PGOETZ@LOYVAX.BITNET (03/07/89)
(Tried to post this once; don't think it got through.)
I just finished Steve Jobs: The Journey is the Reward, by Jeffrey Young.
I highly recommend this book to anybody interested in Apple or in Steve Jobs.
It is based on other books & interviews, plus a whole lot of interviews which
the author conducted with dozens of former Apple employees (incl. Woz,
Trip Hawkins, & probably Alan Kay, Dan Kottke, & Randy Wigginton, though
I don't remember).
It deals more with the emotional side of Jobs than others
have in the past. Fascinating reading. It presents Jobs as a bright,
energetic, charming jerk. It includes stories about the blue boxes, Jobs'
days as an acid-head individualist at Reeds (I think it was Reeds), his trip
to India with Dan Kottke, his inexplicable machinations to ensure Dan Kottke
didn't get rich when Jobs did, his personal stinginess even after being worth
$200 million, and of course his obsession with the Macintosh. It talks a lot
about internal politics at Apple. (Remember feeling the Apple II was being
ignored while it raised cash for the Macintosh? This book confirms that.)
Like Sculley's book, Odyssey, it shows Jobs as out of control within
Apple and John Sculley as too entranced by him and the industry to rein him in.
(It doesn't present, as much as Odyssey did, Apple's gradual realization that
they shouldn't market computers like soft drinks.) It contrasts Jobs, who
asks friends to pick up the tab for him at restaurants, with Woz, who after
Apple's stock went public gave over $1 million away (maybe a lot more, I
forget) to people who he thought deserved some of the wealth. Woz is shown
as friendly, likeable, an artistic engineering genius, but ignorant of
business and sometimes irresponsible (ie with the Tom Swift terminal).
Phil Goetz
PGOETZ@LOYVAX.bitnet