"Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different"

Over the summer, I read a biography of Steve Jobs called Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different by Karen Blumenthal. It was a really well written book that captured who Steve Jobs was very well, without showing to much of her personal bias on his work, philosophies, and personality.

Reading the story of Steve Jobs was inspiring. He had a dream, and not much else when he was younger, and he pursued his dream until he got it. He kept trying, and pushing towards his dream, and finally it came true, in even bigger and better ways than he had ever imagined. Even though it sounds sappy, it's true. In fact, this was one of the only realistic/non-fiction story I have ever read that had that message. I love his story because it seems real. He was just a normal guy. He had flaws, strengths, weaknesses, and emotions just like everyone else. He got frustrated with his job, he sometimes wanted to give up, but he kept going. Before I read his biography, I thought of Steve Jobs as an icon, a billionaire, a genius, and not even quite human. But now, he didn't seem to have lead such a different life from an average person.

I thought that the author displayed perfectly in her book, and didn't try to make him seem like a perfect hero who always had it easy. She wrote about his friend, Steve Wozniak, or Woz, who played a big part in creating many of Apple's products. She wrote about times when Steve Jobs had social issues in school as a child, how he didn't have much money, and how he dropped put of college. In the beginning, the Apple Company did not do well. They didn't have very much money and many of their products didn't work correctly. He got into many arguments with co-workers, employees, and even friends and family. He would yell, and scream and cry until things went his way. But still, he never gave up, even after he was fired from his own company. (He came back because Apple was suffering without his great ideas, and asked him to help them.) Steve Jobs was far from perfect, but that didn't stop him from succeeding. In fact, right now I am writing this blog post on a MacBook Pro!

The book was broken up into three parts and written in timeline form, in the sense that each chapter was in chronological order about Steve Jobs' life.  I think that it covered all of the significant parts of his life, including a lot of detail including descriptions and quotes. Within each chapter was an anecdote on the topic of the chapter. The anecdotes made the book more narrative and smoothly connected it to the facts and summary.

Based on what I have read, I believe that Steve Jobs could be a jerk, but he meant well. He had flaws, and good qualities. Both helped him succeed and do well as a business person and as friend. The author's purpose was to give the reader the real, inside story of Steve Jobs, and give us information that could help us understand him and his product ideas better.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in technology, engineering, Apple company, or (obviously) Steve Jobs. It is interesting to read about both his genius and his flaws.