Steve Jobs

"I must say, I love this book. I have incredibly ambivalent feelings about Steve Jobs the person but the book is fascinating for anyone. Steve Jobs has become a cult figure and a lot of things are projected onto him—both good and bad—that probably don’t really apply. Walter Isaacson really makes a sincere effort to get to the truth but, at the same time, highlights all the interesting parts of his life. He focuses on why Steve Jobs was such an unusual character but also to what extent he represents the spirit of Silicon Valley and modern entrepreneurship. I think Steve Jobs is, for all his flaws, almost a symbol—and certainly a role model—for a whole generation of young people who want to be entrepreneurs. What’s so interesting about Steve Jobs is that there’s a lot of going against the grain. He defies all the classic definitions about what you would expect from an entrepreneur—certainly for a businessman—so that is beautiful. This is the hippy who comes to business meetings without shoes. “Every entrepreneur faces severe frictions, and I think what Jobs shows is that he is willing to tackle those frictions” It certainly brings out the personal side of entrepreneurship. One of the things about entrepreneurship that I put a lot of emphasis into teaching is that it’s not a thing, it’s a process. It’s not one act; it’s often a career. And here you see, basically, a person’s life work. And it doesn’t go in a straight line—it’s an incredibly crooked path. For every thousand people, one is Steve Jobs and the other 999 have similarly crooked paths but without the success that Steve Jobs had. I think Walter Isaacson is very good because he’s very open about bringing out all the human flaws in Jobs. In fact, some of the people were not happy about the way he portrayed Jobs. He basically got an agreement from Jobs to write what he saw and what he knew, and he did so. I think that, as a journalistic effort, it’s also quite remarkable. It’s extremely well-written. It’s a page-turner. You actually want to know how the story ends. And funnily enough, at the end, you like Steve Jobs. You feel guilty about liking him, but you do like him. There is an element of that. I don’t endorse some of the practices that Jobs had. He was at times mean and disrespectful in ways that are quite unnecessary. The other thing to say is that there is no one style of entrepreneurship. Having had the luxury of meeting thousands of entrepreneurs over my career, I have seen people who are a bit like Steve Jobs and also people who are incredibly different— maybe incredibly dull or incredibly polite…It’s very hard to generalise. “One of the things about entrepreneurship that I put a lot of emphasis into teaching is that it’s not a thing, it’s a process. It’s not one act; it’s often a career” But every entrepreneur faces severe frictions, and I think what Jobs shows is that he is willing to tackle those frictions. That’s why he says, ‘It’s not good enough’ or ‘Let’s do the impossible’—they talk about this ‘reality distortion field’ that he had. I think entrepreneurs all need something of that kind. It doesn’t have to be the way Jobs does it, but they need something of that kind to get them through, because innovation is about breaking through barriers. Just like in Boorstin, it’s about people doing extraordinary and often unexpected things in order to achieve these major breakthroughs. Unless there is drive, nothing happens. And Jobs was extremely driven."