The process of reading this book is a great example of why when you feel a book is not flowing, you should stop reading it a pick up another one.
When I started reading this book for the first time, I couldn’t agree with Jobs’ methods and his, at times, disrespectful actions.
As a picked the unfinished book, now that I’ve made a firm commitment to read more biographies, I was able to see him in a different light and came to appreciate his strengths instead of focusing on his weaknesses.
Flow: 4/5
Actionability: 3/5
Mindset: 5/5
Some Of My Highlights:
- “Apple is a different kind of brand, and it’s cooler than the brand of most artists. We should talk about the opportunity we offer the bands, not pay them.” – James Vincent
- “Jobs made Eisner an offer that was so one-sided it was clearly meant to be rejected.”
- “Jobs was usually disciplined in not making public the strong opinions that he shared with friends around his Palo Alto kitchen table.”
- “Unlike Eisner and Jobs, he has a disciplined calm, which helped him deal with large egos.”
- “But when Eisner had to run things, he was a terrible manager. Nobody liked working for him. They felt he had no authority.”
- “But gradually he was learning his lesson. In building devices like the iPod, he would control costs and make the trade-offs necessary to get them launched on time and on budget.”
- “Ugly, difficult to load, and with an arbitrary hundred-song limit, it had all the hallmarks of a product that had been negotiated by a committee, which was counter to the way Jobs liked to work.”
- “Jobs ripped it off and mumbled that he hated the design and refuses to wear it. Though barely able to speak, he ordered them to bring five different options for the mask and he would pick a design he liked.”