• There wasn’t enough reflection. Most of the book was recapping Jobs’s life. What I wanted was Jobs reflecting on those moments, sharing his thoughts on his actions and why he made the choices he did. There were few parts where readers got that perspective but it was not enough. It’s disappointing too because unlike the biographies of Einstein and Franklin, the source matter was alive.  

• The book should have been called Steve Jobs and Apple. Especially in the second half, the book focuses more on Apple itself then Steve Jobs. Sure the iMac, the iPod and the rest of apple’s product lineup is important but not as important or as interesting as Jobs.  The few chapters before the two final chapters seemed way too contemporary. In six months, no one is really going to care about iCloud or the iPad2. So why dedicate chapters and sections to these products? If I had to read about Apple, I would have rather spent time reading about the creation of OSX.  

• In the end, Jobs was an awful, awful person. Genius is not an excuse for being cruel to friends, coworkers, loved ones, and the lady making your smoothie. Sure, he pushed people to go on to create the Macbook I’m writing this on and the iPhone but at what expense? He said he commissioned the book because he wanted his kids to know who he was. The book wouldn’t have been necessary if he had been a dad. He picked and choose who was worthy of his attention (his son was but his daughters were less so). I am not subscribing to the notion that only Steve Jobs and Apple could have introduced products like the iPhone and the iPad. Jobs created products, not the demand for simple and superior products. And let’s not forget that he just created electronics. Just wires, plastic, and metal. Not really a revolution.  

Someone else would have succeeded if Jobs didn’t. In the end, I viewed Jobs as a very cruel, hateful, awful man, yet he intrigued me. The duality that resided in the man was almost unbelievable. How he could think one thing and turn around and act differently.   Early in the book, Jobs decrees, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Yet, Jobs would go on to resent and hate companies like Google and Microsoft that copied Apple. Had Gates not copied what he saw at Xerox, there might not ever been a Jobs legacy.   It’s sad how much Jobs deprived his family and those close to him. Still, I’m surprised at how often Jobs was at the center of innovation. He didn’t do the innovating, he just knew how to sell other’s ideas. I’d say he got pretty lucky.      

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