"Innovation. That's what Steve Jobs drove for thirty-five years, from 1976 until his death in 2011. Spotting the potential of the computer mouse, digital animation, and the smartphone, he helped launch Apple's Macintosh, Pixar's Toy Story, and the iPhone, inspiring millions to follow his vision for the future: Think Different. How did Jobs do it? How did he revolutionize tech, not once but continually? To find out, I visit engineering teams at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California."
"Snooping nosily around their sunny offices, I ask if they can share Jobs's secret to innovation. In response, they laugh. They tell me that Apple has lost the secret. If I want to find it, I should go read a biography of Jobs. The most useful one, they tell me, is by Walter Isaacson."
"Leaving Cupertino, I immerse myself in Isaacson's biography. It's rich with extraordinary anecdotes. But its central thesis is the opposite of what I expect. According to Isaacson, Jobs was not himself exceptional. He was a tweaker who made minor mods to other people's great ideas. There was nothing profoundly inventive about him."
"The mystery's solution appears early in Isaacson's biography, during one of its remarkable stories. The story begins when Isaacson asks Jobs to explain how he transformed from a conventional suburban kid to a driver of change. Jobs responds by crediting his teenage encounter with William Shakespeare's King Lear. Isaacson, naturally, is fascinated: "I asked [Jobs] why he related to King Lear... but he didn't respond to the connection I was making, so I let it drop.""
Steve Jobs drove innovation across decades, spotting the potential in the computer mouse, digital animation, and the smartphone to launch Macintosh, Toy Story, and the iPhone. Apple engineers remember a secret to that creativity but say the secret was lost inside the company and point readers toward a narrative about his life. A prominent biographical account portrays Jobs mainly as a tweaker who refined others' inventions rather than originating them. Engineers reject that reduction, arguing Jobs' uniqueness shows through many stories. A revealing episode points to Jobs crediting a teenage encounter with Shakespeare's King Lear for a personal transformation.
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