Comment by JKCalhoun
18 hours ago
I bailed on the official bio when I got to the part where Jobs is (belatedly) crediting his adoptive father with showing young Steve the importance of (paraphrasing) "giving as much attention to the parts of the product that the customer will never see".
It was clear at that point that this would be a Jobs-directed bio and I saw no point in continuing to read that.
I think it was about the back of a cabinet, and that attitude certainly exists in woodworking. It's reasonable for learning to appreciate that as an adolescent to have a big impact on a person.
And even if that book were fully dictated by Steve Jobs, it can still be valuable to know what such a person thinks (or claims to think) about things.
I'm not denying that the sentiment exists—but everything ever written about Jobs and his relationship with his adoptive parents has shown Steve to have been dismissive of them.
This 11th hour "coming to Jesus" for Jobs where suddenly he's heaping praise on them… smelled off to me.