To put it simple, any book about Steve Jobs will be interesting. The guy was a visionary, amazing leader, shrewd businessman, rebel and corporate at the same time, and it goes on. So both books have a great topic to start with.Tetseli´s book came out just last month, and it was supposed to make a big fuss as the true side of Steve Jobs. It didn´t happen, and I´ll tell you why. Tetseli tried really hard to portray Steve as better person than Isaacson did, a guy who became more mature with time. However, it just seemed as a “correction” from the previous version. But it didn’t look real. There aren´t enough primary sources and interviews to back this nice guy thesis. Tetseli cites people like Jon Ive and Lasseter, and of course they love Jobs, they made their life out of Job´s visions, but he forgets to quote his family, or Woz, or Markkula. You´re pretty much just seeing one side of Jobs, and that´s the pretty one.

Just to be clear, I love Jobs, and our world is better because of him, but Tetseli’ story just didn’t fly. Not too grappling either. Its a more limited book.

Isaacson, on the other hand, has a love and hate relation with Jobs’ biography. He puts it all there: the good, and the bad, the ugly and the pretty, the failures and the victories. It´s better researched, with much more content. You get a much better feel of Jobs, his accomplishments and the way he accomplished all he did by reading this version. You get to know more about him as a person by the way he opens up the relationships with his family, co-workers, ex-coworkers and shareholders of Apple. This version looks more real and a lot more interesting.

Since I didn´t know Jobs personally, I can´t tell you for sure which version is closer to reality. What I do know, is that Isaacson´s biography is much more entertaining and has a lot more punch to it.

Go for Isaacson´s, no doubt about it.

Mr. George