I think as far as a biography goes, it's a
masterpiece.
It's quite a fascinating life that Steve Jobs
packed into his 58 years.
Steve Jobs was a perfectionist and he was
a visionary but he was not in the game to
win popularity contests.
STEVEN JOHNSON: I remember thinking the day
that Jobs' died, it was like well thank God
we have this book coming out.
And I'll be able to just go and kind of immerse
myself in the story of his life and that'll...that'll
be this weird way of kind of saying goodbye
to him.
GUY WINCH: When somebody is such a phenomenon,
when somebody has such an impact on the world,
you're really interested in well how did that
come to be?
It's like an origin story in a comic book.
JENNIFER STOCKMAN: I learned a lot about him
that I don't think was ever known before.
I think a lot of people were really surprised
by Isaacson's book.
LEANDER KAHNEY: The book for me was definitely
a lesson of the price you have to pay to have..to
have a life that's this impactful.
STEVE KROFT: It's a warts and all sort of
profile.
He was a real individualist who lived his
life a certain way and um...a lot of people
didn't like him.
A lot of people didn't like him.
DOUG MENUEZ: Steve had that kind of street
hustler's ability to read someone's vulnerabilties
like that [FINGER SNAP].
He could look at you and know what you were
afraid of which is why I was personally terrified
of Steve.
WALTER ISAACSON: Steve called me in 2004 and
I'd done a biography of Ben Franklin and was
about to publish one on Einstein and he said,
"Why not do me next?"
I didn't realize he was sick and I didn't
really turn him down I just said, "Yeah, let's
do it.
But let's wait 20 or 30 years till you retire."
And then his wife said to me and other people
said to me, "Hey if you're going to do Steve,
you gotta do him now."
STEVE KROFT: I hadn't done a lot of reading
about Steve Jobs.
I knew he was the guy behind Apple.
I really didn't know much about his story
at all.
So I found the book really engrossing.
DOUG MENUEZ: I spent 4 years documenting Steve
originally for life magazine.
So the book for me was a way to reexamine
my own relationship with Steve and what happened
back then.
LEANDER KAHNEY: The material is beautifully
laid out and very well written.
Isaacson's a great writer.
STEVEN JOHNSON: It's not a book that has a
grand theory about Jobs.
It really just focuses on the incredibly interesting
details on his life.
GUY WINCH: It's extremely surprising that
this book was written cause Jobs was a control
freak and wants everything to go through him.
And then, suddenly, he's allowing Isaacson
this incredible access to everyone around
him.
WALTER ISAACSON:Steve said he wanted an honest
book.
He said, "I've always been honest to people.
When they do things bad I tell them it's bad.
I want you to write an honest book."
STEVE KROFT: If I had to take a guess, I don't
think there was any question Walter forgot
to ask him and this dialogue continued up
until the time that Steve was too sick to
talk.
So, it was all there."
JENNIFER STOCKMAN: I started my career at
IBM in 1976 and Steve Jobs started in the
garage in 1976.
At IBM we were very fascinated by what he
was doing and kind of put our nose, you know,
up.
We thought he's some hippie working in the
garage and IBM really has nothing to worry
about.
STEVEN JOHNSON: Before Apple came along the
computer was just this big monolithic mainframe
inhuman kind of machine and everything that
Apple did or all they're great successes have
this incredibly human playful kind of quality.
DOUG MENUEZ: Steve's all about this sort of
Zen approach to simplicity and winnowing away
what doesn't work to get to the beauty and
the perfection.
JENNIFER STOCKMAN: I mean he really had a
vision of the way technology should look.
You know, he just made a really sexy box.
STEVEN JOHNSON: He was a strange dude and
he did not lead a conventional life.
JENNIFER STOCKMAN: Sometimes genius has to
come from some distortion of how you see the
world.
I mean he did create his own reality.
DOUG MENUEZ: For Steve to be a taste maker,
I think he had to be incredibly opinionated
and judgemental and he gave his own inner
opinions and judgments a higher weight.
[Laughs]
WALTER ISAACSON: I very rarely saw the angry
side of him, but once when he saw the proposed
cover for the book I got off the plane and
there were like 7 missed phone calls from
Steve Jobs.
You know, he started yelling at me about how
ugly the cover was and he said, "I'm only
gonna keep cooperating if you let me have
some say over the cover."
STEVEN JOHNSON: Jobs is someone I've kind
of always admired so I was kind of inclined
to see all these good things but man, you
read some of these stories and he just was..you
know he's...he was just kind of crazier than
I had really grasped until I read the book.
LEANDER KAHNEY: I found that really hard to
read about.
It was a catalogue of bad behavior really.
You know, yelled at this person, screamed
at that person, throw a tantrum about this,
throw a tantrum about that.
JENNIFER STOCKMAN: He was tone deaf in so
many ways.
It's like he wouldn't let any sleeping dog
lie.
GUY WINCH: When he came down with pancreatic
cancer, it was the same blind spot operating.
"I think I know what's best and noone will
convice me otherwise."
JENNIFER STOCKMAN: He had his own ideas about
everything.
You know possibly he could have lived longer
too if he went to a more conventional treatment
instead of trying to think he knew a better
way to cure himself.
WALTER ISAACSON: I think he probably regretted
that but who knows whether the cancer would
or would not have spread if he had operated
on a few months earlier.
DOUG MENUEZ: Walter's real question is, "Can
you really succeed on the highest level and
still be a nice guy?"
LEANDER KAHNEY: Did his accomplishments require
him to be a jerk?
Um..this is sort of the 64 million dollar
question.
I don't think there's any easy answer to that.
JENNIFER STOCKMAN: He just pushed and pushed
and pushed for perfection and without that
personality trait I'm not so sure he would
have gotten the results.
WALTER ISAACSON: I talked to Steve Wozniak
who said, "You know, if I had run Apple, I
would have wanted it to be run more like a
family.
We were nicer to everybody.
But then Woz paused and he said, "But if I
had run Apple we wouldn't have made the Macintosh."
STEVE KROFT: There're no shortage of people
in all walks of life who were very successful
who are very demanding and have a lot of rough
edges to them.
I think that um..there're other people who
manage to do it without those rough edges.
STEVEN JOHNSON: I'm not sure it's necessary.
It seems pretty clear that he became less
of a tyrant as he got older and he became
far more successful as he got older.
WALTER ISAACSON: We all know thousands of
jerks but most of them aren't geniuses so
I wanted to make sure that it wasn't just
a story about a guy who was intense, but here's
how he channelled the intensity to be so ingenious
in what he invented.
JENNIFER STOCKMAN: I think he leaves a legacy
in many areas.
The idea that Steve Jobs bridged art and technology
has made him an artist.
WALTER ISAACSON: I think Steve's like Edison,
or Walt Disney.
People who were great at being inventive,
but also applying that inventiveness to real
products.
STEVE KROFT: Probably he'll be remembered
more like Henry Ford.
Someone who brought existing technology to
a new level.
DOUG MENUEZ: Steve was all about making the
thing better.
I mean how much did your phone suck before
the iPhone?
GUY WINCH: He's literally taken us into the
future in quantum leaps in ways that allowed
us to really have the kind of life that we
would have a hard time imagining 20-30 years
ago.
LEANDER KAHNEY: Even though his accomplishments
were extraordinary, the price he paid I think
is beyond the pale.
JENNIFER STOCKMAN: He's so complicated and
so layered that I think the legacy is only
beginning to unfold.
