CNN technology writer Mark Milan has released a new book on Steve Jobs, taking a look at hundreds of emails between Jobs and people who wrote to his email address at Apple.
The book, “Letters to Steve: Inside the E-mail Inbox of Apple’s Steve Jobs,” includes full transcripts of many never-before-published email messages, as well as commentary on how Jobs portrayed himself through his responses.
“Letters to Steve” is available immediately through Amazon as a Kindle book for $2.99 (link), and at that price, I’d say it’s well worth picking up for anyone interested in gaining more insight into Steve Jobs.
Amazon.com description:
Through his incredible foresight and technological mastery, Steve Jobs touched billions of people’s lives around the world over several decades. He attracted a cult-like following that lined up to buy the computers and gadgets produced by Apple Inc. Over the years, people discovered the e-mail address of Jobs and took to regularly sending him messages. That he often responded was as unusual as his leadership style and his processes for crafting hit products.
Mark Milian, a technology writer for CNN, has reviewed more than a hundred of these e-mails, compiled from those posted by fans to blogs and online message boards. Some never-before-published e-mails from Jobs were shared exclusively for this book. As a whole, these correspondences provide a behind-the-scenes and inside-the-mind account of Jobs’ final and most triumphant years. During this time, he returned to Apple and led the beleaguered computer maker from the brink of bankruptcy to becoming the most valuable technology company in the world, while also managing Pixar Animation Studios, an innovative production company that rocketed the Walt Disney Company into a new era of family films.
This book is based on interviews with many of the customers and fans Jobs communicated with. These tales reveal the intricacies of how Jobs portrayed himself as likable and accessible through direct interaction with fans. He handled customer-service inquiries himself and carefully revealed hints about upcoming Apple products, guaranteeing headlines on blogs. However, some of these letters, when analyzed, provide a glimpse into his “reality distortion field,” in which he lobs insults, bends the truth and uses misdirection in order to manipulate anyone on the receiving end. This book has been self-published in digital form, and is not associated with or endorsed by CNN.
