What I learned from reading Inside Steve's Brian by Leander Kahney.
It's hard to believe that one man revolutionized computers in the 1970s with the Apple II and the 1980s with the Mac.
Animated movies in the 1990s with Pixar and digital music in the two thousands with iPod and iTunes.
Inside Steve's brain cuts through the cult of personality that surrounds Jobs to unearth the secrets to his unbelievable results.
It reveals the real Steve Jobs, not his heart or his famous temperature, but his mind.
So what's really inside Steve's brain?
According to Leander Kaney, who has covered jobs since the early 1990s, it's a fascinating bundle of contradictions.
Jobs is an elitist who thinks most people are bozos, but he makes gadgets so easy to use that a bozo can master them.
He's obsessive with a filthy temper, but he forges deep partnerships with creative geniuses like Wozniak, Jonathan Ive, and John Lasseter.
Hes a Buddhist and an anti materialist, but he produces mass market products in asian factories, and he promotes them with absolute mastery of the crassist medium advertising.
In short, Jobs has embraced the traits that some consider narcissism, perfectionism, the desire for total control to lead apple and Pixar to triumph against steep odds.
And in the process, he has become a self made billionaire.
In Inside Steves Brain, Connie distills the principles that guides Jobs as he launches killer products, attracts fanatically loyal customers, and manages some of the worlds most powerful brands.
The result is a unique book about Steve Jobs that is part biography and part leadership guide and impossible to pit down.
It gives you a peek inside Steves brain and might even teach you something about how to build your own culture of innovation.
That is from the inside cover of the book that we talked about today, which is inside Steve's brain.
It was written by Leander Connie.
So I want to tell you real quick, before I jump into the book, I want to tell you how I found this book.
It's been recommended to me a few times over the years.
Most recently, somebody recommended it to me.
They had listened to founders number 178, which is the book about Jonathan Ive, and they point it out.