In the early summer of 2004, I got a phone call from Steve Jobs. It turned out that he wanted me to write a biography of him. This is a book about 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. You might even add a seventh: retail stores, which Jobs did not quite revolutionize, but he did re-imagine. Plus, he opened the way for a new market for digital content based on apps. This is also, I hope, a book about innovation. Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness, imagination, and sustained innovation. He knew that the best way to create value in the 21st century was to connect creativity with technology, so he built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering - Walter Isaacson, from the Introduction of Steve Jobs.
About the Author
Walter Isaacson, the CEO of the Aspen Institute, has been chairman of CNN and the managing editor of Time magazine. He is the author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and of Kissinger: A Biography, and the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and daughter.
Praise for the book
"An encyclopedic survey of all that Mr. Jobs accomplished, replete with the passion and excitement that it deserves." - New York Times
"Walter Isaacson has given us a nuanced portrait of the brilliant, mercurial, complicated genius. This is a biography as big as Steve Jobs." - Entertainment Weekly
"A textbook study of the rise and fall and rise of Apple... This book is a gadget-lover’s dream." - Washington Post
"A rich portrait... A must read history." - Huffington Post
"A fascinating character study." - ABC News