Hollywood and the computer industry seem to have much in common. Aside from the fact both headquarter in California, each relies on razzle-dazzle and larger-than-life egos to grab headlines. This is why Stross' analysis of the shortcomings of Steve Jobs' NeXT is so striking: he delves beyond the newsprint and the speeches and the glamorous events to underscore reasons for the business' failure. This impartial account of hubris, however, leaves space for some balanced conclusions: the founder's insecurity, the company's inability to listen to customers, the glitz factor, and budgetary misdemeanors all contributed to the pending demise of NeXT. With accuracy (and without cooperation from the company), he unfolds historical details and personalities involved, in the end evoking some understanding of the guy who just couldn't shoot straight. Barbara Jacobs
From Kirkus Reviews
A searing portrait of Steve Jobs, the California boy wonder who--having co-founded Apple Computer in his garage in 1979--went on to make a ``bid of entrepreneurial history'' with a $600-million disaster of a high-end, high-tech company called NeXT. Stross (Business/San Jose State; Bulls in the China Shop, 1991--not reviewed) seems to have a passionate dislike for Jobs, whose stake in Apple won him widespread notoriety--and a great fortune. According to the author, college-dropout Jobs's main talent was self-promotion; in business, he was technically unskilled and was ``considered an incompetent manager of at best'' by Apple, where, in 1985, he was stripped of his duties by a CEO he himself had hired. After that debacle, Jobs sold his Apple stock and, in 1985, announced the formation of NeXT--whose purpose was no less than to ``build computers to change the world.'' Such was Jobs's aura of genius and infallibility that--without design specifications, a market, or any software for his promised new computer--he garnered significant backing from Ross Perot, IBM, and Canon. Jobs proceeded to make every management mistake Apple had made, and without producing the fabulous machines that had compensated at Apple: Instead of building a computer, he built lush new private offices, staffed them with 400 technicians and salespeople, and adopted a secretive, nearly paranoid, stance toward competitors and the press. By the time the pokey, limited, expensive, and not entirely reliable NeXT Cube computer appeared, two years behind schedule, in late 1988, the high-stakes technological race had gone to the swifter Sun Microsystem and IBM; a second generation of new and improved NeXT boxes did nothing to change the situation in 1991, when the company abandoned manufacturing. Stross's treatment of Jobs as a born megalomaniac and thoroughgoing devil leaches his narrative of the tension of a rise- and-fall tale. Nevertheless: a fascinating, though overlong, glimpse of glittering Silicon Valley in the 1980's. (Eight-page photo insert--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
Wall Street Journal: "Mr. Stross's engaging style makes what is really business history read like a novel. Based on extensive interviews and published accounts, Mr. Stross uses vignettes and word pictures to make the computer industry and some of its unique personalities come alive."
New York Review of Books: "Randall Stross's wonderful book…combines clear mastery of the relevant technology with great story-telling skill."
San Jose Mercury News: "One of the most compelling business books of the year."
About the Author
Randall E. Stross writes the New York Times column Digital Domain and is professor of business at San Jose State University. He is the author of several critically acclaimed books, including Planet Google, The Wizard of Menlo Park, and eBoys. He lives in Burlingame, California.
