
Walter Isaacson Goes Inside the Mind of Leonardo Da Vinci - dayve
https://www.thedailybeast.com/walter-isaacson-goes-inside-the-most-creative-mind-in-history-leonardo-da-vinci?curator=MediaREDEF
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nickm12
After Issacson's botched Steve Job's biography, I have a difficult time
trusting him for any historical figure. Issacson had unprecedented access to
Steve Jobs, yet the biography really didn't provide any new insight into what
made him who he was.

~~~
jotjotzzz
It's also possibly partly due to Steve Jobs and his RDF (reality distortion
field). I actually found that biography pretty good. I think he did the best
that he could with it. By presenting all points of view, its really up to you
to decide. I don't think he ever said he is a liar (as someone commented) --
not sure how he could have done that. If you're reading that biography as if
it's the freaking bible of Steve Jobs, then no. But it showed a lot of the
sides of Steve that I did not know before and did not like. I knew he was an
a-hole, but didn't know how low he had gone. I especially found the part about
his first wife and daughter Lisa so very, very sad -- and he made Woz cry.
What a guy.

~~~
astrodust
It's not that he was a liar, it's that he was granted a unique opportunity to
write a book unlike anything anyone else could write and delivered
that...turd.

Sure, deadlines, pressure, but honestly, it was 80% junk that had already been
written in other books or articles, 10% "why are you asking these dumb
questions" and only 10% actual insight.

It was a surprising weak effort is all. People expected something of more
substance.

It's a shame someone like Michael Lewis wasn't at bat for that book. He seems
more able to dig through the layers and find out the actual story. _The New
New Thing_ gets into fantastic detail about Jim Clark even though he's just
one of the people in that book.

~~~
bborud
Ah yes, a book for the plebs. Not for the hardcore stalker who has studied
every shred of information to ever have been published about Jobs.

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astrodust
If you'd simply had a subscription to Byte Magazine and casually read every
third article you'd know at least 50% of what he put in that book.

We're talking about someone who over decades had an outsized impact on Silicon
Valley and computing in general, not some obscure figure that nobody ever
wrote about and you'd have to go out of your way to learn more. If this was
about Gordon Moore or Andy Grove you'd have a point, but it's Steve _fucking_
Jobs. There's maybe ten people from his era that are more instantly
recognizable, and those are people like Oprah Winfrey or Bill Clinton.

Isaacson's book is the Reader's Digest version of a biography. It's the
WikiHow version of what should have been written.

Imagine writing a biography of Elon Musk and introducing, breathlessly, that
he made his first fortune _from PayPal_ as if people didn't know. This is that
book.

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bborud
Many people don’t know. That’s the entire point.

Not everyone is a stalker fanboi who absorbs all trivia over years and needs a
pure diet of only previously untold anecdotes.

~~~
astrodust
It's not that I'm a "stalker fanboi" so much as you've apparently been living
under a rock for the last thirty years if you haven't heard this shit before.
Did you know Bill Gates founded Microsoft? No way! Did you know Steve Wozniak
built the original Apple? Get out! This is not _mind-blowing news_.

It's also irrelevant. This ended up being some bullshit compendium when, given
the unprecedented access, you'd expect better. They could've written this book
based on anecdotes and old press. _That 's the problem._

~~~
bborud
If you made a point of getting to know people outside your sphere, you would
be surprised at how little some people know about these things. That you take
this for granted says more about you than Isaacson’s book on Jobs.

For instance: I don’t follow football. Which means that you can pick any
football celebrity in the world ever and at most — at the very most, I may be
able to connect a name to the face. But I wouldn’t know what they’ve done or
who they’ve played for. In the unlikely event that I would read their
biography, it would be helpful to provide ample context.

Now the thing is that do the comments here help me determine if the book he
wrote on da Vinci is accurate? No. Not really. Not any more than random
newspaper reviewer opining on the quality of the writing.

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ancorevard
He did certainly not. LDV has been asleep for years. He is dead. His remains
are but dust.

Isaacson has more likely been using his great imagination to write an exciting
read. He has performed wonderfully at this in the past with other long-dead
individuals. But in the cases where the person was only recently deceased and
still present in first-hand memories of living individuals, Isaacson has been
found to do a dismal job.

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aaron-lebo
What was wrong with Isaacson's biography of Jobs? I think unless it was
exceptional it was going to make people unhappy, but I don't recall it being
"dismal".

 _Becoming Steve Jobs_ is better, though.

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MBCook
It got basic facts wrong. Lots of them. Things you could easily google or ask
anyone who knew a bit about computers. Gruber wrote some about it on DF:

[https://daringfireball.net/2012/02/walter_isaacson_steve_job...](https://daringfireball.net/2012/02/walter_isaacson_steve_jobs)

I believe there is an entire episode of Connected or ATP about errors in the
book from when it came out.

Sloppy research, unasked questions, not talking to other primary sources. Just
a GIANT missed opportunity/mistake.

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henrikeh
To be very specific episode 42 and 43 of John Siracusa’s Hypercritical are
about the book and Siracusas opinion of it.

Albeit there is a lot of nit picking — especially in the latter episode — his
overall point is that Isaacson’s book did not use the opportunity of having
access to Jobs and the people around him. Specifically he didn’t know the
industry and — apparently from the book — bother to learn about it.

But relating to a bio on da Vinci? He doesn’t have exclusive access so the
argument doesn’t transfer.

Hypercritical: 42: The Wrong Guy
[https://overcast.fm/+IplN7GcE/18:32](https://overcast.fm/+IplN7GcE/18:32)

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MBCook
I loved Hypercritical. It didn’t occur to me that would be the podcast.
Thanks.

The asking the right questions thing doesn’t apply but the quality of research
that he showed in his biography of Jobs makes me doubt the level of
work/research in other biographies he writes.

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SCAQTony
What troubled me about the article is that it implies Leonardo was a peaceful
man yet these are points 4, 5 and 6 in in his resume:

"... 4. Again, I have kinds of mortars; most convenient and easy to carry; and
with these I can fling small stones almost resembling a storm; and with the
smoke of these cause great terror to the enemy, to his great detriment and
confusion.

5\. And if the fight should be at sea I have kinds of many machines most
efficient for offense and defense; and vessels which will resist the attack of
the largest guns and powder and fumes.

6\. I have means by secret and tortuous mines and ways, made without noise, to
reach a designated spot, even if it were needed to pass under a trench or a
river. ..."

[http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/leonardo-da-vincis-
handwr...](http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/leonardo-da-vincis-handwritten-
resume-1482.html)

~~~
d0mine
It is likely he needed money for his projects. War sells.

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MilnerRoute
I remember a fun discussion Isaacson once had about Benjamin Franklin. After
finishing a 608-page biography about Franklin's life, Isaacson was asked
"Would Ben Franklin be a blogger if he were alive today?"

[http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/12/11/what-if-ben-were-
one-...](http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/12/11/what-if-ben-were-one-of-us/)

 _Isaacson, who 'd written a 608-page biography of Franklin, insisted that the
answer was no — "not a blogger." The distinction was that Franklin "polished
every word." But the question was too provocative to leave without more
discussion. Ben Franklin would have a web site, Isaacson speculated. "It would
be carefully crafted. It would be more like Andrew Sullivan than your normal
blogger in pajamas."_

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te_chris
The Observer (Sunday Guardian) gave this a glowing review yesterday. Very
interested in this book.

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jtth
So half of what he says will be completely wrong, possibly intentionally so?

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rothbardrand
What I found really infuriating about his novel about Jobs was he would quote
Jobs saying something true, something that anyone who knows the history or
Apple or technology of the time knows is true, and then refer to unnamed other
sources who claimed that this was a lie, and then assert that it's an example
of Jobs lying.

What a hatchet job.

Worst mistake Jobs ever made was trusting that guy.

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sarcasm_heals
Isaacson recently gave a promotional talk on the KERA Think podcast:
[http://think.kera.org/2017/10/18/the-strange-and-
wonderful-m...](http://think.kera.org/2017/10/18/the-strange-and-wonderful-
mind-of-leonardo-da-vinci/)

