Jobs revealed to author Walter Isaacson the reason why he decided to have a bio published

Oct 7, 2011 14:08 GMT  ·  By

Simon & Schuster is rushing the release date of Steve Jobs’ biography to October 24th, following the recent death of the Apple-co founder.

The book spans over 40 interviews with Jobs, and over 100 with some of his closest friends and family members, but also some of his rivals.

‘Steve Jobs: A Biography’ had already garnered massive interest when publisher Simon & Schuster announced it earlier this year.

Authored Walter Isaacson (who also wrote a biography on Albert Einstein), the book  took the number 1 spot on Amazon’s bestselling list soon after Jobs’ death on October 5th.

Isaacson had had the chance to carry out two more interviews with Jobs shortly before and after his resignation as Apple CEO.

Describing his last visit with Jobs, the writer worked up an essay for Time magazine. An excerpt from that piece can be found below:

"A few weeks ago, I visited Jobs for the last time in his Palo Alto, Calif., 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'.