From the Publisher
FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING BIOGRAPHIES OF BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN AND ALBERT EINSTEIN, THIS IS THE EXCLUSIVE BIOGRAPHY OF
STEVE JOBS.
Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two
years-as well as interviews with more than a hundred family
members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues-Walter
Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life
and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose
passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six
industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones,
tablet computing, and digital publishing.
At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative
edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build
digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of
inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to
create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity
with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination
were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.
Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control
over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was
published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he
knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes
brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed
against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an
unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions,
artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his
approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.
Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and
despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just
as Apple's hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an
integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled
with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and
values.
About the Author
Walter Isaacson was born on May 20 1952 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
After graduating from New Orleans' Isidore Newman School and a
summer at Deep Springs College as a participant in the Telluride
Association Summer Program (TASP), Isaacson attended Harvard
College and earned a B. A. in history and literature. While at
Harvard, Isaacson was a member of the Harvard Lampoon. He then
attended the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar at
Pembroke College and read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.
Walter Isaacson began his career in journalism at The Sunday Times
of London and then the New Orleans Times-Picayune/States-Item. He
joined TIME in 1978 and served as a political correspondent,
national editor, and editor of new media before becoming the
magazine's fourteenth editor in 1996. He became Chairman and CEO of
CNN in 2001, and then president and CEO of the Aspen Institute in
2003. He is the author of American Sketches , Einstein: His Life
and Universe , Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and Kissinger: A
Biography , and he is the co-author, with Evan Thomas, of The Wise
Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. On October 24, 2011,
Isaacson's authorized biography of Apple Computer co-founder Steve
Jobs was published by Simon & Schuster. Because of Jobs' death
just weeks earlier (on October 5, 2011), Steve Jobs became an
instant international best-seller, breaking all records for sales
of a biography. The book was based on over forty interviews with
Jobs over two years right up until shortly before his death.
Isaacson also drew on conversations with friends, family members,
and even business rivals of the entrepreneur whose vision
revolutionized computing, music, phones, animated films, and even
publishing. This title Steve Jobs made Publisher's Weekly Best
Seller List for 2011.
About the Book
From bestselling author Walter Isaacson comes the landmark
biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. In "iSteve: The Book of
Jobs," Isaacson provides an extraordinary account of Jobs'
professional and personal life. Drawn from three years of exclusive
and unprecedented interviews Isaacson has conducted with Jobs as
well as extensive interviews with Jobs' family members, key
colleagues from Apple and its competitors, "iSteve" is the
definitive portrait of the greatest innovator of his generation.
