Steve Jobs was a legend, and I think Walter Isaacson had a tough enough job trying to tell his tale. And then Jobs died, and the media made him into a god, so the Jobs job got even harder. I was looking forward to reading this book, and I was mostly pleased with what I found inside the covers: A reasonably honest story of a man who rose from humble beginnings and became the king of the tech world, only to fall to earth, and then claw his way back to the top, achieving heights that nobody ever has before. And he did all of this without compromising who he was at the core… which was oddly enough: more than just a bit of an asshole.
There are so many telling moments in this book. Stories of Jobs insulting famous people or engineers who’s names will be lost to history. Battles over the shape of a calculator application, or fans inside cases. Heists of ideas from Xerox. A great number of these stories are a bit of tech legend. Others are new and interesting. All aim to define a relatively private guy, who came from an adoption, abandoned a daughter, and created multiple billion dollar companies that each truly changed the world.
Nothing gets me into the theater faster than a good sci-fi premise, and the one at the core of In Time is about as good as they come. Considering the massive marketing budget this film had, you probably know it already, but in case you are allergic to trailers, in this world humans are genetically engineered to stop aging at 25… and after that, minutes are currency. The rich are immortal, and the poor live day to day. And if it sounds like it might play out a bit heavy handed, you’d be right. But you have to keep in mind that writer/director David Niccol is responsible for Gattaca and The Truman Show, both of which are solid movies, with the combined subtlety of a shotgun at 3 feet.