else.
The book moves
forward to the firing of Steve and his next venture known as NeXT as also his relationship with Pixar and Disney. After a look at this low phase in Steve's
life, the book zooms forward to the
second coming.
Back at Apple and also at the head of Pixar with a bagful of goodies to deliver to his techno-phreaks, a slightly more refined Steve makes the
biggest comebacks of them all. With a
industry defining product like iPod and graphics from Pixar, Jobs moves both these companies into the top five brands within 5 years in charge. The book ends with a look forward as Steve Jobs takes on his last major hurdle and till date the biggest, Bill Gates.
Critic's Viewpoint During my college days, when I was doing my MCA, the Apple-MS wars was one of our favorite discussion topics. Even in India, so away from the scene of actual action, we could see the battle-lines drawn. The common conclusion at those discussions used to be that Steve Jobs was an engineer at heart and comes with great products while Bill Gates is a better marketer and hence gets more success. The book shows the conclusion to be absolutely wrong!!
According to the book, from the beginning, Steve Jobs, biggest strength has been his marketing and his vision of how the future is going to shape and not his engineering skills. None of the successful products that came out of the Apple stable were really his, as Steve Woz was the brain behind the engineering feats. The only part where in Jobs contributed was bring Woz to the table and driving him crazy with what he wanted and selling the idea to Venture Capitalists.
The rough time for Apple came when Jobs decided that he wanted to be the brain behind the products and shape it himself leading to resounding failures with later Apple projects as well as projects at NeXT. It was only when again Jobs stepped back a bit to allow others take charge both at Pixar as well as on his return to Apple, did things turn around for him. He started to see his strengths better. Perhaps the one product that he can truly claim as his own is iPod. But, even so in a short span of around 30 years he has left his mark on three industries, the computer industry, the music industry and the motion picture industry which is quite an achievement.
According to the authors, Steve's dealings with close associates was really the root cause of his problems. Unlike Gates who allowed others around him to become millionaires and billionaires, Steve wanted all the glory and money for himself. He did not wait a second to even shunt out his loyal friends like Woz etc. who stood by him and gave him their sweat and toil. His egomaniacal way of dealing with people was highlighted by his firing of Alvy Ray Smith (one of the co-founders of Pixar), just because he used Steve's Whiteboard to write something. Of course, the authors also hinted that with age, he has sobered a bit, but not by much.
At the end of it all, it seems to me as a reader that yes Steve Jobs is the evil genius,has what it takes to shape the future, but then he is not the person I would go to work for anything!! So rather than a tribute to Steve Jobs, the book turns out to be more of a critique on Steve Jobs.
The writing style of Jeffrey Young and William Simon is pretty unique. They have presented this whole content like a fast paced slick novel, feeling free to discuss the state of other companies, other people's life in between to add to the entertainment value of the book. At times it looks a bit contrived, but then you never get the feeling that you are reading a biography of a person all through and feel that it is more a fast paced John Grisham or Dan Brown novel.
Now, whatever the authenticity of everything that is said in the book, we do get a sneek-peek into the life of Steve Jobs and it is done in an ever so readable form.
More reviews about the Icon: Steve Jobs, The Greatest Second Act In The History Of Business