14 DAY TRIAL // In an interview with Walter Isaacson, author of the first official biography of Steve Jobs, Russian paper RIA Novosti asks “Why did he choose you as the author of his biography?”
The biographer reveals that Jobs’ reasons weren’t as much tied to the fact that Isaacson had written about the most illustrious human figures, but that he was also a journalist.
Jobs saw this as a key trait that would act as a green card for Isaacson’s interviews with Jobs’ family, friends, and foes alike.
“He told me that he wanted somebody who would not only be an historian but also a journalist, somebody who would talk to people and get them to answer the questions,” Isaacson said.
The biographer himself was surprised, “because I thought that he would want to have control over the book but he actually wanted it to be independent, he wanted somebody who would do a lot of other interviews,” he told interviewers.
Touching on why Jobs wanted a biography written, despite his low-key nature, Isaacson noted (for the second time since his book hit the stands) that it was his wish to have the world understand his unconventional ways.
“I think he wanted people to understand what he did and to have a full biography so his children and everybody of the world would understand what he did. So I think it was a part of his desire to leave a legacy,” he said.
Isaacson believes that “the root of [Jobs’] genius was “his ability to connect art with technologies.”
“Was Steve a genius as he is often being described or was he just a talented hard working person?”, he said. “He was not the smartest computer engineer of his time,” Isaacson stressed, “but he was able to put people's ideas together and to make them more beautiful. That was the root of his genius.”