Book Summary & Thoughts: Steve Jobs
Takeaways from his biography.
He was not the norm...
Steve Jobs was not the norm, that was my first thought as soon as I started reading the book. There are a couple of reasons for this in my opinion, and these are what stood out to me most — these are not meant to be portrayed as negative traits either, not all of them at least.
He was adopted
Was "rebellious" during his upbringing as well as in his adulthood
Was very comfortable with psychedelics - LSD specifically
Explored meditation in multiple ways
Was very direct
Seemed to have a toxic air in the way he persuaded/manipulated/cajoled others (both superiors as well as subordinates)
Didn't care about money
Rebellious by nature...
It seemed like Steve was always doing something to rebel. Just going against the grain, and stood out a lot. In school when he was in college he would play many pranks on people. If I remember correctly at one point he and Wozniak created a fake bomb and placed it inside of another student’s locker room. This seemed to have carried into his early adulthood at Apple when he launched the Mac 2 in 1984 with the commercial that everyone loved - probably because it was so out of the ordinary and loud.
Obsessive maybe an understatement...
I think something to take away from his was his way of thinking and being extremely obsessive about the things that he wanted (also a trait that you see in very big thinkers/successful entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and others, Andrew Carnegie is another good example of this).
Steve wanted every little detail of the products to be perfect, even the little bolts inside the computers that no one was going to see other than technicians, he wanted those to be perfect.
Psychedelics...
I think this is interesting. Many people talk about it and have some sort of life-changing experience. Personally, I’ve never done them, but the more I learn about them the more I’m open to the idea of doing it. I’m not sure of how much of his vision/creativity Jobs would attribute to the drugs, but I think it would be an interesting question. I definitely think that they open up different dimensions of consciousness and awareness and I would love to have more of both, plus the added perspective changes that come with along.
Meditation...
I think this was rarer then than it is now, I think meditation, mindfulness, and awareness have gained a lot of popularity lately with the rise of apps like Calm and Headspace, which I personally, although I’m actually trying to get away from using apps and just sit in silence. I think this is one of the reasons why although he seemed like a very reactive person, he was also very in tune with his feelings and emotions and was able to make very smart decisions and think through things from perspectives many people would not think to do so.
Non-materialistic...
It's honestly amazing how Jobs treated money. I think if it could be compared to another big mind it would be Elon Musk, they just don't care about money. If they get it, they're exactly where they were before and they treat it exactly as what it is, a resource. You see Jobs use up very large amounts of money in order to create things exactly the way he envisioned whether others thought it was a good idea or not. He also went on for over 2 years as Interim CEO of Apple, once they brought him back in, only receiving a dollar per year (of course money is not a necessity at this point, but I think it speaks volumes).
Took big bets...
Another thing that is very clear about Jobs is that he always took big bets, he believed in something and wouldn't back down for anything. You can see this multiple times throughout his life. One occasion that I think is very apparent of this behavior is when they needed to were working on the iPhone initially, there were two teams working on a different concept (one with a track wheel and another with the touch screen). He knew (and convinced everyone) to believe that the touch screen was the option everybody wanted, but it was a huge bet in the sense of technology and materials necessary, so they decided to shut down the concept with a track wheel and go all-in with touch screen (great move).
There is a lot more, but this is all I can articulate for now, and I really wanted to share this already.
