Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

In case you couldn’t guess by the title, this is the biography of Steve Jobs. He was a co-founder of Apple, created the first truly personal computer (with graphical interfaces, the mouse, fonts, and colors), started Pixar (Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc.), and more recently worked on the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, and the iPad. Steve Jobs died at the young age of 56 this past October, and the biography was released a few weeks after.

It’s best to know a little background on Walter Isaacson. He has written the biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. I actually read half of the Einstein biography but it was too burdensome for me to finish. Steve Jobs is just as detailed and lengthy (571 pages). Every aspect of his life is covered – work, family, religion, diets, relationships. The smallest details and conversations are included. Given all of this, it took me over two weeks to finish this book.

What Steve jobs accomplished is unfathomable. Besides being one of the first to bring computers to the world, he has revolutionized so many industries: animated movies, music, phones, books, newspapers, retail stores. (Yes, retail stores. Consider this: on average, each of the 326 Apple stores earned $34 million in 2010. The store in New York earned more money per square foot than any store in the world, and it earns more money than any store in New York City - Saks, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, all of them.) His philosophy was people didn't know what they wanted: if Henry Ford asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse, not a car. Often quoted in the book is Wayne Gretzky, who said "skate where the puck was going, not where it’s been." It’s easy to describe him as a genius after reading the book, and history will place him with Thomas Edison and Henry Ford for all the he has contributed.

Steve Jobs can apply to many people. It’s not very technical, but it will certainly entertain those amused by computers and technology. There are a lot of management lessons, some that should be followed, some that should never be repeated. There are deep questions posed, such as open-sourced or closed-sourced, whether it’s good or bad to have end-to-end control. Younger readers who are energized to begin their own company will enjoy hearing the initial struggles that were overcome.

My rating for Steve Jobs: 4 stars out of 5. Get it here!

Bonus Segment: I finally watch The Help this weekend, and I wanted to leave a few comments. I thought the beginning of the movie was exaggerated and over the top, but eventually it simmered down. It did follow the book very closely. The emotions from the actresses were as real as they are in the book, although some of the dialects were tough to understand. The movie was also very long, but I still enjoyed watching it (even though it seemed really sad). Final opinion: the book was better than the movie.

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

My guess is most people have heard of Tuesdays with Morrie. It’s what I would describe as a recent classic. Morrie Schwartz was a professor at Brandeis University who was beloved by many students. As he grew older, he was diagnosed with ALS and forced to retire as his body began to shut down. An article about him in the Boston Globe prompted NBC Nightline to interview him. Mitch Albom, one of his favorite former students, saw him on television and reached out.

Mitch decides to take a break from sports reporting to visit Morrie. Their relationship is rekindled and Mitch visits again. They continue to meet on Tuesdays. Each week they discuss something different such as marriage, death, family, forgiveness, etc. Morrie has so much to share, Mitch has so much to learn, but there is little time left.

Tuesdays with Morrie is straightforward with plenty of life lessons that reads quickly. The layout of the book is smart – it’s laid out like a professor would do, with a syllabus and lessons. I will say that this is not my favorite Mitch Albom book, but I still think it is very good. He is near the top of the list of my favorite authors. His other books include The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Have a Little Faith (maybe I will feature a review on them in the future). 

My rating for Tuesdays with Morrie: 3 stars out of 5. Get it here!

The Big Short by Michael Lewis

This book is either going to interest you or it’s not. It chronicles the financial crisis of 2007-2008, explaining the subprime mortgage markets that drove the economy into recession. In my opinion, it’s very technical. Most of the vocabulary and some of the concepts will be brand new to the reader. When writing this review, I realized it’s hard to talk about the subject because much has to be explained initially. Here’s my best shot:

A subprime mortgage is one that is less likely to be repaid by the borrower. These subprime mortgages were packaged together into bonds for large investors. For example, an individual subprime mortgage could be rated triple B, but when a group of them were packaged together they were rated triple A (same as a U.S. Treasury bond). Investors wanted more of this safe investment, so more subprime mortgage loans were giving out to less and less deserving borrowers. Borrowers were offered teaser rates: low interest rates for the first 2 years then it would jump up. And little or no documentation was required, credit scores were glanced over, there were no down payments. Basically loans were given to people who had no chance of repaying once the interest rate jumped up.

No one really questioned – or understood – what was in these bond packages. How likely were they to default? What if house values stopped increasing? How could a strawberry picker earning $14,000 a year pay off a $725,000 mortgage? Who would even give a loan for that?

I’ve tried to simplify the root of the problem. But truthfully, it’s way more complicated. Products were created that held a 100 of these subprime mortgage bonds. Things got so big and out of control way too fast. Companies earned millions of dollars and wanted more. This was all too good to be true and turned into a vicious, self-destroying cycle. You wonder how everyone could be so ignorant and not question what was going on. The few people who dug into the prospectuses and questioned others realized the whole system was going to blow up. They made hundreds of millions of dollars, some even made billions.

Out of all the books I’ve read this year, this was the hardest to read. There is so much new information that I found myself re-reading page after page. And I was reading it very slowly. You have to in order to take it all in. I don’t mean any of this as criticism; I think it’s important to read the book slowly in order to understand it. The book contains a lot of facts and information. For the most part, Michael Lewis leaves out his opinions until the end. From other stuff I’ve read or seen, I think The Big Short provides the best explanation of the crisis. I am not saying this is the only thing one should read, but it offers a great starting point to understanding the basics. After reading The Big Short, you ask yourself how did they not see this coming?

My rating for The Big Short: 5 stars out of 5. Get it here!

Note: Like I said, this book will not interest everyone. I personally found it fascinating.