From the author of the bestselling biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein this
is the exclusive biography of Apple's Steve Jobs written with his full cooperation. Based on
more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years - as well as interviews with more
than a hundred family members friends adversaries competitors and colleagues - this book
chronicles the rollercoaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur
whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal
computers animated movies music phones tablet computing and digital publishing. At a
time when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies Jobs stands as
the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create
value in the twenty-first-century was to connect creativity with technology so he built a
company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.
Although Jobs cooperated with this book he asked for no control over what was written nor even
the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off limits and instead encouraged
the people he knew to speak honestly. "I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of such as
getting my girlfriend pregnant when I was twenty-three and the way I handled that " he said.
"But I don't have any skeletons in my closet that can't be allowed out." Jobs speaks candidly
sometimes brutally so about the people he worked with and competed against. Likewise his
friends foes and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions demons
perfectionism desires artistry devilry and obsession for control that shaped his approach
to business and the innovative products that resulted. Jobs could drive those around him to
fury and despair. But his personality and products were all interrelated just as Apple's
hardware and software tended to be as if part of an integrated system. His tale is thus both
instructive and cautionary filled with lessons about innovation character leadership and
values.
