BOOK 3: THE LAST CRUSADE

This week I read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and found a lot of quite interesting regarding details but overall having seen two movies about this guy it's retreading some familiar territory. That said, what really surprised me is how in-depth and rather cynical Steve Jobs' approach to marketing and business was. In a way, this is the quality I both admire and rather despise of his: his approach to selling was rooted in familiar, iconic, and artistic statements and has ultimately lead to the era of "cool" marketing, which is a huge deal but also has lead to a rather bleak view of art in the modern age. Masterpieces don't exist beyond their potential capital now. Jobs faced a fair amount of adversity (as is a common trope with these successful individual narratives in America), mostly stemming from what is believed to be his childhood feelings of being unwanted and inferiority. As a result he became an extreme individualist, feeling the ego and will were the main contributors to rational and overall sanctity in the world. This leads into what were his main competencies; his completeness of vision. In an objective view it can be said Jobs was not the greatest programmer or even an intellectual of the craft, but he was absolute in his vision and knew what he wanted based on what he felt the people needed to be sold. What was rather confusing was his death at the hands of pancreatic cancer; upon diagnosis he began moving headfirst into alternative medicines and extremely strict diets. It makes sense given his history in the whole hippie movement, but it's still rather bizarre behavior from one of the faces of American business history. The two main things I wondered about this guy were what his favorite contemporary (at the time) album because its clear he thinks highly of the power of art in my opinion. I would also ask him if he feared that the more automated and user-friendly he made his products, the closer we would live to a completely automated society without choices. He likely would've said no but I still would've liked to hear him say it. Regarding hard work, Jobs strikes me intensely as the definition of work smart, not hard. He never worked towards hardening his skills and standing in the world more than he did attempt to manipulate the forces around him to establish a strong position (usually against the will of those around him).