...FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING BIOGRAPHIES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND ALBERT EINSTEIN, THIS IS THE EXCLUSIVE BIOGRAPHY OF STEVE JOBS. Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing offlimits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and...
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...Course Technology’s Management Information Systems Instructor and Student Resources Introduction to IS/MIS Principles of Information Systems, Eighth Edition • Stair, Reynolds Fundamentals of Information Systems, Fourth Edition • Stair, Reynolds Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition • Oz Information Technology in Theory • Aksoy, DeNardis Office Applications in Business Problem-Solving Cases in Microsoft Access & Excel, Sixth Annual Edition • Brady, Monk Succeeding in Business Applications with Microsoft Office 2007 • Bast, Gross, Akaiwa, Flynn, et.al Succeeding in Business with Microsoft Office Excel 2007 • Gross, Akaiwa, Nordquist Succeeding in Business with Microsoft Office Access 2007 • Bast, Cygman, Flynn, Tidwell Databases Database Systems, Eighth Edition • Rob, Coronel Concepts of Database Management, Sixth Edition • Pratt, Adamski Data Modeling and Database Design • Umanath, Scamell A Guide to SQL, Seventh Edition • Pratt A Guide to MySQL • Pratt, Last Guide to Oracle 10g • Morrison, Morrison, Conrad Oracle 10g Titles Oracle9i Titles Enterprise Resource Planning Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, Third Edition • Monk, Wagner Data Communications Data Communications and Computer Networks: A Business User’s Approach, Fourth Edition • White Systems Analysis and Design Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, Fifth Edition • Satzinger, Jackson, Burd Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with the Unified Process • Satzinger, Jackson, Burd Systems Analysis and...
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...P A R T I Discovering Momentum 1 1 The Power of Momentum Where’s the Impetus? Momentum. Most businesses get it at some point: the impression that everything they undertake succeeds effortlessly, as if they’re being carried along by a tailwind that increases their efficiency and propels them on to exceptional growth.1 Some hold on to it. Most don’t. Slowly, imperceptibly, the tailwind turns around and the momentum disappears, without anyone quite realizing what has happened. The company is still growing, but not as strongly as before, not as efficiently. Everyone’s maxing out, but it seems like there’s molasses in the works. Sound familiar? Sooner or later, it hits you in the face. Imagine you are meeting up with a senior analyst whose opinion counts with some of your company’s biggest investors. You think you’re on safe ground—after all, your company is doing better than the competition. But the analyst is in full gimlet-eyed, illusion-killing mode. “That’s nothing to crow about,” she says. “Yeah, you’ve got reasonable growth, but it’s nothing exceptional. You’re a safe bet, nothing more. Okay, I might tell my mom to buy, but 3 The Momentum Effect then she’s happy with inflation plus one. The way we see it, you’re really grinding it out. We reckon the strain’s getting harder, too. There’s no impetus—no momentum.” Words like that can really take the gloss off a day. The next time you gather your team, you don’t congratulate them on beating their targets—you...
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...FOR BLYTHE Acknowledgments My profound thanks to three dear friends with whom I have the great luxury of working: my editor, Jason Kaufman; my agent, Heide Lange; and my counselor, Michael Rudell. In addition, I would like to express my immense gratitude to Doubleday, to my publishers around the world, and, of course, to my readers. This novel could not have been written without the generous assistance of countless individuals who shared their knowledge and expertise. To all of you, I extend my deep appreciation. To live in the world without becoming aware of the meaning of the world is like wandering about in a great library without touching the books. The Secret Teachings of All Ages ———————————— FACT: In 1991, a document was locked in the safe of the director of the CIA. The document is still there today. Its cryptic text includes references to an ancient portal and an unknown location underground. The document also contains the phrase “It’s buried out there somewhere.” All organizations in this novel exist, including the Freemasons, the Invisible College, the Office of Security, the SMSC, and the Institute of Noetic Sciences. All rituals, science, artwork, and monuments in this novel are real. ———————————— Prologue House of the Temple 8:33 P.M. The secret is how to die. Since the beginning of time, the secret had always been how to die. The thirty-four-year-old initiate gazed down at the human skull cradled in his palms. The skull was hollow, like...
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