Becoming Steve Jobs by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli
Revelatory. Deliberately covers all of Jobs' flaws from his early days at Apple, to show how he learned and grew during his years away to become the kind of leader that could save the company.
Along the way, builds a strong case for the importance of mentors, and for the very capable hands Jobs left the company in when he died.
Three things I learned:
- NeXT once had a deal with IBM to license their operating system to Big Blue, but it fell through because Steve couldn’t handle playing second fiddle
- All of the original five “Apple Renegades” that founded NeXT with Steve quit
- Toy Story spent four years in development before its premiere. Went through at least twelve different versions, including a “last minute” rewrite that delayed its release by a year.