Book: Steve Jobs... by Young and Simon

Desi Fun(da)

Just done reading "Steve Jobs: The greatest second act in the history of business" by Young and Simon last night while watching Brasil thrash Japan. The book is an amazing journey through the life of an equally amazing technologist. The games that he has played and those played on him through his early career days "make great reading". But what stands paramount amongst the qualities of Jobs is his ability to recognize, recruit and retain talent without which Apple would not be the kind of company it is today - always admired by the uber geeks around the world. It is said that Steve has the unique capability to motivate people behind an idea that is generations ahead and would probably seem unrealistic and totally absurd while working on it, more so when combined with his pulled in deadlines. Probably the most important contributor who made Apple what it is, is the co-founder Steve "Woz" Wozniak. There are little details about him in the book and he barely makes the news (other than lately where he publicly showed his disappointment when Apple went from Power to Intel). Woz is widely acknowledged as a guru in electronics especially his PCB creations that were smaller and better than anyone else out there, and with lesser components. As the book mentions Woz's use of minimal components with Steve's drive for detail by keeping all the soldering and connections along straight clean lines and his attention to external packaging gave the Macs a unique beauty outside and inside.

What makes the book even more of a must read is that Steve had actually opposed the release of the book and threatened action against the publishers, though I think he didn't. But after the release of the book all Mac stores stopped carrying any of the books by the same publisher, according to news reports. But all that just gives so much more credibility to the book right:)