/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19018474]

what's your most interesting biographical book?

[Anonymous No.19019561]

>>19018474
I read alot of them. Classically Boswell's Johnson, in more modern times either Caro's Power Broker or Edel's Henry James. Reading a bio of Warren Buffet right now.

[Anonymous No.19019565]

>>19018474
Great read, but this book ruined a generation of business leaders and engineers in Silicon Valley

[Anonymous No.19019658]

>>19018474
Benjamin Franklin's autobiography is probably my favorite. A totally different but notable contender is Benvenuto Cellini's which is highly entertaining and hyperbolic.

>>19019565
>this book ruined a generation of businessmen and engineers in Silicon Valley
How so?

[Anonymous No.19019672]

>>19019658
>How so?
People latched onto imitating Jobs's aesthetic, his abrasive leadership style, his arrogant/extremely confident nature, but they didn't latch onto the man's competencies. Throughout the 2010s, peaking in 2015, there were businesses in the tech sphere which frankly were terrible businesses, but thanks to their ability to project a "Jobsian/Apple-ish" image, they were able to collect vast amounts of capital before imploding. Picrel is the prime example. Elizabeth Holmes, a woman who used her connections and a fanatic imitation of Jobs in order to run a medical tech company which was more or less a fraud. She was utterly obsessed with Jobs, to the point she'd schedule meetings on the same days he did, she'd wear black turtlenecks like he did, hell she hired several people who worked with Jobs as well.

[Anonymous No.19019674]

>>19018474

[Anonymous No.19019688]

>>19019658
>hyperbolic
If he lived in modern times he'd be dubbed a serial killer! Great book, though. Another good old Italian autobiography is Cardano's, and Vico's is worth checking too. Saw recently that Cardano's is now a nyrb, so it's suddenly relatively easy to get; Cornell UP publishes the Vico. Both are about the length of Franklin's

[Anonymous No.19019720]

[Anonymous No.19019795]

>>19019672
About a year ago I watched a documentary on Theranos and learned how detached from reality a person can become under certain circumstances, perhaps power and a touch of madness. Overlook the facts and convince yourself of an illusion and all of the effort you put into a passion was for something unfounded in the real world. At least that was the spin the documentary provided. Hella interesting. I didn't know she was obsessed with Steve Jobs.

I'll have to read his biography and see what happens to me.

>>19019688
Cardano seems like an interesting dude and has a similar career path as me. Thanks for the suggestions.

[Anonymous No.19019807]

>>19019672
About a year ago I watched a documentary on Theranos and learned how detached from reality a person can become under certain circumstances, perhaps power and a touch of madness. Overlook the facts and convince yourself of an illusion and all of the effort you put into a passion was for something unfounded in the real world. At least that was the spin the documentary provided. Hella interesting. I didn't know she was obsessed with Steve Jobs. I'll probably check out the biography.

>>19019688 #
Cardano seems like an interesting dude. Thanks for the suggestions I'll look a bit more into these.

[Anonymous No.19020391]

The Electric Life of Michael Faraday

[Anonymous No.19020395]

>>19019672
this has nothing to do with the book really, people were already forming a cult of Jobs long, long before he died. Probably before you were born even, not to be crass