Top 10 of What I Could Learn from Steve Job's Biography: Book Review Part 1 of 3



I am currently reading 3 books at the same time: Googled (The End of the World as We Know It) by Ken Auletta, I Never Thought I'd See the Day by Dr. David Jeremiah (Culture at the Crossroads on Christian perspective) & Steve Jobs Biography by Walter Isaacson (Audio). More than halfway through or 25 Chapters so far, I am learning the life of the iconic Apple co-creator Steve Jobs. I thought I ought to share this because I think we can all pick up something from some people considered to be the Edison or Benjamin Franklin of our time but based on his biography - he seems ordinary, just a little cocky, stinky, Machiavellian and just a good salesman. Here is what I remembered so far:

1. He was an adopted child from an educated Syrian immigrant by a Coast Guard Petty Officer turned carpenter. Although he felt abandoned and was aware that he was adopted at an early age, he felt loved by his adoptive parents from the Bay Area.

2 He learned from his adopted father Paul the attentive craftsmanship that even the most unpractical part of cabinet, that is the back should be made at its best.

3. Steve Jobs have a strong body odor for not taking regular shower that we was often get kicked out from meeting from his early stage. Sometimes in his barefoot and many of his fellow managers thinks he is rude and ruthless some people thinks he is just being upfront.

4. He is a vegan, all the way through and believes that he don't need to take shower as often because he does not eat meat. He consider himself spiritual but turned away from Christianity at an early age of 14 (i think) after showing his pastor a picture of malnourished person claiming how God can do such thing.

5. His sister was a New York author that writes novels based on Jobs and his family. His sister hide the secret from his birth father about their accidental meeting from his fathers Bay Area restaurant. His father know Steve Jobs but never knew he was his son, he just know him as a big tipper. At the end he did not recognized his birth father as his dad.

6. He lives in a humble house with no security until the end of his last moments as influenced by his belief that money or material things are destructive. His motivation was not money but living with a legacy.

7. He was fired from Apple during the invention of Macintosh and was considered a failure by the standard of Windows, Dell Computer, Compaq, HP. 11 years later, his best friend Larry Ellison of Oracle (that Steve Jobs's son considered him as their rich friend) convinced him to return to Apple by buying over 40% of its stock but Steve declined his offer. Based on his strong spiritual Zen or Buddhist belief that he will return to Apple in a clean way.

8. He dropped out of a community college to work at HP and later Xerox and that is where he "stole" some of his ideas with the help of his partner Wozniak.

9. Like one of his insecurities of being abandoned, he also "abandoned" his daughter from wedlock - Lisa that he later on named his next major computer invention before the Macintosh: LISA. They later lived together with his current wife and two other children from his only wife who was a Stanford graduate student he met while Steve was giving a lecture. Steve also had relationship with rock star Joan Baez who was an ex-lover of Bob Dylan- Steve Jobs idol.

10. Bill Gates thinks that Steve Jobs is not technically adept on software & a poor manager in the 80s during the Windows boom and advised the Apple Board not to take him back after he was ousted for over 11 years. Steve on the other hand thinks Bill Gates products was inferior and was "stolen" from him. While Steve was out of Apple he created Pixar (after the movie Toy Story's success which Disney thinks it's their product) which was his actual first big success financially before Apple's biggest success in the late 90s.

So far, this book is highly engrossing and lots of vivid anecdotes and life of an inventor, manager, father, son, husband, enemy, designer, artist and more. I couldn't stop listening to finish the other half of the book. I am still in the part where he returned to Apple after being ousted and he presented himself in the stage at the board and became popular again after being considered ruthless and a bad manager in his early days at Apple - way before the birth of iMac, iPhone & iPad.

I highly recommend the book and will be back to finish the rest with another review and what I actually learned personally and professionally from Walter Isaacson's Biography of Steve Jobs. This book actually inspired me in a lot of ways to enhance my creativity and at the same time be humble in trying to accomplishing our goals - so far.



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