Business Book Review: Steve Jobs

This week’s post is on Steve Jobs – written by Walter Isaacson (2011), the CEO of the Aspen Institute, former chairman of CNN and the managing editor of Time magazine. He is the author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, Kissinger: A Biography, and co-author of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made.

Our guest writer is Brandon, an MC intern who is focused on building out the MC Job Hub program.

If you want to submit a review on a book you’ve been reading, we’d love to hear from you! Follow the format below, target 800+ words and send it over by email!

Enjoy!

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Why read it? 

This is not just your typical biography about a man. In fact, it is more than just that: it is a story into a man’s life that has changed our very culture, the way we do life. A man who revolutionized 6 industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

This book will train you to think differently and see business from a different perspective. You will find yourself at times wondering, “Why didn’t I ever think of that?” or “Why didn’t I ever think that way?” By reading this book, you accept an invitation to learn from the life a man who became arguably the greatest business executive of our era.

Quick overview 

This book will challenge you and encourage you as you go on a journey with the author through the life of Steve Jobs. You will learn about his life and journey – from being abandoned as a child, to building an enduring name brand company that has had a monumental impact on so many facets of how we live life.

Your mind will be renewed on many different business topics as you read this book. Topics ranging from marketing, public relations, how to interact and not interact with employees and how to make and not make sound business decisions. You will both learn from Steve’s successes and from his failures.

3 Interesting Book Insights 

Some companies say, “Give the customers what they want.” But that was never Steve’s approach. In his words: “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do…people don’t know what they want until you show it to them. Our task is to read things that are not yet on page.”

Steve learned from Mike Markkula, Apple’s early Angel investor and second CEO, to always impute his values into everything that he did. That impacted everything he did from that point on, from product demonstrations to how he dressed to how his products were packaged and released. To impute your values is to make sure that everything that is yours echoes your values, from the way your car looks and appears to how you dress and present yourself. Steve would always make sure that everything inside the computer was done with excellence, down to the very smallest of details – so much so that when employees told him that it did not matter because no one would ever see the inside of the computer, he insisted and made sure that everything was done with excellence and looked great even if someone would never see it.

Steve’s passion and attitude toward the work that he did was amazing. He absolutely loved and enjoyed every minute of it. He had this to say about work: “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

Overall summary/conclusion 

All in all, this book is amazing, both easy and fun to read. Walter Isaacson did a phenomenal job of telling the life story of one of the most amazing men of our time. This book provides a stark contrast to what many executives think is the right way to run a company, and to do business.

Steve’s life demonstrated that there is a better way to do things than what the traditional business mindset has told us. His life challenges you to step outside the box and think differently.

I challenge you to pick up this book and learn from the life of a man that, as he always wished, put a ding in the universe.

*****

To grab a copy of Steve Jobs, click here

Filed Under: Business Books