Book Review: Becoming Steve Jobs

Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader

Reviewed by Eclecticity

Authors: Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli

Publisher: Signal McClelland & Stewart, Random House of Canada Limited, Penguin Random House Company, hardcover, 447 pages, including: Authors’ Note, Prologue, 17 Chapters, Source Notes, Bibliography, Acknowledgments, and Index

Authors: At the time of publication, Brent Schlender was a premier chronicler of the personal computer revolution, who wrote about every major figure and company in the tech industry, He covered Steve Jobs for the Wall Street Journal andFortune for nearly twenty-five years. Rick Tetzeli, executive director of Fast Company, covered technology for two decades. He was former deputy editor of Fortune and the editor of Entertainment Weekly.

Brief Observations

Steve Jobs was one of the most influential persons in the Silicon Valley computer industry. His biological parents were Joanna Schieble, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, and Abdulfattah Jandali, a Syrian PhD candidate studying political science. Only a few days after his birth, Steve was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, a lower-middle-class couple, living in Mountain View, California. Steve’s widow wife said of Paul and Clara: “He felt he had been really blessed by having the two of them as parents” (p. 25). His parents wanted Steve to have a good education. A bright student, he skipped grade six, eventually he would go to college, only to drop out. His dad, Paul had many jobs, including a machinist and car mechanic. He encouraged Steve to pay attention to detail while working, showing him how to take things apart and put them back together. He gave Steve a workbench in the garage to repair and built things. 

Eventually Steve met Stephen Wozniak, who was an “engineering genius.” “Woz,” as he is called in the book, learned engineering from his Lockheed engineer dad. Schlender and Tetzeli describe the formation of the Jobs and Wozniak company, Apple in 1976, the development and sale of the first Apple personal computers, and eventually Woz and Steve grew apart as their company grew. Not only did Woz and Steve grow apart, but in the mid-1980s, Steve had major disagreements with key people in the Apple company, who supported each other to demote Steve, which led to him leaving the Apple company that he had co-founded. 

The authors then describe Steve’s new company NeXT, hoping it would be a better company than Apple, its ups and downs, as well as the purchase of the Pixar business, which created the Toy Story animated movie and others, and eventually he sold the company to Disney. By then Steve had become a billionaire. After several years, Steve did return to Apple and become its CEO, and the company became a huge success worldwide. 

Much of the volume contains content from interviews by the authors of Steve’s company employees, friends and others. In addition, there is a lot of detailed information about technological products, including: Apple computers, iMac, iPod, iTunes, iTune App Store, iPhone, iPad, and others. 

The book also describes the complex personality of Steve. While he was thought of as a genius, a visionary, a brilliant aesthetic designer, a loyal friend, an inspiring leader and mentor, and a loving husband and dad; he also came across as overly critical, an unrealistic perfectionist, over confident and arrogant, aggressive, rude, and lacking empathy. 

Steve was a vegan and a Buddhist, and for a time he had a Zen monk mentor-teacher. In Buddhism, one belief about human beings is that we are always in a state of becoming—hence the title of this volume, and one of the personality traits of Steve was his constant restlessness to seek for something better in his life and work. 

The volume also includes Steve’s Stanford University commencement address, and his wife Laurene’s tribute at the memorial service on October 17, at the Memorial Church on Stanford University’s campus. Steve had died October 5, 2011, after a lengthy battle with pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant. 

Steve Jobs has indeed left a legacy in the personal computer world that lives on, and some believe he and his legacy have made this world a better place. 

Even though in their “Authors’ Note,” they stated that the first person singular referred to Brent Schlender, my critique in that regard is readers may not really know which sections were specifically written by Tetzeli. 

This volume will mostly appeal to computer geeks. 

Brief Book Review: The Confession of Brother Haluin

Author: Ellis Peters

Publisher: General Paperbacks, 205 pages

The Author 

Ellis Peters is the fiction writer of the Benedictine Cadfael mediaeval whodunit series. This particular volume is number fifteen.

Short Summary

It is the winter of 1142, and Brother Haluin falls while helping to repair the damaged roof of the St. Peter and St. Paul Abbey hall. He is seriously injured, and so he makes what he believes could be his deathbed confession to the Abbot and Brother Cadfael.

With the assistance of Cadfael, he survives the fall. Still limping, and in need of crutches to walk, he decides to go on a penitential journey, accompanied by Cadfael. There are several interesting, adventurous events on the journey, including a murder, as well as a couple of unknown discoveries connected with Brother Haluin’s past. 

In the end, Brother Haluin, in this reviewer’s mind, makes the wrong decision by remaining a monk instead of considering another viable option. 

A brief critique: Although it is acknowledged that Brother Haluin most likely became a monk for the wrong reason or reasons, Ellis Peters seems, ultimately, to idealize the monastic vocation in the novel, to the detriment of other vocations. 

What Ellis Peters does succeed in doing quite well in the novel is presenting the “sins” of England’s 12^th century patriarchal and class-oriented society. 

Book Review: David And Goliath

David And Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, And The Art Of Battling Giants 

Author: Malcolm Gladwell

Publisher: Little, Brown And Company, hardcover, 305 pages, including: Acknowledgments, Notes, and Index

The Author

At the time of this publication, Malcolm Gladwell has been on staff at The New Yorker since 1996. Prior to that, he was a reporter at the Washington Post.Gladwell was born in England and grew up in rural Ontario. He lives in New York. In addition to David And Goliath, he is also the author of other volumes, including: What the Dog Saw, Outliers, Blink, and The Tipping Point—all are on the New York Times best sellers list. 

Contents

This volume contains the following: Introduction, Part One: The Advantages Of Disadvantages Of Advantages, Part Two: The Theory Of Desirable Difficulty, Part Three: The Limits Of Power. Each of the Parts consist of two or three chapters. 

Brief Observations

In his Introduction, Gladwell makes the case for David having an advantage over Goliath because of his fighting method. David surprised Goliath—and likely everyone else—by his fighting method of using a sling-shot and moving around, rather than using other common weapons and remaining in a standing position against his opponent. According to Gladwell, in addition to traditional weapons and fighting tactics, sling-shots were also periodically used successfully. David then, by thinking and acting “outside the box” utilized what most believed was a disadvantage as an advantage, thus killing Goliath, thought by most to be the better warrior. Most of this volume presents several illustrations of thinking and acting “outside the box.” 

Whether it was Vivek Ranadivé who knew very little about basketball and tried things that no one else even dreamt; or teacher Teresa DeBrito who discovered she had the most fun teaching a class of 29 kids; or Caroline Sacks who would have remained in science if she had chosen to attend the University of Maryland rather than Brown University; Gladwell emphasizes the advantages of commonly held disadvantages. 

The volume covers such concepts as the inverted-U curve, and theories like desirable difficulty. 

In his chapter four, Gladwell’s discussion of Gary Cohn was ethically problematic for this reviewer. Cohn lied about his knowledge of options trading in order to get a job on Wall Street (see especially pp. 122-124). If one lies in order to be employed, will one also continue to lie on the job? Some people who are successful telling lies do continue to lie because they believe that they can get away with it. If they do, they can even lose their perspective, and become unable to distinguish between the truth and the lie. 

The two closing chapters are perhaps the best. Gladwell cites the example of Wilma Derksen and her struggle with and journey towards forgiveness; and Pastor André Trocmé’s courage to put his faith into action by hiding and saving Jews in Le Chambon during World War II. 

Those readers who appreciate and/or are underdogs and misfits shall find this volume encouraging and beneficial. 

Book Review: At Day's Close

At Day’s Close: Night In Times Past

A. Roger Ekirch

New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005 & 2006

447 pages, including: Illustrations, Acknowledgements, Preface, Notes and Index

Paperback

Reviewed by Rev. Eclecticity 

This volume is a rather unique contribution to the study of night—an eclectic potpourri of history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and more, dating from the late Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. An engaging and entertaining read, yet at times tedious, having to contend with around seventy pages of endnotes.

The structure of this work is divided up into four parts and twelve chapters. Part One, “In the Shadow of Death,” describes the negative, evil, threatening nature of night. Part Two, “Laws of Nature,” portrays how religious and civil authorities attempted to employ suppressive measures like curfews and watchmen to control nocturnal human activities. Part Three, “Benighted Realms,” examines men and women at work and at play; and how night transformed the traditional, class-oriented daytime roles. Part Four, “Private Worlds,” addresses the world of sleep and dreams, as well as evening rituals.

Each of the four parts and chapters begins with a thought-provoking quotation, such as: “Never greet a stranger in the night, for he may be a demon.” THE TALMUD “The law is not the same at morning and at night.” GEORGE HERBERT “Many things even go best in the raw night-hours.” VIRGIL, 1^ST CENTURY B.C. “Happy are those who can get rid of their problems when sleeping.” GUILLAUME BOUCHET

In addition to the familiar beliefs associated with night, the author points out other factors that torment human beings after dark, such as: strange sounds, distorted sights, the fear of robbers, rapists, murderers, and other malevolent beings. The nocturnal habits of royalty, clergy, the rich and the poor, prostitutes and outcasts of all kinds. Even a husband or wife would kill their spouse while they were asleep. Many a fire started from burning candles and melting wax when folks fell asleep—claiming lives and homes. Sometimes fires were deliberately started and could destroy entire streets because the buildings were so close together and people had little or no equipment to put them out. Accidents occurred on city streets at night when horses and carriages ran over pedestrians who were unable to find safety on narrow streets. People were injured or killed from falls into cisterns, holes, and cellars at night. Many were afraid to travel at night for fear of being robbed, mistakenly killed or beaten, or getting lost due to darkness.

On the upside of night, in both Jewish and Christian traditions, clergy encouraged reading, study, prayers and devotions. Religious minorities often met secretly at night and held their worship services, including weddings and burials.

Ekirch also ponders such traditions as: the origin of bedtime clothing for the middle and upper classes in the sixteenth century, while the poor slept in their day clothing and without blankets, sleep as terror for those who fear their enemies or have nightmares, sleep as a blessing for those who have visions and ecstatic dreams, the recommended hours of sleep for a healthy life, and the influence of gas lighting in cities during the nineteenth century, among various and sundry other subjects.

   

New book on Heschel and Buber

Without question, the two twentieth century giants of Jewish thought were Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel. A new book has been published written by Alexander Even-Chen & Ephraim Meir, Between Heschel and Buber: A Comparative Study. Reviewer, Dr. Michael Marmur, writes:

   Between them, articles relating to Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel account for over nine hundred entries in the Jewish National Library’s Index of Articles on Jewish Studies. Add to this the steady stream of books concerning either Buber or Heschel, and the sheer bulk of the bibliography is even more daunting. Comparisons between the two thinkers, however, are rare.^[1] None of the previous attempts to set these two figures alongside each other in search of affinities and contrasts compares in scope and depth to the volume under review. By undertaking a well-structured and thoughtful comparison of the men they describe as “giant and committed thinkers of the twentieth century,” Alexander Even-Chen and Ephraim Meir have achieved a significant feat. Rather than being one more entry in a crowded field, Between Heschel and Buber deserves a special place within a rapidly burgeoning literature. Read the whole review here.