Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

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⭐ 5/5 Book Review: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

👉 Grab your copy of Steve Jobs here: Amazon Affiliate Link

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🚨 Trigger Warnings

• Drug use (LSD, psychedelics)

• Verbal abuse / toxic workplace behavior

• Abandonment of child (denial of paternity)

• Cancer and death

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📖 Spoiler-Free Thoughts (Before We Dive In)

If you like biographies, pick this one up now. It doesn’t get better than this.

This book is LONG, but never boring. Isaacson had over 40 interviews with Jobs, plus countless others with family, friends, rivals, and colleagues. The result? A book that’s not just about Apple’s shiny products but about Jobs as a deeply complicated human being.

And let me tell you — Steve Jobs wasn’t a great guy. Brilliant? Yes. Relentless? Definitely. But kind? Compassionate? Not so much. He wasn’t Einstein-level brainy like Bill Gates or Woz. What he had was an iron will, insane attention to design, and a refusal to take “no” for an answer. That’s what made Apple, well… Apple. 🍏

5/5 ⭐ from me. I’ve already recommended this one to friends, and now I’m recommending it to you too.

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⚠️ Spoiler Warning: Full Plot Summary Ahead ⚠️

👶 Early Life & Adoption

Steve Jobs was born in 1955 to Joanne Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali, two grad students who weren’t ready to raise him. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, who promised to give him a good education. His dad, Paul, was a machinist and Coast Guard vet who taught Steve about craftsmanship and precision — things that later shaped Apple’s obsession with design.

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🎓 College, LSD, and Atari

Jobs dropped out of Reed College after a year, but he hung around campus soaking in calligraphy classes and spiritual exploration. He experimented with vegetarianism, fasting, and LSD. He also landed a job at Atari after barging in and demanding to be hired. (Classic Jobs move.) His hygiene and arrogance quickly got him the night shift because no one wanted to work with him.

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👬 Jobs + Wozniak = Apple

Jobs met Steve Wozniak (“Woz”), a gentle genius with real engineering chops. Woz built computers; Jobs saw the business potential. Together, they founded Apple in Jobs’s garage in 1976. Apple II was a massive hit, but by the time the Macintosh launched in 1984, Jobs had alienated nearly everyone around him with his impossible standards and tantrums.

The Mac was revolutionary but expensive, and Apple tanked in sales. Jobs got pushed out of his own company in 1985.

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🚀 NeXT, Pixar, and the Comeback

After Apple, Jobs founded NeXT (a sleek but overpriced computer company) and bought Pixar from George Lucas. NeXT flopped, but Pixar? 💥 BOOM. Toy Story changed everything, and Pixar became a juggernaut.

Meanwhile, Apple started struggling without Jobs. In 1997, Apple bought NeXT — which meant Steve Jobs was BACK at Apple. He slashed products, refocused on design, and launched the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. The rest is history.

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👨‍👩‍👧 Personal Life

Jobs wasn’t exactly a model family man. He denied paternity of his daughter Lisa for years until a DNA test proved otherwise. He was often cruel to employees and friends, swinging between charm and cruelty. Later, he married Laurene Powell, and they had three more kids.

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⚰️ Illness & Death

Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003. True to form, he initially tried to treat it with diet instead of surgery. Eventually, he underwent surgery, but the cancer returned. He resigned from Apple in August 2011 and died in October 2011 at just 56 years old.

Isaacson doesn’t shy away from showing Jobs at his worst: manipulative, mercurial, and often mean. But he also shows Jobs’s genius — the way he fused technology with art to create products that literally changed the world.

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💭 My Final Thoughts

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson is everything you want in a biography: meticulously researched, fast-paced, and brutally honest. Jobs wasn’t easy to like, but this book makes you understand him.

It’s not just about tech history — it’s about creativity, obsession, and how flawed humans can still change the world.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5/5) — HIGHLY recommend.

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📚 If You Liked Steve Jobs, Try These:

• Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson (2023 — similar style, equally messy genius)

• Shoe Dog by Phil Knight (Nike founder’s memoir, very entertaining)

• The Innovators by Walter Isaacson (deep dive into the pioneers of computers + internet)

• Becoming Steve Jobs by Brent Schlender & Rick Tetzeli (a more sympathetic portrait)