His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership and values.
Walter Isaacson, the author, had more than 40 times interviews with Steve Jobs in two years to accumulate sources. He wrote this book to show how Steve Jobs connects creativity with technology in personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing and digital publishing.
At the chapter 1, Walter introduces Steve's childhood mainly in two aspects: Silicon Valley and School so that readers will keep in mind Steve's creativity and speciality since Jobs was a child.
Silicon Valley
Clara, his adoptive mother, loves the sun and sea in San Francisco and requested to settle down here in 1952. Paul Reinhold Jobs and Clara Hagopian adopted Jobs in 1955 and made a pledge, in the request of Steve's biological mother, to afford Steve to at least finish college education. Since then abandoned, chosen and special became part of who Jobs was and how he regarded himself.
In Silicon Valley, Steve was influenced deeply by his father, Erichler and the spirit of entrepreneur.?
1. Paul, his father, crafted the backs of the cabinets and fences properly, even though they were hidden;
2. Erichler, the designer of Jobs's homes, instilled Jobs a passion for making nicely designed products for the mass market;
3. Silicon Valley is a place where all the military companies on the cutting edge, full of mysteries and high-tech. Steve grew up here and got inspired by the history of the place, that made him want to be a part of it.
School
Steve had been taught by his mother before he went to elementary school and was quite excellent at those courses. Therefore, he was much bored of school courses in first to third grades. He played pranks to classmates and teachers to counter his boredom. Teachers in Monta Loma Elementary were impossible to control him and asked him switch to another school.?
Imogene Hill, one of the saints of Steve Jobs, accepted him and offered him lollipops ?after he handled difficult math and physical books. Jobs was quite clever to solve them and scored a higher grades as a sophomore at the fourth grade. He skipped to sixth grade in Cupertino-Sunnyvale School District.?
Larry Lang, the engineer, taught Steve the regiments of electronics. Larry offered a Heathkits to Steve so that Steve acquired the ability to make things by himself. Larry took Steve to Hewlett-Packard Explorers Club where a group of fifteen or so students who met in the company cafeteria on Tuesday night and they would get an engineer from one of the labs to course and talk about what he was working on.
Steve's AP English teacher looked like Ernest Hemingway and took a bunch of students snowshoeing in Yosemite. Steve got the sensitivity of literature since then. Steve learned electronics which was taught by John McCollum, a former Navy pilot.
個人理解：
在喬布斯剛剛去世的那個十月，和他相關的報道總是引起大家的討論，和他相關的書籍長期霸占了熱銷榜，他的智慧和帥氣，令人難以忽視。我對他最初的好感來自他寫給妻子的情書（引發了一眾翻譯熱潮），以及那篇畢業演講。Stay hungry, Stay foolish。喬幫主這個帶有武林大俠的稱呼，也把他繼續神話。這么一個理性而感性的genius, 人們都是喜歡追捧而贊揚的。
當年初Elon Musk這本書開始熱銷，人們又再次想起Steve Jobs，習慣性地將這兩位硅谷傳奇創業者進行比較。自年初就打算看得兩本書，還是挪到了這個九月才開始。后面的筆記中也會提到兩者的異同處。
看完了第一章，有兩點深刻體會：
1. 父母的支持和鼓勵。當Steve被鄰居小朋友質疑他的養子身份時，他的父母告訴他：“No, you have to understand... we specially picked you out“；當他的學校老師因為他層出不窮的惡作劇而質疑喬布斯的能力時，他的父母認為：“look, it's not his fault. If you can't keep him interested, it's your fault.” Both of his parents knew the school was at fault for trying to make him memorize stupid stuff rather than stimulating him；當喬布斯因為所在的小學日日打架要求父母為他轉學時，他們尊重了喬布斯的決定，即使這個要求需要他們更加努力地工作；當喬布斯參加俱樂部同他人交流學習心得時，他的爸爸總是會開車接送他，因為離家遠。他們認可喬布斯的聰慧和支持他的個人發展，不停地強調，you are special. 就像是愛因斯坦的母親對看起來不怎么合群的孩子的無條件鼓勵一樣，喬布斯的父母無條件的愛和支持，給予喬布斯最好的成長環境。
2. 環境。喬布斯生活在硅谷。他對電子感興趣，而他身邊都是一群從事科研工作的人，不論是街角的Larry還是整個硅谷的創業環境，都讓喬布斯對creativity, precision, perfection不陌生，甚至這些都逐漸成為他的本能，本能地追求這些。喬布斯在發明時發現少了必要零件，多次直接打電話給某某公司老板，同他們交談獲得需要的材料。他生活在硅谷，一個尊重人才，尊重智慧而不是盲目崇拜authority的地方。而他本人，not disposed to accept authority。
