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Inside Steve's Brain | 
| Author: Leander Kahney
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy New: $16.29
You Save: $7.66 (32%)
Rating:  25 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.2 x 5.4 x 1.2
ISBN: 1591841984
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.761004092
EAN: 9781591841982
ASIN: 1591841984
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Steve Jobs has turned his personality traits into a business philosophy. Heres how he does it.
Its hard to believe that one man revolutionized computers in the 1970s and 80s (with the Apple II and the Mac), animated movies in the 1990s (with Pixar), and digital music in the 2000s (with the iPod and iTunes). No wonder some people worship him like a god. On the other hand, stories of his epic tantrums and general bad behavior are legendary.
Inside Steves Brain cuts through the cult of personality that surrounds Jobs to unearth the secrets to his unbelievable results. It reveals the real Steve Jobsnot his heart or his famous temper, but his mind. So whats really inside Steves brain? According to Leander Kahney, who has covered Jobs since the early 1990s, its a fascinating bundle of contradictions.
Jobs is an elitist who thinks most people are bozosbut he makes gadgets so easy to use, a bozo can master them.
Hes a mercurial obsessive with a filthy temperbut he forges deep partnerships with creative geniuses like Steve Wozniak, Jonathan Ive, and John Lasseter.
Hes a Buddhist and anti-materialistbut he produces mass-market products in Asian factories, and he promotes them with absolute mastery of the crassest medium, advertising.
In short, Jobs has embraced the traits that some consider flawsnarcissism, perfectionism, the desire for total controlto lead Apple and Pixar to triumph against steep odds. And in the process, he has become a self-made billionaire.
In Inside Steves Brain, Kahney distills the principles that guide Jobs as he launches killer products, attracts fanatically loyal customers, and manages some of the worlds most powerful brands.
The result is this unique book about Steve Jobs that is part biography and part leadership guide, and impossible to put down. It gives you a peek inside Steves brain, and might even teach you something about how to build your own culture of innovation.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 20 more reviews...
 Great book about the world's best product developer July 17, 2008
Per Hakansson (San Francisco, CA)
A very inspiring book about Steve Jobs' product development process. Jobs brilliance lies in his strive for perfection, his clear vision and his ability for ruthless prioritization. Loved the book!
One of the most inspiring books I read recently July 16, 2008
Simon Vostry (Prague, Czech Republic)
This book is not only about Steve and Apple, but about an attitude and approach. I got greatly inspired by it and was supprised how much influence in little details still Steve has in Apple. And those little details make Apple so successful lately.
For any enterpreneur, this book is an absolute must.
 The literary equivalent of a fast food meal July 8, 2008
Andrew Currie (Toronto, Ontario Canada)
Pretty unimpressed with this fluff piece of Apple fandom... There are a few typos and a number of facts are re-stated several times, possibly as filler?
Definitely giving this one a fail.
 Fun book for people who don't follow the Mac history very closely June 30, 2008
Adam C. Schwenk (Chicago, IL USA)
I recently finished reading this on my Kindle, thanks to the author for providing a digital version on my request. He asked me to provide a review so here's my feedback:
I think this book was a fairly solid attempt at a large overview of the Steve Jobs phenomenon. It's clear that the author has immense respect and love for the man that has created so many visually stunning tech products. The book gives a well-rounded perspective on how Steve's mind works and provides great bulletpoints at the end of each chapter to allow the user to attempt to "think like Steve," which I thought was very clever.
Having said that, there is a very large amount of repitition occuring in the book that could have been resolved with a decent editor. It just seems unncecessary to copy/paste, verbatim, pieces of information that have been provided earlier in the book. Also, there isn't particularly much depth to the information, which I assume is kind of the point...the focus is on the reader take-away rather than on how "awesome" Apple really is.
Finally, I felt the book ended rather abruptly. I'm not saying he should add fluff, but it did need a good conclusion that ties all the pieces of the novel together and provides a narrative for the man and his methods.
 Inside Steve's Bladder June 30, 2008
Keith Otis Edwards (Dearbron, MI United States)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
It's a curious fact that, unlike previous advances in communications technology, the computer revolution has produced only one real celebrity. As movies, radio and TV came along, each spawned dozens of superstars, but with computers, electronics and the Internet, it's only Steve Jobs. Yes, we know who Bill Gates is, but he is regarded only as some fabulously wealthy tycoon -- similar to Warren Buffett or C. Montgomery Burns. But soon, there will be more celebrity profiles written about Steve Jobs than about Elvis or Marilyn Monroe combined.
Unfortunately, such books are seldom literary masterpieces, and "Inside Steve's Brain" by Leander Kahney seems thrown together to make a quick buck. It contains little information that has not seen print many times, and it's certain that Steve Jobs, always wary of the press, provided no more cooperation to Leander Kahney than he would to "Tiger Beat."
Marketed as a sympathetic look at Chairman Steve, the book dishes no dirt. There's no dish at all. Instead, we get yet another history of Apple Computer, a history of Pixar, an interview with Apple's senior vice president for industrial design, Jonathan Ive, the same accounts of the releases of the iPod and the iPhone that you read in the newspaper, and a fulsome testimonial to the Apple Stores. All this may be of interest to someone who is very young or who has just returned from a long journey to a distant galaxy, but the rest of us already know what Jobs said to John Sculley to lure him away from Pepsi Cola. (Hint: something about selling sugar water.)
In the place of any new information, Mr. Kahney relies on traditional techniques used by schoolboys who must submit a book report for a book they didn't quite read -- padding and repetition and padding and also repetition, a remarkable amount of repetition.
For instance, on page 142 we learn that "When Jobs hired Ron Johnson from Target to head up Apple's retail effort, he asked him to use an alias for several months lest anyone get wind that Apple was planning to open retail stores. Johnson was listed on Apple's phone directory under a false name, which he used to check into hotels."
In case the reader has forgotten this information by page 207, we are again told, "At first Johnson couldn't tell anyone he was working for Apple. He used the alias John Bruce . . . and a phony title to stop competitors from getting wind of Apple's retail plans."
Readers who give serious study to this book will certainly wish to use their yellow highlighters on the amazing fact that the Apple Stores are, ". . . not too big and not too small." Those who have been too timid to enter an Apple Store will be glad to learn on page 203 that, "There's no pressure to spend any money, and the staff is happy to answer any question." And those who are unable to form any short-term memories will be delighted to learn on page 204 that, "There is no pressure to spend, and the staff is friendly and helpful." A sentence later it is revealed that, "Apple's stores are no-pressure hangouts where the customers can play with the machines . . ." All of which makes one relieved that Apple has enough sense not to hire such a hack to write the copy for its ads.
If you have been misinformed and assume that people are interested in computers as furniture, Leander Kahney provides a lightning-bolt of a revelation: "Customers rarely buy computers for the hardware alone; they're more interested in the software it can run." This stuff's gold, people, gold! But as for Apple's iLife suite of applications -- iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand-- "They haven't proven to be killer apps."
So if the book is nothing but threadbare history of Apple and a panegyric to the pressure-free marvel of Apple Stores, why is it called "Inside Steve's Brain"? Because the glory contained inside is that Leander Kahney ends each chapter with a list of "Lessons from Steve," and these are surely the most inspiring truisms you've ever read. Perhaps you'll want to copy these onto flash cards and carry them in your hat band:
*Seek out opportunities.
*Don't worry where the ideas come from.
*Don't be afraid of trial and error.
*Embrace the team.
*Don't lose sight of the customer.
*Concentrate on products.
*Seek out the highest quality.
*Don't force it.
*Find an easy way to present new ideas.
Each of these "Lessons from Steve" (none of which were ever spoken by Steve, of course) is so inspiring that any one of them could replace the "Work Smarter, Not Harder" sign in your cubicle. If he is capable of dispensing such scintillating wisdom, surely "Wired" magazine is too lowly a station for a man of Leander Kahney's talents. I believe it's only a matter of time until he moves up to a medium most suited to his gift with words: say, the covers of matchbooks, washing instruction tags on garments, the safety warnings which begin the owner's manuals of cheap appliances.
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