The Steve Jobs biography, thanks to Walter Isaacson, was quite the revelation into the life of a man who formed one of the greatest IT empire in the modern history. Needless to say, it was also a great read on everything related to the man and Apple.
However, there's a new unofficial book about the Apple co-founder that reveals an entirely different side of Jobs. This side of Jobs' life is alternate to the one that's portrayed so often. However, the new piece has already been warmly received by company officials.
"Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader", set to be released this Tuesday, received support from Apple CEO Tim Cook and other executives in the company. Interestingly though, these were the same executives who criticised the Isaacson's best-selling biography "Steve Jobs" that was released shortly after Jobs' death in 2011.
"What surprised me about him always was how funny he was and pleasant," Brent Schlender, co-author of "Becoming Steve Jobs", told ABC News. Schlender had spent about 25 years, following Jobs, and this included sitting down with him in a personal audio interview in 1998.
"There's people who don't perform. I have to take them out of their jobs. It's harder now ... much harder than before I had kids," Jobs was heard saying in that interview, played previously on "Good Morning America." And he added, "Because I look at everybody and I think of them as 5 years old."
Rick Tetzeli, co-author of the new book, stated: "I was really surprised at the intensity of his close relationships." "Becoming Steve Jobs" was already endorsed by Apple's software chief Eddy Cue last week when he wrote: "Best portrayal is about to be released - Becoming Steve Jobs (book). Well done and first to get it right."
Striking a comparison between both the books, while the Isaacson one showed the controlling and unpredictable side of the former Apple boss, the new book emphasises how Jobs appreciated teamwork, while even drawing parallels with how "The Beatles" went on to become an iconic band.
When Isaacson's book came out, it was openly criticised by Tim Cook and others. However, the newest take on Jobs has found all the concerned in good terms. "It didn't capture the person," Cook was quoted as stating in the new book regarding Isaacson's biography. "The person I read about there is somebody I would never have wanted to work with over all this time."
Nonetheless, according to Tetzeli, "It's that idea of brilliant people working together making up for one another's weaknesses and emphasizing their strengths," as quoted by ABC News.
Aside that, Schlender revealed how Jobs' affinity for Buddhism helped drive his perfectionism. "If you're only gonna live here once, you need to make the most of every moment and you need to try to pick the thing where you can give the most back. ... He may have seemed like a jerk sometimes, but what was driving it was this idealism," he added.
