Reading Reflection No. 1

Reading: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

1) In my reading about Steve Jobs, there were a number of different things that surprised me about him. Many of these had to do with his earlier life and career, for instance the fact that he once was sent to a juvenile detention facility for making a fake bomb, as well as his struggles with LSD addiction later in life. Unfortunately, I do not think there are very many qualities in Steve Jobs that are particularly admirable, but if I had to pick one it would be his stringent need for perfection in everything he did. This commitment was incredible and something that is rarely seen, but the admiration I have for this quality is certainly dampened by the way he treated others because of it. The thing I least admired about Jobs relates back to this. Jobs had a tendency to treat the people closest to him very poorly, be it his adopted parents, whom he refused to allow to visit him while he attended Reed, or his friends and loved ones later on in life. Jobs certainly did encounter adversity throughout his long and distinguished career, but I think much of what he encountered was ultimately caused by his own tendencies towards mistreatment of his supporters and the like. He did power through these adversities, but this often came at the expense of his personal relationships.

2) The primary competency that Jobs exhibited, though there were very many, was an understanding of, passion for, and skill with the technical, a skill that he took to artistic levels. This, as well as his understanding of what consumers wanted and needed out of his products, brought a new level of depth to the technology industry. In many ways, Jobs shaped much of what we see in the technology market today. The sleek designs and user-friendly interfaces are ideals that Apple strove for before any other, and it left its mark.

3) I did not find the reading to be confusing at all for the most part, although early on in the book when Isaacson provides some history of Jobs' adopted and biological parents, the order in which he introduced them confused me. I assumed a chronological approach that would have placed Jobs' biological parents in the earliest pages of the book, despite the importance of his adopted parents in shaping him as a person. After some outside research, however, I understood that section of the book much better.

4) The two questions I would ask of Steve Jobs would be relatively personal ones, but ones that I think would illuminate much about his character. The first would be to ask him what he thinks his greatest contribution to human culture was, and where it ranks among the thousands of other things that have been invented and occurred to make humanity what it is today. The second thing I would ask him would be was it all worth it? Was all of the conflict and contention between him and those who cared about him, and the hurt that he inevitably caused some of them, worth it given the achievements that he made? I think these questions would really give me an understanding of Jobs beyond any others, and even more importantly give me an understanding of how he viewed himself and his achievements.

5) I think Jobs' opinion of hard work was that it was vital to achieving perfection, and that hard work should be placed above all else in pursuit of ones ideals and goals, even if the personal costs may be steep.