|
|
|
Apple's Jobs: Reinventing
the brand
|
|
|
To
a world that's used to thinking of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs
as the archetypal Silicon Valley wunderkid, the iCon must come
as a shocker. Exhaustively researched and brilliantly narrated,
the Jobs biography is an exercise in demystification of one of
tech world's most celebrated entrepreneurs. In its pages, Messrs
Young & Simon, both long-time Valley watchers, lay bare the
real Jobs. Even in the petty, weird and paranoid world of tech
mavericks, Jobs stands out. He is a man not half as talented as
his older friend Steve Wozniak, but incredibly self-assured to
the point of being conceited; he's a man who doesn't think twice
about lying or cheating if it helps him; a man who wouldn't even
own up to fathering a child that he had. Hardly anybody's idea
of a tech innovator, much less a tech revolutionary that many
consider Jobs to be.
So is Jobs a sham? A pretender in blue jeans
and turtleneck? An interloper in Silicon Valley? Hardly. If despite
being a technology ignoramus-well, almost-Jobs has gone on to
become a living legend, it is because he had (and, clearly, continues
to have) what some of the other geniuses in the Valley, including
Wozniak, lacked: an eye for business and the charisma and drive
to get the most talented, but idiosyncratic, engineers to deliver
on his near-impossible vision-even if that was borrowed from someone
else to start with. As the authors write, "Steve could infuriate
his employees but at the same time stand on a pedestal as the
creator of the dream and the culture, the crusader leading the
charge. He was the guy who kept the Apple polished."
|
|
ICON
STEVE JOBS
THE GREATEST SECOND ACT IN THE HISTORY OF BUSINESS
By Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon
John Wiley & Sons
PP: 359
Price: Rs 1,098
|
The authors narrate numerous
instances where Jobs, a hard-charging orphan who's worth $250
million by the time he's 25, manages to pull Apple out of seemingly
impossible situations because of his ability to seize on a big
picture and galvanise the organisation towards it. Take the case
of Apple Macintosh. After hand-picking the team and housing it
in a separate building, Jobs gives it just one year to bring the
computer to the market. Never mind that some of the features,
like graphical display, the Macintosh offered had never been attempted
before. It's a different story that after its initial success,
the Macintosh tanked.
When Jobs leaves Apple in 1984 after an aborted
bid to oust CEO John Sculley, a man he himself had helped rope
in from Pepsi, he's still only 30-very rich (by the standards
of the early 80s) and very angry with the world. He has a simple
plan: "He would launch an entirely new company, hire the
best and the brightest-a crew of superstars from Apple-and show
the world that it really was Steve who was the heart and soul
of Apple". But his new company, NeXT, and its fancy computer
(Cube) prove to be a non-starter. By a quirk of fate, Jobs finds
himself back at Apple. By 1995, the company he had helped co-found
is in trouble. Sculley has been gone for two years and IBM PCs,
sporting Microsoft Windows, are beating the hell out of Apple.
It's clear that Apple needs a White Knight. And Jobs, a master
showman and despite a budding business in Pixar, is determined
to be it. By the end of 1995, Apple decides to buy Jobs' NeXT
for $377.5 million in cash and 1.5 million Apple shares.
But the Jobs that takes over as CEO in 1997
is very different from the one that left it more than a decade
ago. Now more than 40 years old, he brings a more mature head
to the company and is focussed on innovations, not revolutions.
Write the authors: "It was the old Steve, but with a fair
number of his good ideas from the early days still intact. He
was going to trust his instincts, drive a small group to outdo
themselves, and capture the consumer mindshare with panache, style,
and a handful of innovations, not revolutions." The rest,
as they say, is history. Jobs reinvigorates Apple by leading the
launch of a series of best-sellers: the iMac, the iBook, and more
definitely, the iPod, which hasn't just proved to be a runaway
success, but emerged as the coolest cultural icon of the new millennium.
In fact, if there's anything in the book one feels cheated about
it is that the authors haven't dealt with the iPod story with
the same thoroughness they bring to the Jobs story up to that
point. Needless to say, expect a sequel.
|
|
THE ULTIMATE NEW YORK BODY PLAN
By David Kirsch
McGraw-Hill
PP: 256
Price: Rs 966
|
When Heidi Klum, Linda Evangelista
and Liv Tyler go ecstatic about your book in backcover blurbs,
you can be sure you have a winner. In The Ultimate New York
Body Plan, David Kirsch, fitness trainer of the rich, famous
and glamorous, offers a 14-day body plan comprising fat burning
and cardio-sculpting exercises that promise to change not
only your body, but also your life. As long as you stick to
the programme and, of course, the diet suggestions he recommends.
It's not easy. Kirsch's plan involves 45 minutes of cardio
sculpting moves along with 45 minutes of high-intensity
cardiovascular exercise (like running, cross-training, power
walking, climbing, etc.) every day. That is, a good hour-and-a-half
of exercise every day. What's cardio sculpting? It's Kirsch's
programme of 35 high-intensity exercises done in sequence.
According to him, it is a "unique heart-pumping, sweat-inducing
calorie and fat incinerator". His cardio sculpting
exercises typically involve compound muscle movements like
squats, donkey kicks, complex push-ups, etc. Think shadow
boxing with dumb-bells in your hands or jumping jacks where
you combine them with dumb-bell presses to work your shoulders.
Now imagine 35 such exercises in sequence, done with very
little rest in between. Get the picture?
 |
|
Heidi Klum
|
Some of Kirsch's cardio sculpting moves are serious heart-pumpers:
ball tucks, pikes and push-ups to T-stands. The last is
where you start off by doing a push-up and then instead
of coming back to the usual start position, you do a T-stand
on one hand. Tough.
The second part of Kirsch's book is on the nutrition plan
that has to complement the exercises. Kirsch has an A, B,
C, D, E and F rule. These are extreme sacrifices and if
you want a great body, Kirsch says you have to eschew these.
Like Alcohol (it's a complete no-no), Bread (they're loaded
with carbohydrates), (starchy) Carbs, Dairy (most of it
is loaded with lactose), Extra sweets and most Fats. To
help you along, Kirsch also has some interesting recipes.
And, at least in print, they seem tasty.
Kirsch has a no-nonsense, breezy style of writing and
is a good motivator. And like many of his clients, he's
become a celebrity himself. His TV show, Extreme Makeover,
is a hit and so is his Madison Square Club and books. But
as anyone who's embarked on a fitness regime knows, getting
a good guide or trainer may be important, but ultimately
it's up to the individual who takes up the exercise.
-Muscles Mani
|
|
