The Secrets of Steve Jobs:
Steve’s biography reveals surprising details about his life in—and out of—Apple.
No CEO was as well known as Steve Jobs. But despite thoroughly denting the universe, most details of his daily life—and the business decisions he made after returning to Apple—have remained off the public’s radar. That’s changed with Walter Isaacson’s biography, Steve Jobs, and the revelations may surprise you. Here are some of the biggest revelations from this must-read account of Steve’s extraordinary life and work.
Steve Started Young
As a smart, tech-minded kid growing up in what would become Silicon Valley, there was probably never much doubt about where Steve’s talents would take him. What’s surprising is how doggedly he pursued his ambitions from an early age. While working on a project for a club sponsored by Hewlett-Packard, Steve called the CEO looking for parts he needed. He got the parts, and a summer job building them, during his freshman year of high school. Later, he pulled a similar stunt when he needed equipment for an electronics class. That time Steve called the manufacturer collect.
He Was an Emotional Guy
We all knew Steve was passionate. After all, his tirades were the stuff of legend even back in 1984. But we had no idea those strong feelings also drove him to tears. Like, a lot of tears. From getting choked up by the beauty of the Think Different ad all the way back to an argument over the original Mac’s warranty, Steve wasn’t afraid to cry when he felt the need. We can’t picture it, either, but as far as we’re concerned, it just shows how seriously he took every detail of his work. Hey, it’s tough to make it through most Pixar movies without Kleenex—imagine what it was like to run the company.
The Origin of The Uniform
Ever wonder where Steve’s classic mock turtleneck and jeans came from? Turns out that in the 1980s, seeing the uniformed workers in a Sony factory made a strong impression on him. It was so strong that after returning to Apple in 1997, he asked Sony’s designer to create a vest for all Apple employees to wear. Needless to say, it was one case where even the Reality Distortion Field couldn’t help Steve change people’s minds. But at least he could persuade the designer to make him a closet full of the black turtlenecks he liked so much, and sartorial history was made.
Steve’s Health
As his condition worsened, most of us could only watch as Steve’s role at Apple events transformed from that of star to master of ceremonies. But few of us guessed just how sick he really was, and what a toll it was taking on him and his family. The book lays it bare, from Steve’s first diagnosis to his harrowing liver transplant in 2009 to the recurrence of cancer that led to his final medical leave. It’s anything but light reading, but it’s a powerful look at Steve as a man who, faced with death, turned to his work and family for purpose and strength. No surprise there, really.
Sony Handed Apple the iTunes Store
Some of the most interesting passages dish about the wheeling-and-dealing behind Apple’s products. One of the best is about how Sony botched selling digital music. Because they insisted on using their own DRM instead of technology proposed by other studios, early online stores fractured into competing subscription services nobody wanted. It fell to Steve to convince all the studios—Sony included—to support a single, iPod-friendly store. As he said, billions of songs later, “I’ve never spent so much of my time trying to convince people to do the right thing for themselves.”
The Scroll-Wheel iPhone was Real
When the iPhone debuted in 2007, Steve, ever the showman, teased the audience by first presenting an original iPod with a rotary dial in place of the click wheel. We all had a good laugh, but it turns out that design was anything but a joke. Yep, the first iPhone design used a click wheel instead of a touchscreen, with the idea being that users would scroll through their contacts more often than they’d dial numbers. Thankfully, cooler heads—and the engineers at work on a little something called Multi-Touch—prevailed.
The iPad’s Been Around for a While
Years before the iPhone, there was the iPad.
Score one for patent watchers. Isaacson’s book reminds us that when Steve introduced the iPad in 2010, it had already been revealed, nearly in its final form, in a 2004 patent application. But Steve’s bio also reveals his relationship with the iPad went back much farther, back to the days before the Macintosh. While looking for new projects after the failure of the Apple III, Steve briefly set his sights on a touchscreen computer, but the technology wasn’t yet up to snuff. Thirty years later, after a career like no other in any industry, he finally got what he wanted.
