Ok, that’s it. Walter Isaacson wins.
I already wanted to read his book on Steve Jobs (called ‘Steve Jobs,’ it’s out tomorrow) before I read the story in The New York Times last week and learned how Jobs chose not to be “invaded” by surgery when he was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Seriously tragic.
But then I saw the segment on “60 Minutes” on Sunday, and was riveted to hear about how Jobs chintzed his early collaborators out of stock options. (“You put in zero and I’ll put zero,” he suggested to a guilt-ridden colleague, as I recall.) There were tapes of Jobs speaking candidly, and who could resist soaking up every word?
I felt somehow I had connected to this book.
But then on my morning ocean run, I heard him again – Isaacson interviewed on National Public Radio. Enough already, I started to think.
Still, I couldn’t seem to turn off the story about how Jobs went searching for his birth parents, and learned he had a sister, Mona Simpson. Then how she went looking for their Syrian-born father, a former restaurateur in Silicon Valley, but never told him that Steve Jobs was his son.
What a story, I thought. But an hour later I was driving to work and heard the story again, when Isaacson was interviewed on “Marketplace.” I was starting to feel full, even a bit overfull.
I went through the day at work, and managed not to hear much more from Isaacson. But on my way to a business dinner, there was the “Marketplace” interview airing again, and then a pause for a teaser for the upcoming “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross.
Her guest? Walter Isaacson.
Normally I’d be really annoyed to have to hear a journalist drone on with the same stories from every single news outlet that I listen to in a single day. I’ve heard again and again about Jobs’ “reality distortion” and “magical thinking.”
But I can’t seem to get enough. He’s a hero, a genius. But no, wait, he’s a total jerk. Wait, he’s a revolutionary. Wait he’s a petulant child. No, he’s mystical, an artist. Not at all – he’s a tyrant.
I heard from Walter Isaacson at least five times today and I’m actually not bored yet.
But now it’s late, and I’m pretty tired. I’m ready for my dose of cynical humor.
I’m a little late to the program, and tune in just in time to hear a familiar voice: “You can code this in four days not four months,” Walter Isaacson was telling Jon Stewart. “He made people believe they could do the impossible.”
Walter, did you really skip Stephen Colbert?