Steve Jobs
Author: Walter Isaacson
Obsy’s meaningful read rating: 4.75 snaps
Obsy’s delight rating: 4 snaps
Medium: ebook, Audible 1.25x
I’m about half way through listening to Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography. I decided to listen to this as I was scanning through entrepreneurs with unusual or nontraditional origins. The successes of those who come from working or lower class background with little-to-no early engagement with affluence always seems to be a bit more exciting and satisfying. Not to say that the successes of entrepreneurs born into wealth aren’t interesting, but the journey doesn’t pull me along with fascination. There’s a certain magnetism and charm in seeing the underdog “win.”
Such is the case with Jobs, born out of wedlock to affluent, educated parents but put up for adoption due to the times. Jobs is adopted by really lovely, working class folks (much to the dismay of his birth mother) since a wealthy attorney family backed out on his adoption last minute to adopt a girl instead (does anyone know what happened to her?). Anyway, Jobs’ adoptive parents see very quickly that he’s brilliant, bored and mischievous in school, and very persuasive.
The biography follows jobs through high school, an ill-fated attempt at college, and many character-building liaisons and friendships. All of this, I believe, brings him back to his brilliant engineer buddy Steve Wozniak, his parent’s garage and the start of Apple. We follow the success of the team and the development of the mythos around Steve Jobs. His highs and lows, quixotic social behaviors and performances, caused me to pause several times and wonder how his friends really put up with his BS. But friends are friends, I guess - they accept you for who you are and often forgive your foibles whether you deserve it or not. The book often goes back to his slighted feelings of being abandoned as a child, needing to prove himself a genius, independent of social niceties, needs and obligations that plague the rest of us.
I’m paused right now at the part where Steve gets forced out of Apple and starts his next company, unironically named NEXT. During my pause, I took up a side quest on the internet to find out more about NEXT. Spoiler: Apple buys his company eventually, and Steve comes back to finally become Apple’s CEO saving them from the brink of bankruptcy. Quite the hero’s journey.
Narrator voice rating: 5 snaps
The narrator, Dylan Baker for the Audible version of this book, is very good and gets a full five snaps from Obsy. He manages to somehow convey feeling and meaning, differentiate between character voices with light emphasis changes, which I think is very important. You could easily hear his voice as the narrator to a Jobs documentary or pithy comedy series recounting the brilliant, passionate, but unfortunately brief life of Steve Jobs. As I’ll explain in my rating system, sometimes a misplaced or robotic narrator voice ruins the entire audiobook experience and you can’t even get past the first chapter (or introduction!).
