> Was the divestiture of their investment in ARM a mistake, looking back?
Do you think there's an even remotely interesting, non-obvious answer to that question? And do we really need Steve Jobs to answer questions about PA Semi? Is that how you would spend your limited time with Steve?
Antennagate. Isaacson chose to focus on Jobs's the response to the problem, and I thought he did a great job. It is a book about Jobs after all, and for the most part I found it fascinating.
I can recommend better books about Apple history, but there are none better about the man himself.
> Do you think there's an even remotely interesting, non-obvious answer to that question?
I'm sure of it. The answers to those kind of multi-faceted, tradeoffs no matter which direction you favor questions are precisely what provide real insight into someone's character and decision making, and precisely what Isaacson failed to pursue.
> And do we really need Steve Jobs to answer questions about PA Semi? Is that how you would spend your limited time with Steve?
Getting answers to questions that no one else could answer about what his thoughts and motivations were for making moves that still aren't really understood by many observers? Absolutely.
It would be so much better than a 600 page mess of regurgitated material from folklore.org and fluffy, uncritical overviews of the last ten years.
Take the App Store. Isaacson devotes all of a couple of sentences to mentioning that Jobs was initially against it, but was talked around to the idea. He completely squanders a fascinating exploration of Apple, Jobs, the myth of Jobs as font of all of Apple's good ideas, and the dynamics of one of Apple's most critical successes in the last few years. What were his objections then, and what are his thoughts on it now? Who talked him into it, and how did that play out? How did they approach the idea once Jobs was convinced?
We get no investigation, no insight, nothing of value. Just a declarative sentence from Isaacson stating the obvious, and it's on to the next facile overview.
Do you think there's an even remotely interesting, non-obvious answer to that question? And do we really need Steve Jobs to answer questions about PA Semi? Is that how you would spend your limited time with Steve?
Antennagate. Isaacson chose to focus on Jobs's the response to the problem, and I thought he did a great job. It is a book about Jobs after all, and for the most part I found it fascinating.
I can recommend better books about Apple history, but there are none better about the man himself.