51. For Steve Jobs great products were to be technologically exceptional, and they were to be equally beautiful. When I got my iPad, I found that I wanted to tell everyone about it. No one had to train me, motivate me, or threaten me with guilt. It was natural to rave about something that worked and was beautiful at the same time.

30. Years later Steve Jobs hit a kind of bottom. To simplify a very complex story: Jobs was a man with limited people skills. In his haste to fulfill his visions, he could be
intimidating, obnoxious, intolerant, impatient, profane, and offensive.

29. The Wozniak-Jobs partnership will be the subject of more than one dissertation or book in years to come. It could make for a rich conversation today: how do partnerships begin, and how are they nurtured? And what's the nature of a relationship with God?

28. Isaacson writes: "Wozniak would be the gentle wizard coming up with a neat invention that he would have been happy to just give away, and Jobs would figure out how to make it user-friendly, put it together in a package, market it, and makea few bucks."

27. I'm most interested in the contrasts between the two men. Wozniak was shy, embarrassed by public recognition, obsessive about facts and truthfulness. Jobs, on the other hand, was brash, ambitious, and controlling.

26. The birth of Apple Computer came in the years that followed, and the two men attracted a host of brilliant youngish people to join them in developing the company.

25. While other boys played ball, Jobs and Wozniak built their first computer in the garage of the Jobs's home. Theirs was a powerful synergy of skills: Wozniak's grasp of the inner workings of a computer and Jobs's instinct for its design and utility.

24. If one is into technology (and I an attraction), Isaacson's record of Steve Jobs college and twenty-something years becomes intriguing. During that time Jobs came alive to the world of electronics, drugs, literature, and a host of other experiences. But among the most important events of that period was his introduction to Stephen Wozniak, who would become his partner in the founding of Apple.

23. So you have these primary sources of formation in this boy's life: a birth mother, a loving father, a caring teacher, and an imperceptive pastor. Discuss!

22. The story generates a prayer in me: "Lord, make me aware of the implications of any (any!) word I say to people during the course of the day. Who can know when a spoken word directs someone toward the right path ... or the wrong one?"

21. For the pastor, that brief exchange was likely incidental and forgettable. Yet it was a turning point that would point Steve Jobs toward eastern philosophy.