Apple Opens Up to Praise New Book on Steve Jobs, and Criticize an Old One

[Auggie]

New York Times / 3-22-15

Steve Jobs prized secrecy from his executives and employees during his tenure at Apple. Now his top lieutenants are speaking out — to help shape the legacy of Steve Jobs.

Through interviews and tweets, Apple brass, including the chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, are throwing their weight behind a new unauthorized biography of the Apple co-founder, “Becoming Steve Jobs,” which goes on sale on Tuesday. In the book, executives take aim at another title, “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson, an authorized biography published shortly after Mr. Jobs’s death in 2011.

Mr. Isaacson’s best seller did a “tremendous disservice” to the Apple chief, Mr. Cook said in the new book, written by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, and excerpted in the April issue of Fast Company. “It didn’t capture the person,” Mr. Cook said. “The person I read about there is somebody I would never have wanted to work with over all this time.”

Jony Ive, Apple’s longtime design chief, added his criticism of Mr. Isaacson’s biography last month in a New Yorker profile. “My regard couldn’t be any lower” for the book, he said, noting that he had read only parts of it.

MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/business/media/apple-opens-up-to-praise-new-book-on-steve-jobs-and-criticize-an-old-one.html?_r=0

I won't have an opinion on this until I read the book. I've read “Steve Jobs,” by Walter Isaacson twice.

[PoliticAverse]

1. I wonder if the new bio covers how Jobs conspired with other CEOs to keep employee wages down.

http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/

[mopinko]

2. isaacson's is the one the movie is based on, no?

the movie was awful. i watched it and had less idea who steve jobs was at the end than i did before i watched it. there was no insight whatsoever into why he did any of the things he did.

being a creative person, tho, i recognized the slurs that tend to get thrown around about people like us. not to say that i am in his league. just to say that people who are driven by ideas are rarely understood by "normal" people.

[Auggie]

3. I can understand the "It didn't capture the person" comment from Tim Cook ...

I think Isaacson's book did a good job of summing up the Jobs legacy, professionally and personally. But it did leave me with some questions about who Jobs really was and, as you say, why he did things the way he did. I don't think that was Isaacson's intention, by the way. I just read that Isaacson welcomed the approach in "Becoming Steve Jobs" and said it was a story that needed to be told.

Totally agree what you say about slurs, etc. Steve Jobs was intimidating and powerful. People scorned, ridiculed or disciplined by him will take revenge.

Don't know about the movie. But once a story gets in the hands of Hollywood it can become something wonderful, predictable, sensational or awful.

[PoliticAverse]

4. If you are referring to the 2013 movie "Jobs" it apparently had nothing to do with Isaacson's book.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_%28film%29