The best podcasts featuring Steve Jobs

Walter Isaacson is an author of biographies on Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, and many others. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(10:42) – Difficult childhood
(27:47) – Jennifer Doudna
(30:44) – Einstein
(36:02) – Tesla
(53:07) – Elon Musk’s humor
(57:17) – Steve Jobs’ cruelty
(1:00:41) – Twitter
(1:12:50) – Firing
(1:15:35) – Hiring
(1:24:38) – Time management
(1:32:22) – Groups vs individuals
(1:36:08) – Mortality
(1:39:40) – How to write
(2:00:38) – Love & relationships
(2:05:33) – Advice for young people

We're sharing Kara’s September 2022 conversation with Tim Cook, Sir Jony Ive and Laurene Powell Jobs on the life and legacy of Steve Jobs. It’s one of Kara’s favorite conversations of the year, and one in which she cried (though she denies it).

Kara handpicked this trio to join her for her final Code interview. Cook, the CEO of Apple, worked with Jobs for decades and succeeded him as CEO. Ive, now co-founder of the creative collective LoveFrom, collaborated with Jobs on the design many of Apple’s game-changing products, like the iPod and the iPhone. And Powell Jobs, the founder and president of Emerson Collective, was married to Jobs for 20 years. In this wide-ranging conversation, they cover design, ethics and, of course, Kara’s favorite topic: death.

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What I learned from rereading Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli

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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com

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[3:11] His mind was never a captive of reality.

[5:16] A complete list of every Founders episode on Steve Jobs and the founders Steve studied: Steve Jobs’s Heroes

[7:15] Steve Jobs and The Next Big Thing by Randall Stross (Founders #77)

[9:05] Steve Job’s Commencement Address

[9:40] Driven and curious, even when things were tough, he was a learning machine.

[10:20] He learned how to manage himself.

[12:45] Anything could be figured out and since anything could be figured out anything could be built.

[14:10] It was a calculation based on arrogance. — The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen (Founders #255)

[18:00] We were no longer aiming for the handful of hobbyists who liked to assemble their own computers. For every one of them there were a thousand people who would want the machine to be ready to run.

[17:40] He was a free thinker whose ideas would often run against the conventional wisdom of any community in which he operated.

[19:55] He had no qualms about calling anyone up in search of information or help.

[20:40] I've never found anybody who didn't want to help me when I've asked them for help.

I've never found anyone who's said no or hung up the phone when I called. I just asked.

Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask.

[21:50] First you believe. Then you work on getting other people to share your belief.

[24:55] All the podcasts on Edwin Land:

Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #263)
A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein (Founders #134)
Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #133)
The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experienceby Mark Olshaker (Founders #132)
Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid (Founders #40)

[25:00] My friend Frederick’s newsletter I was interviewed for

[30:20] He was an extraordinary speaker and he wielded that tool to great effect.

[31:00] Never underestimate the value of an ally. — Estée Lauder: A Success Story by Estée Lauder. (Founders #217)

[32:50] If you go to sleep on a win you’re going to wake up with a loss.

[33:00] Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson (Founders #140)

[34:20] Software development requires very little capital investment. It is basically intellectual capital. The main cost is the labor required to design and test it. There's no need for expensive factories. It can be replicated endlessly for practically nothing.

[38:10] He cared passionately and he never dialed it in.

[39:45] To Pixar And Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History by Lawrence Levy (Founders #235)

[42:58] Time carries most of the weight.

[43:30] People that are learning machines and then refuse to quit are incredibly hard to beat. Steve jobs was a learning machine who refused to quit.

[44:17] Steve Jobs and The Next Big Thing by Randall Stross (Founders #77)

[49:40] Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull

[50:30] There were times when the reactions against Steve baffled Steve.

I remember him sometimes saying to me: Why are they upset?

What that said to me was that he didn't intend to get that outcome. It was a lack of skill as opposed to meanness. A lack of skill of dealing with other people.

[55:50] Creative thinking, at its best, is chalk full of failures and dead ends.

[56:40] Successful people listen. Those that don’t listen don’t last long. —Michael Jo...

Tim Cook, Sir Jony Ive, and Laurene Powell Jobs unpack the life and work of Steve Jobs, the legendary Apple co-founder who changed consumer technology forever. Jobs was a regular guest at Code conferences, appearing at the first All Things D in 2003. Over the years on the Code stage, he predicted the end of the PC era, bantered with his arch-rival Bill Gates, and famously denied— and later teased— plans for the iPhone. Now, he’s remembered by three luminaries who knew him best: Cook, his protege and successor; Ives, who translated his ideas into iconic designs; and Powell Jobs, founder of Emerson Collective and Jobs’ wife of 20 years, until his death in 2011.

Recorded September 7, 2022 in Los Angeles.

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