Walter Isaacson - Steve Jobs - A Biography

At his home office in Palo Alto, 2004: “I like living at the intersection of the humanities and technology.”

In August 2011, when Jobs was very ill, we sat in his room and went through wedding and vacation pictures for me to use in this book.

The wedding ceremony, 1991: Kobun Chino, Steve’s Sōtō Zen teacher, shook a stick, struck a gong, lit incense, and chanted.

With his proud father Paul Jobs: After Steve’s sister Mona tracked down their biological father, Steve refused ever to meet him.

Cutting the cake in the shape of Half Dome with Laurene and his daughter from a previous relationship, Lisa Brennan.

Laurene, Lisa, and Steve: Lisa moved into their home shortly afterward and stayed through her high school years.

Steve, Eve, Reed, Erin, and Laurene in Ravello, Italy, 2003: Even on vacation, he often withdrew into his work.

Dangling Eve in Foothills Park, Palo Alto: “She’s a pistol and has the strongest will of any kid I’ve ever met. It’s like payback.”

With Laurene, Eve, Erin, and Lisa at the Corinth Canal in Greece, 2006: “For young people, this whole world is the same now.”

With Erin in Kyoto, 2010: Like Reed and Lisa, she got a special trip to Japan with her father.

With Reed in Kenya, 2007: “When I was diagnosed with cancer, I made my deal with God or whatever, which was that I really wanted to see Reed graduate.”

And just one more from Diana Walker: a 2004 portrait at his house in Palo Alto.

1Raskin died of pancreatic cancer in 2005, not long after Jobs was diagnosed with the disease.

2The firm changed its name from frogdesign to frog design in 2000 and moved to San Francisco. Esslinger picked the original name not merely because frogs have the ability to metamorphose, but as a salute to its roots in the (f)ederal (r)epublic (o)f (g)ermany. He said that “the lowercase letters offered a nod to the Bauhaus notion of a non-hierarchical language, reinforcing the company’s ethos of democratic partnership.”