Inside Steve's Brain | Leander Kahney | Fascinating Look at Jobs's Techniques

Inside Steve's Brain | Leander Kahney | Great book - but only one half of the story

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Inside Steve's Brain

	Inside Steve's Brain Leander Kahney Portfolio Hardcover, 2008 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 35 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Fascinating Look at Jobs's Techniques

Inside Steve's Brain was a fun and fast read. Author Leander Kahney did a fantastic job summarizing the thought processes Apple CEO Steve Jobs has gone through over the years. Whether it was the start-up period with Woz, when Jobs got tossed out of his own company, his time building NeXT and his subsequent return to Apple, it's all covered here. This is particularly remarkable given the small size of this book (less than 300 pages).

I'm not an Apple fan but this is the second Jobs-related book I've read in the past several months. The other one was Option$, the parody by Fake Steve Jobs. While Option$ was more entertaining, of course, Kahney's book is quite engaging as well. His writing style makes you feel you were right there in the garage, the office or the boardroom setting he's currently describing.

Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:

British comedian Charlie Booker said..."If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that 'says something' about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe -- but not a personality."

Regarding Apple employees...Despite the zeal, employees are distinctly un-cultish. They consciously avoid the cultish types. At a job interview, the worst thing a prospective employee can say is: "I've always wanted to work at Apple," or "I've always been a big fan."

To explain why employees and coworkers put up with him (Jobs), critics invoke the Stockholm Syndrome. His employees are captives who have fallen in love with their captor.

The (Apple) stores are insanely profitable. One Apple store can make as much money as six other stores in the same mall combined -- and can pull in almost the same revenue as a big Best Buy store, but with only 10% of the floor space.

"We said, we want our stores to create an ownership experience for the customer," explained (Apple's Ron) Johnson. The store should be about the lifetime of the product, not the moment of the transaction.

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Great book - but only one half of the story

This book is truly excellent. Well-written, well-researched and very readable. You will learn everything you even wanted to know about recent history of Apple from this book.

However, book does not go into first release of the Mac back in 1984 and does not talk about people on whose shoulders Steve Jobs is standing today: primarily late Jef Raskin and Andy Herzfeld. Back in the 80s, Steve was only half of a visionary he is today. In this book, Steve states that he wants to make a dent in the universe. Well, he could have made a dent in the universe (a big one) back in the 80s, had he not almost destroyed Mac project and had he not driven away some of the key Mac people from Apple (Jef Raskin in particular). Please read the interview with Jef Raskin in "Programmers at Work" (also published in the 80s). You may find a used copy on amazon or just look up Susan Lammers' blog (also titled "Programmers at Work") where she is posting the interviews from now out of print book on a regular basis. Once you read the perspective from the 80s and "Inside Steve's Brain" you will realize how much Steve himself changed and learned over the years - for the better.

You also may want to check out "Apple Confidential" for more details on Apple.

It is a pity however that Jef Raskin was not involved in Apple after 1997 and that he and Steve apparently did not get along. A dent in the universe back in the 80s could have spared us all from the Windows.

For disclosure, I do not own a Mac presently but I do enjoy following Apple's (r)evolutionary path, including all the Lemmings who line up with blankets in front of Apple's stores, "thinking different" in unison.

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Tough to put it down...

I love this book. It seems to be a fair representation of Apple and Steve Jobs. If you are a fan of Apple, or are at least a little curious about the company and its co-founder, then give this book a read.

The virtues of control freakery: the future of PCs?

Sure, there are repetitions, brochure-like language, and the sense of magazine articles being pasted together in this book. But the latter parts: the creation and the naming of the iPod, the Sony situation, proprietary vs. open-standards, etc., make this book worth reading.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7

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