Official histories and authorized biographies abound when the prime mythological conflict within Apple culture has been the battle between commercial and creative consumers as a reflection of its corporate culture. Yet a critically realistic approach to Steve Jobs biography as an economic history would foreground the model of managerial-worker culture that could abide off-shored factory worker deaths. Why business histories are rarely labor histories and the history of the microcomputer revolution is not necessarily the PC versus the Mac.
The latest unauthorized book about Apple co-founder Steve Jobs portrays a different side from what is often shared of the legendary entrepreneur. And this time, the story of Jobs is getting a warm reception from company executives.
"Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader," to be released Tuesday, has received support from Apple CEO Tim Cook and other executives who knew Jobs. Those same executives criticized the best-selling "Steve Jobs" released by noted biographer Walter Isaacson shortly after Jobs' death in 2011 at age 55.
"What surprised me about him always was how funny he was and pleasant," Brent Schlender, co-author of "Becoming Steve Jobs," told ABC News' Deborah Roberts. Schlender spent 25 years following Jobs, including sitting down with him in a personal audio interview in 1998.