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teve Jobs a pioneer of the personal computer revolution was the heartbeat of Apple’s success in reverence for design. The late CEO of Appel had the vision to create and innovate insanely great products that literally change the way people communicate and experience communicative experience. Consumers of the Apple market waited for days for the newest owner of an iPhone or iPad, therefore, catapulting the company into a runaway financial success. There perhaps will never be a great innovator as Steve Jobs, nevertheless, the Steve Jobs that we all once knew will always be remembered as a revolutionary and innovative thinker and visionary. With the help of this list of the best books on Steve Jobs, you will gain historical knowledge of the great visionary.
WARNING: You Don’t Want To Snap Another Photo Until You Read This Startling Report…
What Did Steve Jobs Really Do For Apple? |
Best Books on Steve Jobs: The List |
Final Thoughts on Books Related to Steve Jobs |
What Did Steve Jobs Really Do for Apple?
Steve Jobs was the founder of Apple, a company that thrived on innovation and technology. Perhaps one of the greatest technology companies in the world. Steve Jobs pioneered the personal computer and transformed the way people communicated through the invention of the iPhone and iPad.
Best Books on Steve Jobs: THE LIST
1 – Live From Cupertino | Michael Hageloh
Apple isn’t just a design and innovation powerhouse. It’s also the greatest sales machine you’ve ever heard of.
In twenty-two years with the Cupertino band, Michael Hageloh saw it all. The era of beige boxes and clueless CEOs. The company’s near death. The return of Steve Jobs. Triumphs like the iPod, iTunes, and the iPhone. But you know that story. What you don’t know is that it was a sales operation built around music, storytelling, and passion that let Apple not only survive the hard times but eventually change the world.
Now Michael—engineer, drummer, raconteur, and closer to nearly one billion dollars in Apple sales—takes you inside the sales culture that made Apple the world’s first trillion-dollar corporation. The big secret? Music. Music has been part of Apple’s DNA since the beginning, and in Live from Cupertino, Michael takes you inside a one-of-a-kind selling culture that’s amazingly similar to the process of making music from rehearsal to live performance. If you’re dying to know how Apple did it, Live from Cupertino is your first chance to learn company secrets from someone who was there from the beginning.
Quotes from Live From Cupertino;
“Great salespeople are artists and great listeners. That’s what we had at Apple, and it helped that so many of us were musicians.”
“The focus of the organization was to improve people’s lives through technology. That was the soul of the company.”
“Canned sales approaches actually disrespect the salesperson, because they implicitly say, ‘We don’t trust you when you’re out of our sight’.”
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in square holes…They change things. They push the human race forward.” (Apple TV ad script)
“God gave us 10 styluses. Let’s not invent another one!” (Jobs)
2 – Small Fry | Lisa Brennan-Jobs
Born on a farm and named in a field by her parents―artist Chrisann Brennan and Steve Jobs―Lisa Brennan-Jobs’s childhood unfolded in a rapidly changing Silicon Valley. When she was young, Lisa’s father was a mythical figure who was rarely present in her life. As she grew older, her father took an interest in her, ushering her into a new world of mansions, vacations, and private schools. His attention was thrilling, but he could also be cold, critical, and unpredictable. When her relationship with her mother grew strained in high school, Lisa decided to move in with her father, hoping he’d become the parent she’d always wanted him to be. Part portrait of a complex family, a part love letter to California in the seventies and eighties, Small Fry is a poignant coming-of-age story from one of our most exciting new literary voices.
Quotes from Small Fry;
“I see now that we were at cross-purposes. For him, I was a blot on a spectacular ascent, as our story did not fit with the narrative of greatness and virtue he might have wanted for himself. My existence ruined his streak. For me, it was the opposite: the closer I was to him, the less I would feel ashamed; he was part of the world, and he would accelerate me into the light.”
“When I was reading, I was not lonely or self-aware. I felt upheld by the stories. I read a whole stack of fiction at one time, alternating between books so I could finish all of them together, the multiple endings crashing around me like the cymbals in a musical finale. When I stopped reading, I felt lonely again, like a window had been thrown open.”
“What I wanted, what I felt owed, was some clear place in the hierarchy of those he loved.”
“They teach you how other people think, during your most productive years,” he said. “It kills creativity. Makes people into bozos.”
“I was terrified my father and Laurene might tell me at some point how insignificant I was, what a disappointment I was, sloppy and repulsive, breaking things like a baby. They already had a baby. How little I fit into the picture of family. I could see it and they’d made a mistake in allowing me to live here; I was unsure of my position in the house, and this anxiety—combined with a feeling of immense gratitude so overwhelming I thought I might burst—caused me to talk too much, to compliment too much, to say yes to whatever they asked, hoping my servile quality would ignite compassion, pity, or love.”
3 – Finding the Next Steve Jobs | Nolan Bushnell and Gene Stone
Nolan Bushnell founded the groundbreaking gaming company Atari, the restaurant chain Chuck E. Cheese’s, and two dozen other companies. He also launched Steve Jobs’ career, along with those of many other brilliant creatives over the course of his five decades in business. In his eagerly awaited first book, Bushnell explains how to find, hire, and nurture the people who could turn your company into the next Atari or the next Apple.
The business world is changing faster than ever, and every day your company faces new complications and difficulties. The only way to resolve these issues is to have a staff of wildly creative people who live as much in the future as the present, who thrive on being different, and whose ideas will guarantee that your company will prosper when other companies fail.
Quotes from Finding the Next Steve Jobs;
“A lot of people, including the executives of many companies, have it in their minds that they embrace innovation, but when it comes to specifics, they become powerful naysayers.”
“To increase creativity, you must decrease the number of ways your company says no.”
“Being passionate and interesting, in itself, doesn’t pay the rent, so passionate, interesting people often work at dull jobs because no one else wants to hire them.”
“The era when companies slowly evolved, when they studied their place in the business landscape over many years and changed slowly, is over.”
“One of the best ways to promote communication is to force employees to spend time together, whether they want to or not.”
“If you try to apply the same rules to every person or circumstance, you will find you’ve planted a field that is sterile and homogenous.”
“What I realized then was that the original Steve Jobs believed he had to find his own next Steve Jobs.”
“When you’re trying to make your company more creative, you want to relax the rigid rules and give your creatives room to stretch and grow.”
4 – Steve Jobs | Walter Isaacson
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, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, 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 off-limits. 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.
Quotes from Steve Jobs;
“If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away. The more the outside world tries to reinforce an image of you, the harder it is to continue to be an artist, which is why a lot of times, artists have to say, “Bye. I have to go. I’m going crazy and I’m getting out of here.” And they go and hibernate somewhere. Maybe later they re-emerge a little differently. (Steve Jobs)”
“If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things – that’s when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before. It’s a discipline; you have to practice it.”
“Steve Jobs: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
“I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don’t. It’s the great mystery. (Steve Jobs)”
“Some people say, “Give the customers what they want.” But that’s not my approach. Out job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!'” People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
“On the day he unveiled the Macintosh, a reporter from Popular Science asked Jobs what type of market research he had done. Jobs responded by scoffing, “Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?”
5 – Inside Apple | Adam Lashinsky
If Apple is Silicon Valley’s answer to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, then author Adam Lashinsky provides readers with a golden ticket to step inside. In this primer on leadership and innovation, the author will introduce readers to concepts like the “DRI” (Apple’s practice of assigning a Directly Responsible Individual to every task) and the Top 100 (an annual ritual in which 100 up-and-coming executives are tapped a la Skull & Bones for a secret retreat with company founder Steve Jobs).
Based on numerous interviews, the book offers exclusive new information about how Apple innovates, deals with its suppliers and is handling the transition into the Post Jobs Era. Lashinsky, a Senior Editor at Large for Fortune, knows the subject cold: In a 2008 cover story for the magazine entitled The Genius Behind Steve: Could Operations Whiz Tim Cook Run The Company Someday he predicted that Tim Cook, then an unknown, would eventually succeed Steve Jobs as CEO.
While Inside Apple is ostensibly a deep dive into one, unique company (and its ecosystem of suppliers, investors, employees, and competitors), the lessons about Jobs, leadership, product design, and marketing are universal. They should appeal to anyone hoping to bring some of that Apple magic to their own company, career, or creative endeavor.
Quotes from Inside Apple;
“The way Apple does business and the way its executives manage the company fly in the face of years of business school teaching…Is Apple’s success unique, or is Apple on to something the rest of the business world ought to be emulating?”
“I don’t want to let anybody know our magic because I don’t want anybody copying it.” (Tim Cook, CEO)
“The world’s most discussed company may well be the least observed, at least from the inside.”
“The fact that a company worth $360 billion is embraced as revolutionary and not derided as ‘the man’ or ‘the establishment’ is directly attributable to Jobs and the bond consumers felt with him.”
“If power corrupts, then success enhances: It makes the qualities of a leader appear in sharp relief.”
“It is not just Apple’s products that are fiercely simple, but also the way it deploys its brand.”
“Outside, Apple is revered. Inside, it is cultish, and neophytes are only entrusted with so much information.”
6 – The Steve Jobs Way | Jay Elliot and William Simon
In iLeadership, Jay Elliot gives the listener the opportunity of seeing Steve Jobs as only his closest associates have ever seen him, and to learn what has made him – and the mystique of his management style – capable of creating tools so extraordinary that they have remade three industries and have transformed the way we create, consume, and communicate with each other.
Jay Elliot worked side by side with Steve as Senior Vice President of Apple and brings us his deep insider perspective of Steve’s singular iLeadership style – which encompasses four major principles: product, talent, organization, and marketing.
Jay shares the lessons that come out of Steve’s intuitive approach to show how the creative and technological brilliance of iLeadership can be utilized to drive breakthroughs in any organization, irrespective of size.
Quotes from Data-Driven;
“Apple ascended to the hallowed ranks of the Fortune 500 in shorter time than any other company in history.”
“One of Steve’s core principles is always to hire the best – ‘A-people,’ as he calls them. One of his mottoes was: ‘As soon as you hire a B, they start bringing in Bs and Cs’.”
“Steve is the Michelangelo of product creation: He’ll keep adding brushstrokes to the canvas until he is certain he has it right.”
“The new-age company has to be product-centric and operate every day as if it were a start-up.”
“Apple Stores reached the billion-dollar-a-year sales figure in their third year of operation, which was faster than any other retail operation in history.”
“Jobs had become a far better leader, less of a go-to-hell aesthete who cared only about making beautiful objects. Now he was a go-to-hell aesthete who cared about making beautiful objects that made money.”
“Steve is the world’s greatest consumer…He breathed life into the Macintosh as ‘the computer for the rest of us’.”
“Steve Jobs believes that you cannot design a product with focus groups, not when you’re trying to be truly original.”
7 – iCon Steve Jobs | Jeffrey Young and Williams Simon
iCon takes a look at the most astounding figure in a business era noted for its mavericks, oddballs, and iconoclasts. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Jeffrey Young and William Simon provide new perspectives on the legendary creation of Apple, detail Jobs’s meteoric rise, and the devastating plunge that left him not only out of Apple, but out of the computer-making business entirely. This unflinching and completely unauthorized portrait reveals both sides of Jobs’s role in the remarkable rise of the Pixar animation studio, also re-creates the acrimony between Jobs and Disney’s Michael Eisner, and examines Jobs’s dramatic his rise from the ashes with his recapture of Apple. The authors examine the takeover and Jobs’s reinvention of the company with the popular iMac and his transformation of the industry with the revolutionary iPod. iCon is must reading for anyone who wants to understand how the modern digital age has been formed, shaped, and refined by the most influential figure of the age–a master of three industries: movies, music, and computers.
Quotes from iCon Steve Jobs;
“Steve was a fighter, a competitor who believed that he knew better than anyone what was right.”
“What made his abrasive personality acceptable was that more often than not, he was right.”
“As Apple sprang to life as a corporation, two Steve Jobs traits came into focus: his drive for perfection and the twin trait of impatience.”
“Undeterred by reality, Steve was trying to bring the Apple II to life on nothing more than moxie and energy.”
“Steve had always wanted to be seen as a cool hardware impresario but he was striking out badly every time at bat.”
“If you are part of Steve Jobs’ world, you will be loyal to Steve in all things. In some cases, that has meant being sentenced to a Jobsian Siberia for life.”
“Steve has a power of vision that is almost frightening. When Steve believes in something, the power of that vision can literally sweep aside any objections, problems or whatever. They just cease to exist.”
8 – The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs
Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs’s wildly popular presentations have set a new global gold standard―and now this step-by-step guide shows you exactly how to use his crowd-pleasing techniques in your own presentations.
The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs is as close as you’ll ever get to having the master presenter himself speak directly in your ear. Communications expert Carmine Gallo has studied and analyzed the very best of Jobs’s performances, offering point-by-point examples, tried-and-true techniques, and proven presentation secrets in 18 “scenes,” including:
- Develop a messianic sense of purpose
- Reveal the Conquering hero
- Channel your inner Zen
- Stage your presentation with props
- Make it look effortless
With this revolutionary approach, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to sell your ideas, share your enthusiasm, and wow your audience the Steve Jobs way.
Quotes from The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs;
“If you are passionate about your topic, you’re 80% closer to developing the magnetism that Jobs has.”
“Find something you love to do so much, you can’t wait for the sun to rise to do it all over again.”
“New research into cognitive functioning—how the brain works—proves that bullet points are the least effective way to deliver important information. Neuroscientists are finding that what passes as a typical presentation is usually the worst way to engage your audience.”
“Guy Kawasaki, “The essence of evangelism is to passionately show people how you can make history together. Evangelism”
“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.’
9 – Design Like Apple | John Edson
Apple sees design as a tool for creating beautiful experiences that convey a point of view down to the smallest detail–îfrom the tactile feedback of keyboard to the out-of-the-box experience of an iPhone package. And all of these capabilities are founded in a deep and rich embrace of what it means to be a designer.
Design Like Apple uncovers the lessons from Apple’s unique approach to product creation, manufacturing, delivery, and customer experience.
- Offers behind-the-scenes stories from current and recent Apple insiders
- Draws on case studies from other companies that have mastered the creative application of design to create outrageous business results
- Delivers how-to lessons across design, marketing, and business strategy
Bridging creativity and commerce, this book will show you to how to truly Design Like Apple.
Quotes from Design Like Apple;
“Design is not just fairy dust. It’s hard work.”
“If you continually design quality products, then each successive one benefits from and adds to the greatness of the one that came before.”
Everything Apple does has an approachable simplicity and purity that sets it apart from most other technology companies in the world.”
“Apple sees design as a tool for creating beautiful experiences that convey a coherent point of view down to the smallest detail.”
“Never fall in love with technology for technology’s sake; technology is merely a means to creating incredible utility that appeals to people.”
“The product is now the ultimate message, and to reinforce that message the product must be of exceptionally high quality and part of a pattern of repetition.”
10 – Innovate the Pixar Way | Bill Capadogli and Lynn Jackson
In movies from Toy Story to The Incredibles to WALL-E to Up, Pixar Studios continues to set new standards for commercial and critical achievement. Pixar is a place where collaboration sets the tone for “artists and geeks” to work side by side in a spirit of mutual respect and trust. The key lies not just in who–writers, animators, directors, tech wizards, and others–makes Pixar outstanding, but in how Pixar creates the ultimate haven where creativity overflows.
In this eye-opening book, Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson, authors of The Disney Way, reveal how Pixar has reawakened the innovative spirit of Walt Disney. They explore how president Ed Catmull and chief creative officer John Lasseter and the rest of Pixar’s brain trust have built an organization on the simple philosophy that quality is the best business plan. It makes no difference if you are making a movie that takes four years or serving a customer that takes four minutes, you have only one chance to deliver that magical, magnetic, enchanting experience for your customer.
In this concise, accessible book, Capodagli and Jackson offer examples of how it’s done–and explain what it takes to get your people to achieve greatness by unleashing their power to
- Dreamlike a child . . . Have a vision, and be able to clearly communicate your objectives and goals.
- Believe in your playmates . . . Hire creative people, trust in their skills and judgment, and inspire them to trust their colleagues.
- Dare to jump in the water and make waves . . . Challenge the status quo. Encourage risktaking, but permit your people to fail, get back up, and try again.
- Unleash your childlike potential . . . Focus on the details; make quality work your business’s highest priority.
Learn not only from Pixar but also from how other leading organizations–Google, Griffin Hospital, Men’s Wearhouse, OMA (Opening Minds Through the Arts) student achievement program, Nike, Target, and the Internet shoe giant Zappos–unshackle their people’s imaginations and do outrageously great things. And by motivating your team to Innovate the Pixar Way you, too, can discover the magic that will help your business stay ahead of the competition, attract the best talent, and fatten the bottom line.
In 1993, Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson cofounded Capodagli Jackson Consulting in West Olive, Michigan. They have helped scores of organizations revamp their customer service experiences and develop innovative products, and they also have developed performance strategies to impact organizational change using Walt Disney’s “Dream, Believe, Dare, Do” success credo. Bill Capodagli is the most requested keynote speaker on the creative cultures of both Disney and Pixar.
Quotes from Innovate the Pixar Way;
“Quality is the best business plan.”
“Collaboration is critical to the process of generating ideas and solving problems in any organization.”
“A check-the-boxes approach to creativity is likely to result in blandness and failure.”
“Treat management as you would treat a customer – focus on getting them to embrace your dreams.”
“Decision-making hierarchy and communication structure in an organization are two different things.”
“Creativity demands awareness – attention to managing the failures that happen on the path to success.”
“Drawing class doesn’t just teach people to draw. It teaches them to be more observant.”
11 – The Apple Way | Jeffrey Cruikshank
The Apple Way divulges the secrets and management principles that keep Apple far ahead of the curve. Find out how to implement these and other winning strategies in your organization to trigger a technological and stylistic revolution of your own:
- Make the customer and the product king
- Balance manufacturing with delivery logistics
- Motivate and inspire people outside the company to do your marketing and public relations
- Invent new distribution channels
- Decide on your company image and stick to your guns
- Leapfrog the competition
- Learn from both successes and missteps
Quotes from The Apple Way;
“Apple has one of the most instantly recognizable brands in the world.”
“Wherever the computer is going, Apple is likely to get there first.”
“Apple’s approach over the years has been to make using a personal computer as easy and intuitive as possible – maybe out of altruism, but certainly out of the desire to sell more computers.”
“Successful innovation requires not only money and people but also a strategy.”
“To the extent that Apple has succeeded, it is mostly the result of brilliant innovations – plus some good marketing and some occasional management.”
12 – How to Think Like the World’s Greatest High-Tech Titans | Ericka Brown
Inviting readers on an unprecedented journey into the minds of twenty-four of the most creative, trailblazing minds of this or any era, journalist Erika Brown demonstrates how the world of high technology–more than any other industry–has taken a commanding lead in revolutionizing the way companies think about management, business strategies, markets, and customers. This debut volume in The Leader’s Edge Series delivers the inside scoop on exactly how titans like Bill Gates, William Hewlett, and Steve Jobs discovered and mastered new markets in record time, how they managed growth and setbacks, how they exploited competitors’ flaws, and much more. Best of all, Brown provides practical instructions on how readers can incorporate these strategies in their own business situations.
Quotes from How to Think Like the World’s Greatest High-Tech Titans | Ericka Brown;
“Steve Ballmer is my best friend.” [Bill Gates]
“Only the paranoid survive.” [Andy Grove]
“Have lunch or be lunch.” [Scott McNealy]
“It became a brand when real business people told us it was a brand.” [Jerry Yang]
“On a personal level the kind of relationship that Bill and I have must be totally unique in the business world.” [Steve Ballmer]
“We are changing the face of traditional commerce by giving power to individual consumers, as well as by allowing them to extend their buying and selling reach around the world.” [Meg Whitman]
“There were eras when having one unique idea in a lifetime was a lot. Now, you can have a new idea every day.” [David Wetherell]
“In the information revolution somebody has to build the information operating system for the people fighting the battle.” [Naveen Jain]
13 – iWoz | Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith
According to getAbstract, “This honest memoir of Apple innovator Steve Wozniak’s life runs from a childhood spent discovering how things work to his breakthrough: building the first affordable computer with a keyboard and monitor. Written in an unconventional, first-person style, this autobiography is chatty and sounds almost childlike. “Woz,” tells stories of pranks he played, people who influenced him, and the inventions he created. The first half of the book covers his life before Apple, and the second half tells of Apple’s birth as a company, and his life during and after Apple.”
Quotes from iWoz;
“The secret to life – and this is still true for me – is to find a way to be happy and satisfied with your life, and also to make other people happy and satisfied with their lives.”
“I decided the most important measure of a person was truth, and that calculations engineers made were the mark of people who lived truthfully.”
“The only reason I left my day-to-day-job at Apple is that I was enthusiastic about the idea of doing this new neat project that had never been done before.”
“To this day, I still believe engineers are among the key people in the world.”
“I designed the Apple I because I wanted to give it away to other people.”
“There’s a big difference between just thinking about inventing something and doing it.”
“Before the Apple I, all computers had hard-to-read front panels, and no screens and keyboards.”
“The Homebrew Computer Club envisioned computers as a benefit to humanity – a tool that would lead to social justice.”
Final Thoughts on Books Related About Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs, perhaps one of the greatest innovators of modern times developed a brand that flourished around the world. Steve Jobs revolutionized many industries. Throughout his childhood, he was a perfectionist that absorb throughout his adult life and career. Without any doubt, Steve Jobs left a legacy of innovation. He builds more than a technology company. He transformed industries breaking new ways of communicating. Jobs changed the future, in its literal way. The list of the best books on Steve Jobs is a compilation of lists exclusively by the author and the author’s opinions.
Do you see a book that you think should be on the list? Let us know your feedback here.
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