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Rating: 
Summary: Possibly one of the most annoying books I've ever read
Review: For a book that claims to be a history, sort of, this has to be the least accurate and most biased history in, well, history. By the end of practically every page I found some point which was bugging me, from being arguable at best, to downright wrong, to obviously omitting important facts at worst.For instance, Stross spends an entire chapter devoted to a glowing review of Sun Microsystems. This is arguably in order to have some sort of contrast with NeXT. No small part of the chapter is devoted to a description of the new low-cost SparcStation, which he describes in order to provide a counterexample to Job's overpriced machines. He re-iterates this point on several other occasions thoughout the book. Missing fact #1: the SparcStation cost MORE than the NeXTcube. This vitally important point is not mentioned even once. Want another example? He continually talks about how NeXT was non-standard and thus doomed, whereas Sun's standards-based machines were much better off that NeXT, or even other non-standard machines like the Apollo. It's so OBVIOUS that you have to be standards based, it's not even worth talking about! I mean duh, who would question that?! Missing fact #2: all three were originally based on the same hardware (680x0 CPUs) and similar software (Unix versions). If anything it was Sun that went "non-standard" when they switched their CPU and OS. The whole book is like this. I don't mean in a small way, I mean it in the largest possible way. I disagreed with almost every point he made, whether it be the "realities" of the computer market as he saw it, or practically any technical detail he attempted to describe. Stross seemed to be incapable of understanding any issue, no matter how large, small, technical or non-technical. It left me gasping. Ignore the technical innaccuracies though, because they appear to be a side-story to the book's "real point". The "real point" seems to be that Jobs is incompetant at everything, egotistical, and mean. The book is filled with little anecdotes and Steve doing this (something stupid) or that (something mean), painting a very nasty picture of a man Stross implies has only a single quality: being in the right place at the right time. Hey, he might be right, but I'll never know. I was so turned off by the continual negative vibe of this book that after a few chapters in I basically didn't trust a word he said. This isn't a history, or even a "cautionary tale". It's character assasination.
Rating:
Summary: History proved this guy wrong
Review: I wish I could give this book less than one star. The author obviously hates Steve Jobs and chose to include accounts only by others that hated Steve Jobs and convince a publisher that could be the basis for a book.
But... history has proven that Randall Stross' assessment couldn't have been more wrong. He paints Jobs as incompetent and lucky and that time is proving him the failure-loser that he really is. I wonder if Stross is working on a sequel. The book was released in 1993. I found it especially interesting that he delighted in a story of Steve Jobs negotiating with a NeXT customer who tried to paint Jobs as a failure by virtue of his ownership of Pixar where the customer's husband had worked. Jobs had bought Pixar from George Lucas, headed it in a new direction and look where it is now--could there be a more successful company.
Stoss continually points out the inevitability that NeXT will crash and burn, but again history proves that Stross is probably the world's worst prophet. NeXT was purchased by Apple for around $300 million and Jobs return to run Apple has turned the company from issuing bonds to stay afloat to a thriving, innovative company with almost $5 Billion in the bank--this is failure?
The list of contrived reasons to hate Jobs and prove his failures is the entire basis for the book. It's not interesting when one concludes that it's all made up. I surmise that this guy (Stross) didn't have a grasp on anything related to the story--one can only conclude that this is pure fiction and very poor fiction at that.
Rating: 
Summary: So Long Ross, and thanks for the millions
Review: It could be that this author, who has written some very readable and penetrating stuff about Microsoft, ran into a problem when writing about Jobs. Jobs comes across as so negative, confused, and just plain destructive that Stross's book leaves a bad taste in your mouth. But this is still a very worthwhile book, and contains some good lessons, which Ross Perot learned were very expensive lessons: 1. Don't invest in someone just because they're cool, or at least cooler than you. Alpha-Nerd Perot sees a TV special on Steve Jobs, and exclaims how Jobs is "Mr. Excitement" or some such superlative. He promptly plunks down huge money to invest in the "Next" computer, which is portrayed as revolutionary hardware. But no one really knows up front what they're investing in. So what, it makes Ross feel like he can transform some of that hard-scrabble, uptight crew-cutness of his into hip, long hair, do-drugs California investing. 2. Watch the press releases. The big bomb that's hidden in a press release discloses that Next has dropped it's hardware business, and will now be developing innovative software. Which bombed. So Ross went in investing in one thing, and came out investing in something else. 3. Cool people scream a lot when things get uncool. The rest of the book is the typical tantrum about Jobs acting hard-to-manage.
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