{"id":415,"date":"2011-12-31T12:43:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-31T17:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slowchurch\/?p=415"},"modified":"2011-12-31T13:32:50","modified_gmt":"2011-12-31T18:32:50","slug":"iceo-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slowchurch\/2011\/12\/31\/iceo-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"iCEO: Part One"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\nThe last great book I read in 2011 will be Walter Isaacson\u2019s biography of Steve Jobs. This is the first of two planned posts about Steve Jobs<\/em>, consisting mostly of random thoughts about the book. Part Two will come next week.<\/p>\n

1. Steve Jobs<\/em> is a valuable book, if we let it be. For all sorts of folks: business leaders, church leaders, lay people, writers and artists, consumers and producers, everyone.<\/p>\n

2. Isaacson follows Jobs from his early childhood (he was given up for adoption at birth) and precociously brilliant teenage years, to the creation of Apple, his fall from the top, the success of Pixar, Jobs\u2019s re-ascendence at Apple, and his final battle with cancer. Isaacson conducted more than 40 interviews over two years with the famously private Jobs, and he describes the moral, technological, and business failures, as well as the \u201cpassion for perfection and ferocious drive,\u201d that determined the shape of Jobs\u2019s success\u2014success that would revolutionize six industries (personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing).<\/p>\n

3. Jobs was always a visionary and a kind of craftsman. But in his drive to \u201cmake a ripple in the universe,\u201d he could also be cold, tyrannical, volatile, and manipulative. There are a lot of people in Jobs\u2019s life in the first half of Isaacson\u2019s biography who aren\u2019t there in the second half of the book.\u00a0I love my MacBook, but it\u2019s worth less than all the broken relationships that lay scattered in Young Jobs\u2019s wake. I think we make a ripple in the universe every time we are kind to an adversary, are gentle in the presence of suffering, labor for justice, and promote the flourishing of our own neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

4. It is helpful to supplement Isaacson\u2019s biography with clips from Season 20, Episode 8 of The Simpsons<\/em>. (Fun fact: Steve Jobs\u2019s biological sister, the writer Mona Simpson, was once married to Richard Appel, a writer on The Simpsons<\/em>. That\u2019s why Homer\u2019s mother\u2019s name is Mona.)\u00a0I watched this clip after reading the section about Apple\u2019s iconic \u201cThink Different\u201d<\/a> campaign:<\/p>\n