Insights on the writing of Steve Jobs
Walter Isaacson shares new information on his best-selling biography of the Apple founder. — FORTUNE — Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs has topped The New York Times bestseller's list for eight consecutive weeks now.
Context & Ripple Effects
The biography's commercial run has been extraordinary by publishing standards: after moving 379,000 copies Stateside in its opening stretch, Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs has now held the top of The New York Times bestseller list for eight consecutive weeks. Isaacson has been working the publicity circuit since publication, including a one-on-one interview in November, and this Fortune piece extends that campaign with new detail on how the book came together.
What keeps the book newsworthy beyond its sales is its content: Jobs told his biographer he would wage 'thermonuclear war' with Google rather than license Apple's technology to Android — a quote that reframes Apple's ongoing patent litigation, including its multitouch ruling against HTC, as the late founder's personal directive rather than mere legal strategy.
First-order effects
- Isaacson's continued disclosure of material not prominent in the published text sustains the book's news cycle into a ninth week, keeping both the title and Apple's strategic disputes in the headlines through the holiday season.
- The 'thermonuclear war' attribution gives Apple's patent war against Google a named author and motive, complicating the company's ability to frame the litigation as routine IP enforcement.
Second-order effects
- Publishers now have proof of a mass market for definitive tech-founder lives, accelerating commissions of authorized and unauthorized biographies across Silicon Valley.
- Analysts warning that the patent fight may hurt shareholders gain a counterweight: a canonical text portraying escalation as Jobs's explicit wish makes retreat harder for Tim Cook's Apple to sell internally or externally.
Third-order effects
- An authorized biography written with its subject's cooperation tends to become the default historical record — which practically guarantees that future insider accounts will be commissioned to challenge or complicate it, turning founder legacies into contested publishing franchises.
- If the pattern holds, corporate strategy documents increasingly live in biographies rather than press releases, with litigants and investors quoting founders' private words back at their successors.
The trend: Tech-founder biography is consolidating into both a commercial genre and a battlefield over corporate legacy, with authorized accounts inviting revisionist successors.