#204 Steve Jobs (Inside Steve's Brain)

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets, they're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high, so I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today, and I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. It's hard to believe that one man revolutionized computers in the 1970s with the Apple II and the 1980s with the Mac, animated movies in the 1990s with Pixar, and digital music in the 2000s with iPod and iTunes.
Inside Steve's Brain cuts through the cult of personality that surrounds Jobs to unearth the secrets to his unbelievable results. It reveals the real Steve Jobs, not his heart or his famous temper, but his mind.
So what's really inside Steve's brain? According to Leander Kahney, who has covered Jobs since the early 1990s, it's a fascinating bundle of contradictions. Jobs is an elitist who thinks most people are bozos, but he makes gadgets so easy to use that a bozo can master them. He's obsessive with a filthy temper, but he forges deep partnerships with creative geniuses like Wozniak, Jonathan Ive, and John Lasseter.
He's a Buddhist and an anti-materialist, but he produces mass market products in Asian factories.
And he promotes them with absolute mastery of the crassest medium, advertising.
In short, Jobs has embraced the traits that some consider flaws. Narcissism, perfectionism, the desire for total control, to lead Apple and Pixar to triumph against steep odds. And in the process, he has become a self-made billionaire. In Inside Steve's Brain, Kahney distills the principles that guides Jobs as he launches killer products, attracts fanatically loyal customers, and manages some of the world's most powerful brands.
The result is a unique book about Steve Jobs that is part biography and part leadership guide, and impossible to pit down. It gives you a peek inside Steve's brain and might even teach you something about how to build your own culture of innovation.
That is from the inside cover of the book that we talked about today, which is Inside Steve's Brian. It was written by Leander, Leander Kahney. So I want to tell you real quick before I jump into the book, I want to tell you how I found this book. It's been recommended to me a few times over the years. Most recently, somebody recommended it to me. They had listened to Founders Number 178, which is the book about Jonathan Ive, and they pointed out, they're like, hey, do you know that guy has that author, rather, he wrote another book. It's this book Inside Steve's Brain. I didn't make the connection previously, or maybe I did, but I forgot about it. But anyways, that made me think of it as like, okay, you know what? I have to read that book because I thought Kahney did such a great job with the Jonathan Ive book. So when I went to buy the book, I realized that there's been an updated version, and there was an updated version, a reprint with additional chapters after Steve passed away. And I didn't want that. I wanted this to be a period piece. So this book was written in 2007 We're 10 years into the return of Steve Jobs to Apple. The iPhone has just been released. It looks very promising, but it's not a tenth or a hundredth of what it is today. And I think there's value in reading a book that's like a snapshot in time. So I've done this before. I've done six different podcasts, six different books on Jobs. Most of them are biographies. Two of them, two out of the six, where like it talks about one was the book Insanely Simple, which is Apple's approach to marketing. And it's more of like a business book, right? And then Creative Selection, which is fantastic because it's about like how Apple develops products. But the four biographies I read, I'm just going to list them in case you haven't seen them or listen to the podcast or read the books yet. Number five is Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Number 19 was Becoming Steve Jobs, The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader.