Steve Jobs

by Walter Isaacson

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING

BIOGRAPHIES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND

ALBERT EINSTEIN, THIS IS THE EXCLUSIVE

BIOGRAPHY OF STEVE JOBS.

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing offlimits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.

Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware

and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

Walter Isaacson, the CEO of the Aspen Institute, has been the chairman of CNN and the managing editor of Time magazine. He is the author of Einstein: His Life and Universe, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, and Kissinger: A Biography, and is the coauthor, with Evan Thomas, of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. He and his wife live in Washington, D.C.

MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND

MORE AT

SimonandSchuster.com

• THE SOURCE FOR READING GROUPS •

JACKET PHOTOGRAPHS: FRONT BY ALBERT

WATSON;

BACK BY NORMAN SEEFF

COPYRIGHT © 2011 SIMON & SCHUSTER

Thank you for purchasing this Simon &Schuster eBook.

Sign up for our newsletter and receive special offers, access to bonus content, and info on the latest new releases and other great eBooks from Simon & Schuster.

or visit us online to sign up at eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

ALSO BY WALTER ISAACSON

American Sketches

Einstein: His Life and UniverseA Benjamin Franklin Reader

Benjamin Franklin: An American LifeKissinger: A Biography

The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World TheyMade

(with Evan Thomas)

Pro and Con

Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright © 2011 by Walter Isaacson All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book

or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department,

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition November 2011

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks

of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Illustration credits appear here.

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event.

For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049

or visit our website at

www.simonspeakers.com.

Designed by Joy O’Meara

Manufactured in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.