Accidental Millionaire: The Rise and Fall of Steve Jobs at Apple Computer

Rating:
Summary: Butcher is a fitting last name for this author!
Review: Great story about the early days of Apple leading up to Jobs ouster, but I think the author spends way too much time throwing in his opinion and butchering Steve Jobs. It seems as though he is bitter that Steve refused to consent to an interview with him. I think without Jobs' vision, Apple would have been nothing. The author attempts to play down the contributions of Steve Jobs to Apple; again the tone of his prose is one of bitterness. This mars an otherwise excellent book.

Rating:
Summary: Steve Jobs: tyrannical glue
Review: I cannot begin to describe how much apple computers have played a part in my life up to the present. I can still recall the days of my early childhood when I would spend Saturday mornings with my Macintosh LC. The opportunity to discover the roots of these pinnacles of computing technology was welcomed with open arms. The book begins speaking of both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak as small Californian children with a hunger for knowledge for technology. Wozniak, being the son of an engineer, had an almost instinctive approach to computing technology creating a 10 - bit calculator in his early teens. Steve Jobs, on the other hand, was more fascinated with what technology could do than how it worked. The first collaboration of Wozniak and Jobs brought about the "blue box", which was used to make free long distance calls illegally. As the two sought a more productive and legal venture, they moved on to computing technology. As the book progresses, it goes into the intense conflict between Jobs and what seems like the rest of the company of Apple computers. I used to believe Steve Jobs was the creator of everything in the early days of Apple; however, I was shown otherwise by this book. Steve Jobs actually was the man that put things in motion by inspiring an pressuring his fellow technical friends to make something of their skills and created Apple as the product of the collaboration.

I am afraid I cannot give this book a four or five star rating due to its frequent overlapping and unnecessary repetition of information. This overlapping actually makes the middle chapters of the book difficult to follow. For instance, one chapter will be talking about the apprehension of IBM's PCjr. computer in 1983 and then in the next chapter will start talking about Apple projects and company turmoil in 1982. In a book that follows the progression of company, it is important that the reader can easily identify the chronological order of the events. In spite of the many inconveniences of the writing style, I would still recommend this book to anyone interested in Apple computers or the earlier days of computers in general. I would even recommend this book to someone in a crunch to read two-hundred pages for an English class like I did.

Rating:
Summary: Steve Jobs: tyrannical glue
Review: I cannot begin to describe how much apple computers have played a part in my life up to the present. I can still recall the days of my early childhood when I would spend Saturday mornings with my Macintosh LC. The opportunity to discover the roots of these pinnacles of computing technology was welcomed with open arms. The book begins speaking of both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak as small Californian children with a hunger for knowledge for technology. Wozniak, being the son of an engineer, had an almost instinctive approach to computing technology creating a 10 - bit calculator in his early teens. Steve Jobs, on the other hand, was more fascinated with what technology could do than how it worked. The first collaboration of Wozniak and Jobs brought about the "blue box", which was used to make free long distance calls illegally. As the two sought a more productive and legal venture, they moved on to computing technology. As the book progresses, it goes into the intense conflict between Jobs and what seems like the rest of the company of Apple computers. I used to believe Steve Jobs was the creator of everything in the early days of Apple; however, I was shown otherwise by this book. Steve Jobs actually was the man that put things in motion by inspiring an pressuring his fellow technical friends to make something of their skills and created Apple as the product of the collaboration.

I am afraid I cannot give this book a four or five star rating due to its frequent overlapping and unnecessary repetition of information. This overlapping actually makes the middle chapters of the book difficult to follow. For instance, one chapter will be talking about the apprehension of IBM's PCjr. computer in 1983 and then in the next chapter will start talking about Apple projects and company turmoil in 1982. In a book that follows the progression of company, it is important that the reader can easily identify the chronological order of the events. In spite of the many inconveniences of the writing style, I would still recommend this book to anyone interested in Apple computers or the earlier days of computers in general. I would even recommend this book to someone in a crunch to read two-hundred pages for an English class like I did.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, if very biased
Review: The content of Accidental Millionaire: The Rise and Fall of Steve Jobs at Apple Computer was interesting and certainly showed me why Apple is not as large or successful as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, or Microsoft.

However, the book itself was weak; the writing was bland, the author vindictive, and the information repetitive. (For example, I think I read the same passage three times at three different points because the book is not related chronologically. The changes in time themselves are confusing, but Butcher's repeted and overzealous attacks on Steve Jobs, his company and his character only exacerbate the problem.) Additionally, I feel compelled to beleive Jobs brought something to the company; after all, how did he stay around for so long, and why was he invited back? Sure, an immense amount of luck does seem to have gone along with him, but he had to have had some kind of marketable skill beyond deciding packaging.

Overall, I'd recommend Accidental Millionaire to only the most steadfast Apple fans.

Rating:
Summary: You'll never look at Steve Jobs the same way again
Review: This book gets behind the scene to portrait Steve Jobs not just as another entrepreneur/corporate executive of Silicon Valley but more as a person. More specifically, a person with major personality flaws who was fortunately enough to get where he is today.

You'll definitely learn what not to do as a startup. It will fundamentally change the way you look at Steve Jobs - for good or bad it's up to you to decide.

It's not always the most brilliant people who wins the race. Sometimes you got be crazy and lucky to get there. Steve got there. After reading this book you'll understand why Apple never became the size of Dell, Microsoft, or Sun - of course, they don't tell you that, you just know. :-)