FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING BIOGRAPHIES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND ALBERT EINSTEIN, THIS IS THE EXCLUSIVE BIOGRAPHY OF STEVE JOBS.

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.
Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

Walter Isaacson has written has a short essay about the genesis of his Steve Jobs biography. Here are some extracts.

In the early summer of 2004, I got a phone call from him. He had been scattershot friendly to me over the years, with occasional bursts of intensity, especially when he was launching a new product that he wanted on the cover of TIME or featured on CNN, places where I’d worked. But now that I was no longer at either of those places, I hadn’t heard from him much. We talked a bit about the Aspen Institute, which I had recently joined, and I invited him to speak at our summer campus in Colorado. He’d be happy to come, he said, but not to be onstage. He wanted, instead, to take a walk so we could talk.

That seemed a bit odd. I didn’t yet know that taking a long walk was his preferred way to have a serious conversation. It turned out that he wanted me to write a biography of him. I had recently published one on Benjamin Franklin and was writing one about Albert Einstein, and my initial reaction was to wonder, half-jokingly, whether he saw himself as the natural successor in that sequence. Because I assumed that he was still in the middle of an oscillating career that had many more ups and downs left, I demurred. Not now, I said. Maybe in a decade or two, when you retire.But I later realized that he had called me just before he was going to be operated on for cancer for the first time.

Walter also describes his last meeting with Steve

A few weeks ago, I visited Jobs for the last time in his home. He had moved to a downstairs bedroom because he was too weak to go up and down stairs. He was curled up in some pain, but his mind was still sharp and his humor vibrant. We talked about his childhood, and he gave me some pictures of his father and family to use in my biography. As a writer, I was used to being detached, but I was hit by a wave of sadness as I tried to say goodbye. In order to mask my emotion, I asked the one question that was still puzzling me: Why had he been so eager, during close to 50 interviews and conversations over the course of two years, to open up so much for a book when he was usually so private? “I wanted my kids to know me,” he said. “I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.” Barnes & Noble vp of marketing Patricia Bostelman echoes the thoughts of many booksellers: "We think its the biggest adult nonfiction book of the year."

两年多的时间，与乔布斯40多次的面对面倾谈，以及与乔布斯一百多个家庭成员、朋友、竞争对手、同事的不受限的采访，造就了这本独家传记。

《史蒂夫?乔布斯传》是史蒂夫?乔布斯唯一授权的官方传记，在2011年上半年由美国出版商西蒙舒斯特对外发布出版消息以来，备受全球媒体和业界瞩目，《史蒂夫?乔布斯传》的全球出版日期最终确定为2011年11月21日，简体中文版也将同步上市。史蒂夫?乔布斯是一位极具创造力的企业家，史蒂夫?乔布斯有如过山车般精彩的人生和犀利激越的性格，充满追求完美和誓不罢休的激情，史蒂夫?乔布斯创造出个人电脑、动画电影、音乐、手机、平板电脑以及数字出版等6大产业的颠覆性变革。史蒂夫?乔布斯的个性经常让周围的人愤怒和绝望，但其所创造出的产品也与这种个性息息相关，全然不可分割的，正如苹果的硬件和软件一样。两年多的时间，与史蒂夫?乔布斯40多次的面对面倾谈，以及与史蒂夫?乔布斯一百多个家庭成员、朋友、竞争对手、同事的不受限的采访，造就了这本独家传记。 史蒂夫?乔布斯的故事既具有启发意义，又有警示意义，充满了关于创新、个性、领导力以及价值观的教益。

乔布斯其人：
史蒂夫?乔布斯（Steve Jobs），1972年高中毕业后，在俄勒冈州波特兰市的里德学院只念了一学期的书；1974年乔布斯在一家公司找到设计电脑游戏的工作。两年后，时年21岁的乔布斯和26岁的沃兹尼艾克在乔布斯家的车库里成立了苹果电脑公司；1985年获得了由里根总统授予的国家级技术勋章；1996年，苹果公司重新雇用乔布斯作为其兼职顾问；1997年9月，乔布斯重返该公司任首席执行官。1997年成为《时代周刊》的封面人物；2009年被财富杂志评选为这十年美国最佳CEO，同年当选时代周刊年度风云人物之一。

沃尔特艾萨克森最近写了一部关于天才史蒂夫乔布斯的传记，下面是这部传记的一些摘要。

在2004年的初夏，我接到乔布斯的一个电话，他很友好的对我谈了他这些年来的一些事情，中间偶尔他的话语很激动，当谈到发布新产品时自己上了《时代》封面杂志和被邀请到CNN的时候。那时我曾经在这两个地方都工作过，而现在没有了，所以现在很久没有听到关于他的消息了。关于阿斯彭学院我们曾经谈论了很多，这个学院我最近刚刚加入，并邀请他去我们科罗拉多州分校演讲，他很乐意接受我们的邀请，他说，他更喜欢一边散步一边交谈而不是在演讲台上。

这似乎很奇怪，我不知道他为什么更喜欢用散步的方式来谈论严肃的话题。最后我才知道他是想让我给他写一部传记。我最近出版了一本关于弗朗克林本杰明的书，现在正在写一本关于阿尔伯特爱因斯坦的传记，我开始的反应认为他只是是好奇，或者半开玩笑，是否他认为自己的成功只是自然而然的结果，因为我认为他仍在事业的起伏不定的阶段中，未来还有很多的故事。如果再过十年或者是二十年，他的传记需要重新写过。但是后来我才知道他的想法，因为他曾给我一个电话说准备去做一个治疗癌症的手术。

沃尔特也讲述了他最后一次见到乔布斯的情景

一些星期之前，我最后一次在他家进行工作拜访，他已经搬到楼下的卧室里去了，因为他太虚弱了不能上下楼梯，他在痛苦者蜷缩着，但是他的思维非常的敏捷，他的幽默依然很生动。我们谈论他的童年时光，她给了我一些他父亲和家庭的照片让我用在他的传记中。作为一个作者，我习惯了客观公正的情感，但是这一次却被一种凄哀涌上了心头，我试着尽早说再见为了掩饰我内心的悲痛。我经常问自己一个困扰的问题：为什么他在这两年里近50次谈话和采访中向我吐露这么多只为了一本书，要知道他以前是一个不愿意向别人提及自己私人生活的。他说：“我想让我的孩子了解我，因为我不经常在他们身边，我想让他们理解我所做的一切。”

许多图书销售商说，这是今年最受成年人欢迎的一本非文学类作品