The Second Coming of Steve Jobs - Hardcover

Deutschman, Alan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 076790432X ISBN 13: 9780767904322

Publisher: Broadway, 2000

Synopsis

From the acclaimed Vanity Fair and GQ journalist--an unprecedented, in-depth portrait of the man whose return to Apple precipitated one of the biggest turnarounds in business history.

From the emergence of Apple Computer in the late 1970s and early 1980s to its current resurgence, charismatic leader Steve Jobs has captivated the public. Both revered and reviled for his dictatorial manner and stunning successes, Jobs has transcended his legend in Silicon Valley to take on some of the heaviest hitters in Hollywood. Now, in The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, Alan Deutschman presents the most revealing portrait yet of this fascinating, complex character--an in-depth look at the many layers of Steve Jobs, a man who is at turns a brilliant cult figure and an abusive, egomaniacal kid.

This story begins back in 1985 when Jobs was exiled from Apple, and then it goes on to chronicle the rise and fall of his own company, NeXT; the enormous success of Jobs's film animation studio, Pixar; and finally his triumphant return to Apple in the late 1990s, with Jobs taking the title of CEO in January 2000. Displaying an uncanny skill at the negotiation table and an intuitive sense of brilliant design that could capture the public's fascination with products like the iMac, along with a celebrity's ability to command the spotlight, Jobs has been able to catapult himself to the top of the Silicon Valley and Hollywood establishments.

Based on interviews with scores of people--rivals, colleagues, friends--who have worked with Jobs over the years, The Second Coming of Steve Jobs gets under the hood of this extraordinarily complex man: how and why he almost gave up on his career; the details of his negotiations with Disney's Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner, and of the culture clash between Silicon Valley and Hollywood; his methods of leadership, management, creativity, and innovation; his friendship and rivalry with Bill Gates--and much more. In an unsentimental and powerful voice, Deutschman reveals a man who suffered his midlife crisis at thirty, compressing it into just three months; struggled between self-imposed exile and the allure of public life; and became the baby boomer icon who was constantly blurring the lines between businessman, rock star, and beatnik.

The Second Coming of Steve Jobs is a compelling look at an individual who has changed the face of technology and entertainment for the twenty-first century. This candid account of Steve Jobs's tumultuous and provocative career will answer the many questions left unanswered by this incredibly private character who has come to represent the Silicon Valley American dream.

About this title

About the Author

Alan Deutschman is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. For the past twelve years, he has covered business and technology. He was a correspondent for Fortune for seven years, a senior writer at GQ, and a contributing editor at New York magazine. His articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Wired, Premiere, and Fast Company. He lives in San Francisco.

From the Back Cover

"The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, a behind-the-scenes account of the
supreme showman's resurrection from high-tech oblivion to cover-story glory,
is likely to raise hackles--not to mention blood pressure--in the corridors of
Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios. It is already creating a buzz
in Silicon Valley circles."
-- USA Today

"A revealing, balanced portrait of Apple Computer CEO and founder Steve Jobs, this fast-paced business biography. . .gets closer to Jobs's inner self
than any previous attempt."
-- Publishers Weekly

"Steve Jobs becomes more interesting by the day--brilliant, cruel, passionate, idiosyncratic, equal parts pioneer and genius. Alan Deutschman's account of the return of Steve Jobs is terrific, as unsparing as it is revealing. Jobs's story in many ways mirrors the astonishing growth of personal computing, and Deutschman has told it beautifully and well."
-- Jon Katz, author of Geeks

"GREAT READ. One of the keenest observers of the business and culture of
Silicon Valley sets his sights on one of the most remarkable stories in the
recent history of Silicon Valley."
-- Fast Company

"A carefully sketched portrait of a paradoxical man. . .[The Second Coming of
Steve Jobs] reads like a novel and has the scope of Ben-Hur. And it's the
strangest of high-tech industry books--it's good."
-- Business 2.0

From the Inside Flap

laimed Vanity Fair and GQ journalist--an unprecedented, in-depth portrait of the man whose return to Apple precipitated one of the biggest turnarounds in business history.

From the emergence of Apple Computer in the late 1970s and early 1980s to its current resurgence, charismatic leader Steve Jobs has captivated the public. Both revered and reviled for his dictatorial manner and stunning successes, Jobs has transcended his legend in Silicon Valley to take on some of the heaviest hitters in Hollywood. Now, in The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, Alan Deutschman presents the most revealing portrait yet of this fascinating, complex character--an in-depth look at the many layers of Steve Jobs, a man who is at turns a brilliant cult figure and an abusive, egomaniacal kid.

This story begins back in 1985 when Jobs was exiled from Apple, and then it goes on to chronicle the rise and fall of his own company, NeXT; the enormous success of Jobs's film animation studio, Pixar;

Reviews

A revealing, balanced portrait of Apple Computers CEO and founder Steven Jobs, this fast-paced business biography is based on interviews with nearly 100 of his associates and friends. One glaring absence, however, is Jobs himself, who apparently declined to be interviewed by Deutschman, a Vanity Fair contributing editor and staff writer at GQ. Still, Deutschman provides a juicy, privileged look inside the Apple core. He reports that Jobs's recent resuscitation of Apple, to which the visionary entrepreneur returned in 1996 after being ousted by John Sculley a decade earlier, was accomplished through a "reign of terror" that shook up thousands of complacent employees. Like other commentators, Deutschman portrays Jobs as both engaging and troubling, a natural charmer who is also an abusive, egomaniacal boss fond of meting out public humiliations. But Deutschman goes further, replacing the image of the pop-culture icon with a complex, contradictory figureAan insecure elitist who yearns for the patronage of the masses, a narcissistic vegetarian billionaire who thrives on scarcity and adversity. Among the book's revelations are details of Jobs's bulimia-like eating disorders in the 1970s; his reconnection in the '80s with his long-lost biological sister, novelist Mona Simpson (Jobs was given up for adoption at birth); and his explosive negotiations with Disney honchos Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who produced the hits A Bug's Life and Toy Story with Pixar, Jobs's animation film studio. Though this gossipy bio has a slick magazine feel, Deutschman gets closer to Jobs's inner self than any previous attempt. Agent, Suzanne Gluck, ICM. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The story of Steve Jobs is a complex one, with dramatic reversals of fortune and rebounds from apparent defeat to the height of success. Deutschman, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Fortune magazine's Silicon Valley correspondent for seven years, has interviewed nearly 100 people, including Jobs's close friends, colleagues, and rivals. The work focuses on Jobs's life and career, from his 1985 exile from Apple Computers (the company he cofounded), through his return to the struggling company 12 years later as acting CEO, to his recent appointment as Apple's chief executive. During his second tenure at Apple, the company experienced a dramatic turnaround, with high profits and the tripling of stock prices. Along the way, Jobs achieved success with his animation studio, Pixar, culminating in the 1995 release of Toy Story. Jobs's personal life and relationships with family and friends are also related. This fascinating study of Jobs and of the inner workings of Pixar and Apple Computers is an important addition to both public and academic libraries.
-.DLucy Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1

Next

Andrea "Andy" Cunningham was so tired when she got home from work that she went to sleep without checking her answering machine. The following morning, around eight-thirty, she played the tape. The message was short and cryptic: Andy should show up at Steve's house at 10 a.m. for a press conference about his new company, Next.

The idea troubled her. Andy was a public relations consultant, one of the shrewdest and most insightful in the technology business. She wasn't summoned to press conferences as a last-minute thought. She was supposed to be the one who orchestrated the events following weeks of careful preparation, reflection, brainstorming, and strategizing, after thoroughly thinking through the message and exactly how it would be conveyed.

She didn't even know where Steve lived. And besides, he wasn't even her client.

She called around to get the address, then drove the five minutes from Palo Alto to the village of Woodside, which lay in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was just beyond the Stanford campus. Woodside was not far from the banal concrete sprawl of Silicon Valley but at least it felt isolated and remote, with narrow winding country roads and dozens of bridle paths but no street lamps or sidewalks. Traditionally favored by hillbillies and folksingers, it had more recently become home to a few centimillionaires, who made their money by promoting futuristic visions but, ironically, preferred to live in a semirural hamlet that evoked the romance of a lost era.

A few minutes before ten, Andy pulled through the wrought-iron gate to Steve's house. The gravel driveway was crowded with parked cars. She beheld a sprawling, dilapidated robber baron mansion in the Spanish mission style, that numbingly ubiquitous cliche of California architecture, with the de rigueur stucco walls and the sloping red adobe roofs, like tens of thousands of little anonymous tract houses throughout the valley's brutally cramped suburbs. The difference was that this crumbling monstrosity was large enough to be a real eighteenth-century Spanish mission. It had enough space for an entire order of monks to go about their daily routines.

She passed through the grand arched entrance loggia and came to a huge cavernous living room. Standing around, idle, restless, gossiping among themselves, were twenty reporters Andy knew well. The Business Week correspondent. The Newsweek writer. The reporter from USA Today. They were shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot because there was simply nowhere to sit other than the cold wooden floorboards. The living room was devoid of furniture, barren, austere, unwelcoming, a hollow decaying shell like the rest of the whole empty spooky house, the maze of echo chambers where Steve lived as a solitary bachelor. The closest thing to furnishings was a clear plastic case with an architect's carefully crafted and scaled topographical model of the property--just the lush pure mountainside land, not the presumptuous robber baron manse that Steve had never gotten around to demolishing.

Andy made her way into the kitchen. Still no furniture at all, no tables or chairs, just a few computers strewn across the floor and another bunch of people huddled together. Andy recognized them as refugees from Apple. They had worked with her on the launch of the Macintosh the previous year, in January 1984. Now they were the cofounders of Steve's new company, which was going to do . . . who knew what it would do?

Steve was on his feet, talking about what he was going to tell the reporters.

Screw John Sculley, he was going to say. Screw him!

Screw the Apple board!

We are going to change the world!

Andy was appalled. There was no news for the putative news conference. There was only Steve's impulse to express his anger, his rage, his raw hurt, his need for vindication and healing and honor. He wanted to flail out against the injustices and betrayals he had suffered. It was understandable. It was human. But this wasn't the way to do it, not the time or the place. You don't summon the cynical elite of the West Coast press corps, with their notebooks open and their cassette tapes rolling, to participate in some kind of group therapy session. This wasn't an encounter group or primal scream or gestalt or est, it wasn't some kind of 1970s Californian human-potential seminar; this was business.

At first Andy didn't recognize the man sitting on the floor right beside Steve, though she quickly surmised that this was Steve's new lawyer. He was visibly starstruck, comically awed, his mouth agape, his eyes glazed by the proximity to celebrity. He clearly wasn't in the proper state of mind to offer cautious advice. No one was telling Steve what should have been obvious, a matter of the simplest common sense. No one would confront the legendary figure and play the necessary role of tough naysayer.

Well, Andy thought, I have nothing to lose. I haven't even signed the account.

"I don't think this is a good idea," she told them flatly. Apple was suing Steve and his apostates, accusing them of stealing secrets. And they had no legal strategy for defending themselves. It wasn't going to help win public opinion if Steve treated the reporters to an impassioned tirade against Apple.

She looked at Steve with seeming disbelief at his rashness and thoughtlessness.

"Why did you let all these journalists know where you live?" she wondered aloud.

***

In the summer of 1985, when Steve Jobs was stripped of power at the company he cofounded, when his office was moved to a vacant building he called Siberia, he didn't know what to do. He was thirty years old, and he owned more than $100 million worth of Apple stock. He didn't have to work, not for the money, at least, and not for the fame. He had appeared on the cover of Time and had accepted the National Technology Award at the White House. His niche in economic history was already secure as the preeminent popularizer of the personal computer. His mention in American cultural history was certain as well. In an era when commerce was equated with conformity, when industry was seen as the staid and soulless province of balding older men, he was an unprecedented phenom. He was a businessman posing as an idealistic revolutionary, striving for social change. He was a capitalist who appropriated the rhetoric of the commune where he had lived. He was a barefooted chairman of the board who took his girlfriend to Grateful Dead concerts and quoted an entire verse of Bob Dylan lyrics at a shareholders meeting. He was a "young industrialist," as he preferred to call himself, an epithet that sounded delightfully unlikely. He was a pop-culture icon, a media hero, a role model, a sex symbol, and teen heartthrob.

Born at the midpoint of the postwar baby boom, Steve Jobs was one of the most enduring symbols of his generation, reflecting all of its virtues and failings and self-delusions. He was the figure who turned business leaders into rock stars, objects of public fascination. And like so many actual rock stars, he could have quit, or faded, after a brief, spectacular career.

Steve told his closest friends that he was thinking of cultivating his garden. He wasn't alluding to Voltaire's famous line. He didn't mean it in the metaphorical sense of exploring his own mind and spirit rather than trying to change the world. He had already explored his mind and spirit in a whirlwind of eclectic experimentation in his late teens and early twenties, when he dabbled in bizarre diets and Eastern mystics and rural communes and primal screams and hallucinogenic drugs. For that matter, he had already changed the world. No, he was thinking of cultivating his garden in the literal sense: he would devote his extraordinary intelligence and his frighteningly intense energy and his unremitting aesthetic perfectionism to planting flowers on his eight-acre plot. Rather than the finale of Candide, his scenario was more like a chapter from Atlas Shrugged, in which the world's most brilliant industrialists drop out of a society that scorns their genius; as a weird act of protest, they apply their heroic talents to conspicuously trivial endeavors. Perhaps a select few friends would eventually have the privilege of visiting his private garden, and they would think: What artistry! What unique creativity! If only those damn fools had let him keep on making truly useful things for the good of millions upon millions of people!

At times he would lay around the house, abject, depressed. One of his closest colleagues, Mike Murray, feared that Steve would kill himself. When Steve emerged from his funk, he pondered all kinds of escapist notions. He thought of asking NASA if he could fly on one of the space shuttles, maybe as soon as the following year on the Challenger. He visited Moscow, where he suspected that the television repairman who came to his hotel room unsolicited, for no apparent reason, was actually some kind of spy. Nonetheless, he considered living in Cold War Russia and promoting computers in the Soviet schools for Mikhail Gorbachev. He talked with shadowy behind-the-scenes political consultants about making a bid for a Senate seat in California. He approached the architect I. M. Pei with the idea of building a perfect new house on the Woodside property once he tore down the robber baron embarrassment. They got as far as making the scale model of the land. Impulsively he ran away to Europe, bicycled through Tuscany. He telephoned one of his loyalists at Apple, Susan Barnes, and said that he had to cancel their dinner plans for that evening because he wasn't in California, he was in the south of France, and he was thinking about staying and living there as an expatriate, assuming the pose of an alienated artist. Barnes listened and cried.

He suffered his midlife crisis at thirty and compressed it into three months, an overachiever even at personal trauma. He spent the summer flirting with romanticized notions of self-imposed exile, but ultimately he wa...

Edition details

• Publisher: Broadway
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 076790432X
• ISBN 13: 9780767904322
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336