
The Jobs book - apress
http://scripting.com/stories/2011/10/27/theJobsBook.html
======
jgrahamc
It's hard for me to know why I should care that Winer doesn't like the book.

It's true that the book is not written by someone with a deep understanding of
technology, but this is mostly a story about Steve Jobs the man, and not
technical detail. What comes through in the book is that Jobs was a very
difficult and troubled person with a tremendous energy to try to do things
'right' (for his definition of right).

I've found it a very enjoyable read. Here you have a book written with the
cooperation of a man who knows he's dying and wants to talk about his story.
It's an interesting book because it's not a hagiography nor is Jobs making
excuses. Early in the book he says straight up that he behaved poorly towards
his parents and Lisa Brennan-Jobs and at the same time can't quite recall
stiffing Woz out of money for the Atari work.

~~~
davewiner
Glad you enjoyed the book.

And of course there's no reason you should care what I think.

Can't think of a single reason. :-)

~~~
Tloewald
I like your suggestions for a more tech savvy bio, but like the grandparent I
think Isaacson has done a pretty good job. I totally agree that so much of the
story has become rehearsed myth that it's kind of annoying to see it
regurgitated here and there although, to give one example, I think Isaacson
does a great job of dealing with the relationship between Woz and jobs when so
many others simply accept Woz's evolving "standard version".

~~~
davewiner
I didn't say you shouldn't read it -- I didn't even say I wouldn't finish it
myself. I just said why it was painful for me to read it. And why the story is
so well-rehearsed, and how the myth has replaced the actual events. So many
people are reading so much more into what I wrote than what I actually wrote
(and think).

~~~
danso
Can you give any concrete example of where Issacson's apparently shoddy
reporting has led to a well-rehearsed myth replaced the actual events?

Instead of complaining about how non-insiders keep trumpeting up "bullshit",
help shed light on the truth.

------
jeswin
There is some truth to what Dave is saying here. I felt the author made an
attempt to romanticize Jobs life to appeal to a wider audience. Starting with
the first chapter, where he says 'Abandonment, Special, Chosen' were three
words that played a big role in defining Steve's character. And then he goes
on to subtly downplay Steve insisting that it actually did not matter.

What is wrong with Steve just making intelligent decisions about products,
than attributing it to scars from his childhood? Nothing, except that it isn't
as interesting.

In Dave's article, what I really liked was when he said they weren't really
all that special. That is so very true. Real life heroes in the tech industry
may not be that heroic. They don't need to be, at least to some of us.
Sometimes I feel some of the most successful people in our industry (like
Steve, Zuck, BillG) are actually peers, who had somewhat better intuition,
better timing, better business sense; they certainly did a few things better.
But definitely not beyond the comprehension of some people (though, not me)
who comment here.

And there are of course people who are actually heroes to me, not merely peers
who do a lot better. For example Scott Aaronson, though I understand very
little of what he writes. I just know that even if I had chosen a different
path in life, that stuff would still be way beyond me.

Don't know if this made any sense. :)

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bitsweet
_The ladder we chose to climb was a very short one, unlike the ones the
reporters climb. To get to the top meant convincing one or two people we could
make a contribution._

IMO, this still applies to software. That is why the whole debate to stay or
drop out of school even exists. You don't see lawyers, accountants, doctors,
or journalists for that matter debate on the merits of school to advance their
career. If you write code, consider yourself lucky to still be living in this
"golden period" where just a little skill and ambition is all you need to make
an excellent living doing enjoyable work.

~~~
wes-exp
To be fair, lawyers, accountants, and doctors all face strict professional
requirements to be degree holders. As such, debating the necessity of a degree
serves no practical purpose in those fields.

The decreased need for education in software engineering shouldn't be used as
an indicator of its competitiveness. On the contrary, one could argue that is
actually _more_ competitive, because anyone can enter the field at any time.

~~~
bitsweet
Exactly - Accounting as an example had a _much_ lower bar of entry, similar to
programming today. (See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen> -"Hey
Arthur Andersen, your a bright kid, you should come work for us") It is very
possible programming follows a similar path requiring more and more
professional requirements to get a ticket to play.

~~~
hollerith
You have to be a CPA to sign certain kinds of reports that investors depend on
and to do certain kinds of audits, but there is a lot of work in accounting
without any profession-wide degree or certification requirements.

------
seanmccann
_We were young and stupid, and the world told us we were the super-exceptional
people that Jobs apparently believed he was until he died. That's what makes
this so hard to read. We weren't that special._

Dave Winer is an exceptional person but I don't like how he writes as if he
was a complete equal to Steve Jobs. Just because Dave Winer doesn't think of
himself as special, doesn't mean Steve Jobs wasn't special.

The people that think they are super-exceptional, are often the ones that end
up being super-exceptional.

~~~
davewiner
Of course when he was alive we were complete equals.

Do you know of a mathematical formula that allows you to compare two whole
human beings?

To think otherwise is an exceptional form of hubris. And of course that
extends to you and to everyone else who comments here.

And now that he's gone, I'm more of a person than he ever will be. I believe
that's the sad truth of what death means, Sean. Gone is gone.

~~~
tptacek
Even the conviction that any two people are "complete equals" does not lead to
the conclusion that any two people's legacies will be equivalent. It's not
difficult to see why a biography, romanticized or not, was written about Steve
Jobs.

But of course there's really no such thing as "complete equals". Put me in a
foot race with any other healthy 35 year old, or compare my oil painting
output with that of any trained artist, and you'll quickly see why.

~~~
lionhearted
> But of course there's really no such thing as "complete equals". Put me in a
> foot race with any other healthy 35 year old, or compare my oil painting
> output with that of any trained artist, and you'll quickly see why.

Ah, well that's a bummer. You know, it's funny, when you only read someone
online without any face to face context, you kind of mentally fill in a
profile of them that probably has no bearing on reality. I had you mentally
pictured as something from the Age of Pericles, a mix of track and field style
athletics, a little painting, a little sculpting, a little philosophy, a
little music, a strong understanding of people, a thorough writer of both
poetry and practical arts, a solid craftsman, a strong orator with a bent for
rationality and a nuanced sense of justice, and successful in commerce and
trade. This is how you've come across in writing, to me at least.

~~~
tptacek
Picture Pericles after a lot of beer and pork. Take away any artistic talent.
Don't let him shave.

~~~
lionhearted
My mental picture did indeed have a robust, Antiquity-style beard.

~~~
tptacek
A beard involves grooming. Ratchet your expectations down even lower.

------
kenjackson
Reading the PPS in Winer's post about who should write a Jobs book made it
clear to me that I think I will like this biography. I honestly didn't think
anyone liked "Breaking Windows".

------
hack_edu
Dave Winer doesn't seem to like anything, does he?

~~~
davewiner
I wrote two pieces today, the other was about something I very much like.

~~~
tptacek
Is the other thing you very much like the Harvard Gazette piece explaining the
importance of podcasting and crediting you with its invention?

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snorkel
Walter Isaacson wrote the definitive biography of Einstein, so I believe he
can grasp the technicals. The reason the book is not overly technical because
like Apple itself, it's better to put people in front of technology.

~~~
davewiner
Actually I think he misunderstood what programmers and hardware engineers do.
And he had no grasp of the creative process of tech, which is presumably what
the book is about.

~~~
tptacek
I thought the book was about Steve Jobs.

------
staunch
> _We weren't that special._

It's silly that you would write as if you were a peer to Jobs. Only a handful
of people were, people like Gates, Ellison, Grove. Even those guys aren't
special in the big way Jobs was. It's not required that you like him to
acknowledge his special place in the tech world.

------
tptacek
This is like complaining that T. J. Stiles didn't know enough about trains to
write a biography of Cornelius Vanderbildt.

One tends to get the sense that any time Winer writes something negative, his
real concern is that people aren't paying him enough attention.

~~~
davewiner
"One tends to get the sense that"

I like your honesty. You know you don't know what you're talking about, and
you have the guts to say it.

~~~
tptacek
I obviously can't read your mind. I can only report the perceptions of someone
who hasn't slavishly followed your career, but has had occasion to read many
of your blog posts as they're submitted to places like HN.

~~~
davewiner
Therefore you are an expert?

------
jeffreymcmanus
Stating that "The ladder we chose to climb was a very short one, unlike the
ones the reporters climb" is kind of bullshit. Dave is a blogger who feels
like bloggers are the new news reporters, and that news reporters would be as
great as him if they would only grow a pair, or something. But reporting the
news is not easy. For most reporters it's like bringing a spork to a machine-
gun battle, every single day of the week.

This is not a book about Apple and it's not a book about technology. It's not
supposed to be "The Soul of a New Machine." It's about Steve Jobs. Did Dave
not look at the cover before he started reading? It's all right there.

~~~
cruise02
I'm pretty sure he was talking about software development there, not blogging.

~~~
davewiner
Yes, I was talking about developers. But I appreciate the other guy standing
up for me.

------
andymboyle
I'd like to know how Dave Winer expects a new biographer to get the same
amount of access to Steve Jobs as Walter Isaacson did. It's hard to interview
someone 40 times if, you know, you can't.

~~~
gigamonkey
By "source materials" presumably he means the raw transcripts of the
interviews, etc. Which doesn't seem too likely but it's at least possible.

~~~
andymboyle
And under what obligation is Isaacson or his publisher supposed to give the
raw transcripts of any interviews he did with anyone for the book?

~~~
Thrymr
I would expect he is under no legal obligation. But he ought feel a
professional obligation to history that others may be able to use the
recordings/transcripts to draw their own conclusions. He is a biographer,
after all; he never got to interview Einstein, he had to rely on the records
of others that were preserved. That doesn't mean the transcripts must be
released immediately, but I would expect that others will eventually have
access.

~~~
andymboyle
How often does this actually happen? I'm not altogether that knowledgeable in
this area, as I am neither a biographer nor a historian. But I don't know
where the "professional obligation to history" comes from. He's making a
commercial product, not doing a research paper for a public university.

And sure, it'd be nice to see his source material eventually. But I'd rather
see the coherent package of his research in a narrative book form rather than
his notes. I'll trust Isaacson to tell the story of Steve Jobs through his own
interpretation, as that is all that a biography can be.

~~~
Thrymr
I'm not an expert, either, and I don't know of much precedent for interviews
like this with an individual author being publicly released (say, on the web,
rather than in a university archive), but private archival materials are used
by historians and biographers all the time. I don't know whether Isaacson or
his publisher own the rights, but I'm sure others will ask for access in the
future.

I'm not sure about characterizing a biography as a "commercial product";
although although it is the source of the author's livelihood, and the
publisher is a for-profit entity, it is a complex entity as a product. The
author depends in this livelihood in having access to materials from others,
it is not unreasonable to think he may reciprocate in some circumstances. In
any case, in future years (after the initial sales peak of the bio), releasing
the source documents may even cause a revival of interest that helps residual
sales.

------
andymoe
It's an interesting take by someone who has been involved since the early days
of personal computing. I have not read the Jobs book yet but I have been
reading Dave's stuff since sometime in '98 (His writing used to be the second
result when searching for scripting) and he is always good for an interesting
perspective.

ps. Thank's to the mod's for removing the negative editorializing from the
submission title.

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audionerd
What happened to Dan Kottke? The Wikipedia article doesn't seem to get into
it.

~~~
albedoa
I'd like to express my interest in this as well if someone could please share.
I keep seeing it mentioned passively.

~~~
gregsadetsky
Kottke was a close friend to Jobs and an early Apple employee; when the time
of the Apple IPO came around, Jobs denied him any stock options. Wozniak, on
the other hand, gave shares to employees he felt had been left out, including
Kottke...

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stdbrouw
It's a good book, I think, but Dave is right that it gets repetitive at times,
and the storytelling is a wee bit exaggerated. 20% is about Steve being an
asshole and 20% is about him being a spiritual and emotional kind of guy.
Luckily, the remaining 60%, thank heavens, has some actual content.

------
exit
i wonder what minimum change of circumstances would have derailed jobs'
success. what would he have become had wozniak not tolerated him?

