Revisited

“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetics, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” – Steve Jobs, on designing the Mac

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I wanted to revisit what I wrote earlier about Walter Isasacson’s biography on Steve Jobs. I really do think, when you consider just how private Steve was in his life, that anyone could get him to sit down for an extended of series of interviews; that Isaacson was able to retain control over everything within the book (Steve thought the initial cover design looked like shit) is nothing short of amazing. It’s true that Steve did initially commission the book, and that he willingly gave up editorial control over the work, and yet, knowing Steve, actually being able to follow through on the hands-off approach is still a feat to be admired.

My thoughts, especially in the first half of the book, mostly consisted of being astounded by all the unique – really, truly unique – parts of Steve’s life that I’d never been exposed to – though their documentation has been previously published in other tomes. What’s disappointing, really, is the drastic decline in detail as we get closer to the present day, especially the last fifteen years and the return to Apple. Here was a man who did something inconceivable not just in the Tech world, but in any company, and it feels brushed aside, or rushed, or just not quite right. I have the feeling that Isaacson felt that really delving deep into this side of Steve would skew the book into too positive of a territory. I wonder, and worry, honestly, that this part of his life was played down so that the book reads more balanced, more “fair”.

It’s unfortunate that this need to convey objectivity, this need to prove that there is no emotional attachment to the subject, no sympathy, only the facts. But that’s exactly what Steve was about. The emotional connection, the intuitive relation, the superceeding of logic in favor of a much more humanist relation. How could you not be moved by this man’s story? It really is a shame that the book feels as though it has cast aside this powerful bond in favor of mass-market acceptance.

It should feel like a book about Steve. Instead, it reads like a book by Isaacson.

But maybe that’s what Steve wanted after all.