I strongly disagree.
I got the biography for christmas this year and finished it in two days.
Having never owned a piece of apple hardware due to its closed nature and being an open source supporter myself, I was quite surprised by the joy I got from reading this book.
The honesty used by Walter Isaacson to describe Jobs was really refreshing and not expected by me at all.
I was able to draw many conclusions from this book.
For example I do not think that there is the possibility of using it as a recipe for your own success as an entrepreneur, which might be the reason of why the hn community might be undervaluing this book.
It clearly shows that Steve had many unique character traits which made him successful after all.
Most of them were negative in my eyes.
Actually he often seemed borderline insane.
When thinking about the way he treated people, the way he manipulated people, the way he thought that he knew it all and used all of those techniques in order to make those things happen, I realized that those are character traits that lie deep within and cannot easy be emulated, if at all.
As a conclusion I might add that I really respect Steve and his family for allowing such a self critical biography to be published.
I find it... weird when someone said something in HN and somebody else has to agree or disagree. It's like a blog post that requires a rebuttal or something.
Some people want to read about Steve Jobs, some don't...
And FYI, I'm not sure if reading a book on X and consider it as a recipe for your business is a good thing anyway. Nobody has replicated 37Signals success so far.
Whatever you thought about Steve, most people probably already knew that from the numerous books, articles, and whatnot written about him. And if this book exposed 10-30% more about him... well.. some people may not bother to know more...
It's not like we all must read the book or something...
Having never owned a piece of apple hardware due to its closed nature and being an open source supporter myself, I was quite surprised by the joy I got from reading this book.
The honesty used by Walter Isaacson to describe Jobs was really refreshing and not expected by me at all.
I was able to draw many conclusions from this book. For example I do not think that there is the possibility of using it as a recipe for your own success as an entrepreneur, which might be the reason of why the hn community might be undervaluing this book. It clearly shows that Steve had many unique character traits which made him successful after all. Most of them were negative in my eyes. Actually he often seemed borderline insane. When thinking about the way he treated people, the way he manipulated people, the way he thought that he knew it all and used all of those techniques in order to make those things happen, I realized that those are character traits that lie deep within and cannot easy be emulated, if at all.
As a conclusion I might add that I really respect Steve and his family for allowing such a self critical biography to be published.