Becoming Steve Jobs, by journalists Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, was hailed by Apple as the most accurate and fair representation yet of its famed founder.
Now that the book is out, early impressions and lists of interesting tidbits from the book are hitting the internet, and while many mine the tome for evidence of Jobs' softer side or insights into the way he ran his company, others shine light on a new set of anecdotes that describe the Apple founder's infamous short temper.
Here are five recurring highlights.
"F*ck Neil Young"
We all know Neil Young is a purist when it comes to high-quality audio – with the singer-songwriter recently entering the market with his own high-sample-rate music store and device called Pono – and this naturally put him at odds with Apple when it launched the iTunes music service.
Young incurred the wrath of Steve Jobs when he publicly stated his displeasure about iTunes' sound quality. Young later tried to smooth things over by offering the gift of a collection of his records on vinyl, a gesture which Jobs apparently did not appreciate. In the new book, one of the authors recalls relaying the offer to Jobs, to which the Apple founder replied: "F*ck Neil Young, and f*ck his records. You keep them".
Jobs was really a spoiled brat
While many armchair psychologists have speculated that Steve Jobs' infamous grumpiness and obsessive nature stemmed from resentment over his being adopted, Schlender and Tetzeli tend to disagree.
The authors describe a privileged upbringing in which Jobs' parents indulged his every whim to the extent that they could afford, even going so far as to move house after he begged to go to a better school: "[He] was really nothing more than a spoiled brat. Brilliant, precocious, and meticulous, he had always gotten his way with his parents, and had brayed like an injured donkey when things didn't turn out as he planned."
Saving Gil Amelio from himself
When Jobs returned to the helm at Apple after a long absence he took over from Gil Amelio, a man widely ridiculed for Apple's failures during his tenure as CEO. One of the failed ventures was a handheld PDA called the Apple Newton. In 1998, Amelio attempted to buy the Newton assets back off Apple, a move Jobs rejected and called "a sick joke".
"I can be mean, but I could never be that mean," Jobs is quoted as saying in the book. "No way I would let him further humiliate himself – or Apple."
Jobs gave Disney CEO heads-up on cancer
In 2006 Apple and Disney announced the $US7.4 billion sale of Pixar to Disney, but half an hour before the announcement Jobs confided in Disney CEO Robert Iger about his deteriorating health. He had "a fifty-fifty chance of living five years," Jobs said, giving Iger the option to pull out of the deal.
"My kids don't know. Not even the Apple board knows. Nobody knows, and you can't tell anybody," Iger remembers Jobs telling him.
Rejecting Tim Cook's offer to donate liver
One of the most extensively reported details of the new book has been that current CEO Tim Cook offered Steve Jobs part of his liver in 2009, but Jobs declined. ""He cut me off at the legs, almost before the words were out of my mouth," Cook said. " 'No,' he said. 'I'll never let you do that. I'll never do that.' "
Cook has pointed out that the story shows the "disservice" previous biographies have done in describing Jobs as a "greedy, selfish egomaniac". Meanwhile Bloomberg columnist Justin Fox theorises that Jobs' action had less to do with selflessness and more to do with the fact he knew Cook would be instrumental to carrying his beloved company forward in the years to come.
Fairfax Media
