This documentary covers many aspects of Steve Jobs life but its salient features can be summarized more succinctly:
-Hundreds of thousands of people turned out to mourn Steve Job's death in 2011. Why? After all, he wasn't a prominent entertainer. He was just a CEO of a large corporation. The director (Alex Gibney) claims this was the impetus for his creating the movie in the first place.
-Steve Jobs was adopted. His biological father was a Muslim for Syria. His biological mother was from Wisconsin and of Swiss-German descent and Roman Catholic. Her father would not allow her to marry a Muslim. His step-parents were not well-to-do, but they supported his precocity.
-Steve Jobs was precocious. His mother taught him to read even before he entered school.
-Steve Jobs at an early age developed an intense interest in electronics.
-Steve Jobs befriended Steve Wozniak (the Woz) at an early age and both worked together on several projects before cooperating on their first personal computer. Steve ripped the Woz off in one of their cooperative deals even though they were friends.
-Steve Jobs read Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and proclaimed he was going to be a paradigm-shifter. One can speculate that this book may have played a seminal role in turning Jobs into a man with a mission. A driven man actually. A visionary who would turn electronics technology on its head and who was determined to see it through no matter what the cost to those around him.
-Steve Job's impregnated a young woman and had a daughter by her. He refused to help her financially and insisted the child was not his. At this time Apple was raking in a fortune from Mac sales.
-Steve Jobs was a seeker of Enlightment and sought out a Zen Buddhist monk to help him along the way.
-Steve Jobs had three ways of treating Apple employees working on his technology projects: praise them; vilify them; ignore them.
-Steve Jobs flagrantly broke the law by facilitating illegal stock options purchases through backdating for employees he wished to keep.
-Steve Jobs made electronic technology accessible to the ordinary user through a series of brilliant products-the Macintosh, the Lisa (he manipulated so that his daughter be named this to coincide with the name of this computer and not the other way around), the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad. All wildly successful and all have changed completely the way ordinary human beings interface with technology. He was astoundingly prescient in his prediction that he would carry out a major paradigm shift.
-Steve Jobs made Apple what it is. He was a brilliant marketer. He always knew exactly what tricks needed to be pulled when a new Apple product was introduced to the market.
-Apple moved its production to China and treated its employees like serfs on the estate of a feudal lord.
-Apple is now one of the largest corporations in the world.
-Hundreds of thousands of people turned out to mourn Steve Job's death in 2011 because his electronic products were made to be used by ordinary human beings. He humanized technology and created a way that millions, even billions, of human beings could communicate with other human beings. He shrank the globe.
Did he change our world forever? Most certainly a resounding Yes. Did he push people to realize what they were capable of that they themselves didn't even realize? Most certainly a resounding Yes. Did he have a streak of dishonesty in him? Most certainly a resounding Yes. Did he treat people like excrement at times? Most certainly a resounding Yes. Did he take advantage of foreign laborers? Most certainly a resounding Yes.
Who was the real Steve Jobs? Secular saint or sociopathic sinner? This movie suggests in his own unique way Steve Jobs was both. It all depends at what angle you view his life.
In summary, Jobs is a sterling example of where modernity is taking us as exemplified by his driving desire to create a new paradigm for the development of technology and which has to date succeeded smashingly well. Where it takes us, that remains to be seen.
9 out of 10. Well worth watching regardless of what you think of Steve Jobs the man.
-Hundreds of thousands of people turned out to mourn Steve Job's death in 2011. Why? After all, he wasn't a prominent entertainer. He was just a CEO of a large corporation. The director (Alex Gibney) claims this was the impetus for his creating the movie in the first place.
-Steve Jobs was adopted. His biological father was a Muslim for Syria. His biological mother was from Wisconsin and of Swiss-German descent and Roman Catholic. Her father would not allow her to marry a Muslim. His step-parents were not well-to-do, but they supported his precocity.
-Steve Jobs was precocious. His mother taught him to read even before he entered school.
-Steve Jobs at an early age developed an intense interest in electronics.
-Steve Jobs befriended Steve Wozniak (the Woz) at an early age and both worked together on several projects before cooperating on their first personal computer. Steve ripped the Woz off in one of their cooperative deals even though they were friends.
-Steve Jobs read Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and proclaimed he was going to be a paradigm-shifter. One can speculate that this book may have played a seminal role in turning Jobs into a man with a mission. A driven man actually. A visionary who would turn electronics technology on its head and who was determined to see it through no matter what the cost to those around him.
-Steve Job's impregnated a young woman and had a daughter by her. He refused to help her financially and insisted the child was not his. At this time Apple was raking in a fortune from Mac sales.
-Steve Jobs was a seeker of Enlightment and sought out a Zen Buddhist monk to help him along the way.
-Steve Jobs had three ways of treating Apple employees working on his technology projects: praise them; vilify them; ignore them.
-Steve Jobs flagrantly broke the law by facilitating illegal stock options purchases through backdating for employees he wished to keep.
-Steve Jobs made electronic technology accessible to the ordinary user through a series of brilliant products-the Macintosh, the Lisa (he manipulated so that his daughter be named this to coincide with the name of this computer and not the other way around), the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad. All wildly successful and all have changed completely the way ordinary human beings interface with technology. He was astoundingly prescient in his prediction that he would carry out a major paradigm shift.
-Steve Jobs made Apple what it is. He was a brilliant marketer. He always knew exactly what tricks needed to be pulled when a new Apple product was introduced to the market.
-Apple moved its production to China and treated its employees like serfs on the estate of a feudal lord.
-Apple is now one of the largest corporations in the world.
-Hundreds of thousands of people turned out to mourn Steve Job's death in 2011 because his electronic products were made to be used by ordinary human beings. He humanized technology and created a way that millions, even billions, of human beings could communicate with other human beings. He shrank the globe.
Did he change our world forever? Most certainly a resounding Yes. Did he push people to realize what they were capable of that they themselves didn't even realize? Most certainly a resounding Yes. Did he have a streak of dishonesty in him? Most certainly a resounding Yes. Did he treat people like excrement at times? Most certainly a resounding Yes. Did he take advantage of foreign laborers? Most certainly a resounding Yes.
Who was the real Steve Jobs? Secular saint or sociopathic sinner? This movie suggests in his own unique way Steve Jobs was both. It all depends at what angle you view his life.
In summary, Jobs is a sterling example of where modernity is taking us as exemplified by his driving desire to create a new paradigm for the development of technology and which has to date succeeded smashingly well. Where it takes us, that remains to be seen.
9 out of 10. Well worth watching regardless of what you think of Steve Jobs the man.