14 DAY TRIAL // Interviewed about his new book, The Innovators, Walter Isaacson shared his thoughts on technology and where he thinks it’s headed.
He believes Silicon Valley’s greatest days are ahead, and he sees evidence of that in the Apple Watch. Which he will buy when it comes out next year.
Making intimate connections
Isaacson is no stranger to Steve Jobs’ vision. After all, the two spent a great deal of time together just talking about Apple’s mission for what was to become one of the most widely discussed biographies ever written.
Asked if he’ll buy the Apple Watch, Isaacson replied:
“Yes. I think the Apple Watch is extraordinarily cool. Because it gets to the first part of your question, which is, ‘Where is this all heading?’ I think the narrative of my book is that instead of pursuing the mirage of artificial intelligence, in which machines will think without us, what's been particularly successful and will be in the future is making even more intimate connections between ourselves and our machines — having them much more embedded into our lives.”
He added, “Certainly when I can just tap on my watch and order up an Uber car, I think that's a leap of innovation that we would have found startling a decade ago. I think that the great innovation has been in making our technology more personal and more social.”
It’s still too early to tell if the Apple Watch will indeed be revolutionary, but the product looks promising, to say the least.
Steve Jobs’ legacy
The Apple Watch is not necessarily something Steve Jobs had envisioned. Sure, he’d thought about it. He thought about every possible way to make technology more personal, but the wrist-worn device was a project that started after Jobs passed away.
While you can’t attribute the birth of the product to anyone in particular at Apple, it’s clear that the Jobsian vision of making an intimate connection with technology still lingers at Apple.
Of Jobs, Isaacson said, “...I realized that his vision would have been just a hallucination if he had not been able to create a team around him who knew how to execute on that vision.”
“And it reinforced to me the fact that even though he was a singular and rather rough-edged individual, his great mastery was at putting together a very loyal team of collaborators who were fanatically loyal to him and to his vision and worked together creatively. And so, even with a visionary like Steve, it reminded me of the importance of collaboration and teamwork,” he noted.
The Innovators, out now
Isaacson’s new book, The Innovators, offers an in-depth look at the digital revolution with a focus on Ada Lovelace (Lord Byron’s daughter, who pioneered programming in the ‘40s), Alan Turing, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and others.
The book is currently on sale over on Amazon in various formats (Kindle, hardcover, audiobook, and audio CD).