Focuses on Jobs' personality, petulance

A "lightly edited" but complete transcript of the interview between Fortune Senior Editor Adam Lashinsky (who is currently writing a book on Steve Jobs and Apple) and Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson, which was conducted at a Commonwealth Club of California meeting on December 15th is now available. The transcript shows that the talk focused on darker elements of Jobs' personality and Apple's business decisions, a topic Lashinsky will be exploring in his own book.

Lashinsky and Isaacson, who know each other well and have worked together before, began the talk by fixating on Jobs' sometimes "petulant" manner, including a lengthy discussion of small instances of rudeness like Jobs cutting in the cafeteria line. While not defending such behaviors, Isaacson attributed such moments to a sense of privilege combined with an intensity and drive of urgency that also had benefits for both the people around Jobs and the company.

Isaacson did rebut Lashinsky's strong condemnation of Jobs' rudeness in part, pointing out that while Jobs could be inconsiderate and even cruel to subordinates, these were personal engagements of rudeness rather than large-scale acts of evil. Isaacson pointed out that to fixate on such incidents compared to "a world where people intentionally made collateralized debt obligations with junk in it that destroyed people's earnings, and they still get celebrated" was perhaps not in keeping with the proper perspective. "This is not evil, this is just being a tough, petulant person. If you want real evil, there are people in this world who still get on the cover of Fortune magazine, who really do bad things," he added to audience laughter and applause.

Lashinsky presses the point, however, asking if the seemingly-random acts of boorishness that pepper Isaacson's bio of Jobs are important to shaping a business. Isaacson deflected the comment by saying that in his view such ill-tempered outbursts and abuse aren't the sign of a good boss, but that his book isn't a handbook on being a good boss, or trying to sanction such behavior in those who want to be the "next" Steve Jobs. "That's your book," he quipped to Lashinsky.

In response to a question about whether Apple can successfully carry on in the long term without someone like Jobs at the helm, Isaacson was unable to fully defer, eventually admitting that he felt that the spectrum of experience and talent that Jobs had cultivated in the current executive team were fully capable of continuing to foster the kind of innovation Jobs had inspired, but in a different way. Elements of Jobs' tougher characteristics as well as his softer side had both translated into certain business practices at the company, he said. Current CEO Tim Cook is seen as an equally tough negotiator, for example, and Apple has thus far continued its "war of attrition" against Google and other companies in areas where it feels its own intellectual property has been appropriated.

The interview also revealed a bit further how hopeful Jobs was that his doctors would continue developing targeted drug therapies that would help him live a bit longer. Isaacson mentioned that Jobs told him as late as this summer that he thought new therapies would emerge that would let him "hop to the next lily pad" and keep outrunning the terminal nature of his illness.

Jobs did manage to beat the odds on his survival rate compared to the average of similar patients with pancreatic cancer, but as pointed out in the biography may have made a fatal error by delaying treatment after his initial prognosis for a period of nearly a year while trying alternative therapies.

The pair also touched on Jobs' more emotional side, including Isaacson's frequent (some would say constant) references to Jobs crying in numerous situations throughout the incidents portrayed in the book. Even in retelling Isaacson the story of how he and Lee Clow collaborated on the writing of the "Here's to the Crazy Ones" speech, Jobs would well up -- an attribute Isaacson credited to his artistic temperament and appreciation for beauty and purity.

The conversation turned to Jobs' relationship with Bill Gates, including Gates' embrace of philanthropy and Jobs' seemingly lack of interest in the topic. Isaacson clarified somewhat his widely-reported comment that Jobs didn't discuss philanthropy by painting it more as something, like his family life, that he was reluctant to discuss rather than something he did not ever engage in. Though he rarely publicized it, Jobs did on rare occasion give to charitable causes, or allow Apple to be involved in select benevolent endeavors such as Bono's (product) RED campaign.

Asked about Laurene Powell, Jobs' widow, by a member of the audience, Isaacson was more circumspect. While praising Powell, he didn't elaborate on Jobs' parenting or their marriage beyond what was said in the biography, and repeatedly added that he didn't want to be said to be speaking for them.

The conversation wound down with more trivial questions such as what font was used for the book (Caslon), a recounting of Jobs' displeasure with the original title and cover (the publisher had proposed "iSteve" with a picture of Jobs in an apple-shaped frame with a candy-red cover), and how Isaacson had written the book (he mostly used Macs, but occasionally used PCs, relying on Dropbox to store the manuscript so he could work on it remotely). He said he had usually worked on the book during the latest hours of the evening and early morning, when nobody would call.

Also in response to audience questions, Issacson said that more of the actual interview tapes may come to light in the future, but that he would have to spend time considering it. He also reiterated that he had additional material (along with some corrections) that he would like to see added to future editions, such as reactions following Jobs' death.

Isaacson was asked about his intended next project, and started by saying he'd still like to do a long-planned biography of Louis Armstrong, but hadn't "cracked it" in terms of getting into Armstrong's mind and personality. He then mentioned a desire to profile Ada Lovelace, an early female mathematician and computer programmer (she was the daughter of Lord Byron and worked on Charles Babbage's early Analytical Engines).

Though not widely-known, Isaacson seemed to be interested in trying to use her story to foster greater interest in computers and technology among women, noting that "women have been left out for a long while of engineering and the sciences, and when you leave out a large part of the population, things change when suddenly they become part of it."

Isaacson's own daughter, who had first made him aware of Ada Lovelace, told him once that all biography is really autobiography; that the biographer inevitably paints his subject as an idealized version of some element of the biographer's own personality. When his daughter asked him how he was going to portray Steve Jobs early on in the book's genesis, he replied "I don't know -- a bratty kid who likes to connect art and technology."

Summing up now that the biography was out, he said of Jobs, "He took a company 90 days away from bankruptcy in 1997 and by the day he retired it was the most valuable company on Earth. He also cut in front of people in the cafeteria line." The audience applauded the line. [Photo by JD Lasica via Flickr]

by MacNN Staff