EPR Creations LLC

Mark Cuban Book Review

I just finished reading Mark Cuban’s new book called “How to Win at the Sport of Business.” Actually, it’s not a book in the traditional sense, but is a collection of blog posts he has written over the years. I thought it was a brilliant use of existing content. Mark sold this book on the iTunes store for just $2.99. I’ll buy a book for $2.99 any day.

The book is a quick read and it contains a lot of no-nonsense business and life advice. He talks about not spending too much time in school where you are paying to learn. He said to try to get in the working world as quickly as possible where they pay you to learn. If you don’t know what you want to do, start with something and at least you are learning and getting paid to learn.

Another topic I thought he did a great job on was advice for startups. He said you should take startup funds from one of two places. Your own bank account or from a product sale. Don’t take money from family, banks or VC’s to prematurely grow a business. Slow and steady wins the race in this case.

The final topic I appreciated in the book was Mark Cuban’s emphasis on learning. He says that he distinguished himself in some of his first jobs by reading more about the products and services than anyone else. He was more informed with both clients and with coworkers. He maintains his reading habit to this day, stating that he reads 3 hours a day.

If you’re up for a quick read that will inspire you in your own business or in your ideas for a new business, this is a good book to read. Mark Cuban is a serial entrepreneur and he has a lot of wisdom in these pages.

Steve Jobs Book Review

I completed the new Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson earlier this week. It took me about a week to read it and I was entranced the entire time. I read it on my iPad, a device that would not exist were it not for the book’s subject.

It was like reading about your favorite band and where they were when they wrote a specific song. You can trace part of your life back to when specific Apple products were released. I loved reading about the product development process for devices that came out recently and changed the world.

In a way, Steve Jobs and Apple replaced this shared community that used to be built around music and created a world-wide shared experience for our generation. Talk to 20 and 30-year-olds about when they got their first iPod or iPhone. Many likely waited hours in line and recall the experience fondly.

I remember getting my iPhone after waiting in line for 5 hours with my bandmate at the time, Tyler Herrin. I just sat there and stared at the device unable to process all that it could do. Bloggers did dub it the “Jesus phone.” When I was a child, I used to ride the Spaceship Earth ride at Epcot and the parts about the future didn’t even dream up a device this cool. I wonder if Epcot has updated that ride now that the technology exists.

For me personally, my Apple story began when I added iTunes to my Dell PC and began burning all of my cds to iTunes. After burning my cds, I sold most of them to CD Warehouse (whose unfortunate slogan was “The Future of Music”) and used that money to purchase a grey iPod Mini. During graduate school, I used a loaned MacBook Pro on school trips and upgraded to a 30GB iPod. In 2008, I purchased a Black MacBook and began my switch from PC to Mac. That was also the exact same time that I started my company EPR Creations. I credit a lot of what I was able to accomplish with my business to that MacBook. It was a great computer that I had for 3 years and averaged use on it of 12 or more hours a day. I have since upgraded to a MacBook Pro. Apple makes working on a computer an aesthetically-pleasing experience.

I include the information above because this all adds to the experience of reading a book about Steve Jobs and Apple. If I read a book about Coke, I would be able to relate to what goes into the product development because I enjoy an occasional Coke, but Coke has not changed how I interact with the world.

If I were to recommend a single business book for a college student to read, I would pick this one. It’s not a business book in the sense that Good to Great is, but you learn a ton about business just reading about Jobs and Apple. One of my favorite lines in the book was when Steve told his son to join him for 2 days of meetings at Apple. This was during the “Attenagate” problem with the iPhone. Steve told his son that he would learn more in those two days of meetings with some of the brightest minds in the industry than he would in 2 years of business school. In many ways, I felt the same reading this book.

Steve Jobs challenged so many aspects of conventional wisdom throughout his career. And he cared deeply about design. I was never aware of how harsh he was with people. He didn’t have a nice button. He embarked on insane diets and could be downright cruel to the wait staff at a restaurant. He told thousands of people that their ideas were “shit.” In my favorite line of the entire book, after Bill Gates showed the new version of Windows to Steve Jobs, Steve replied with “Oh, it’s actually really a piece of shit.”

Here is a list of some other subjects that stood out to me while reading this book:

Steve’s Relationship with God

It’s well-known that Steve was into spiritual matters and that he was especially interested in Zen Buddhism. What is really ironic, and Isaacson notes this, is that for all of the teaching about calm and tranquility, Steve was about as opposite of that as you can be. In terms of God or a Christian God, there are three main quotes in the book that highlight Steve’s thoughts:

1. When Steve was young, he asked a pastor about the problem of evil. The pastor’s answer was not to Steve’s liking and he said that he decided against God at that moment.
2. Steve had the cellist Yo-Yo Ma over to his house one day. Steve had wanted Yo-Yo Ma to play cello in his wedding, but he was out of the country at the time. Yo-Yo Ma came by and played Bach on his 1733 Stradivarius cello. When he finished, Jobs teared up and said “You playing is the best argument I’ve ever heard for the existence of God, because I don’t really believe a human alone can do this.”
3. Isaacson the author was talking to Steve towards the end of his life and Steve said “I’m about 50/50 on believing in God. For most of my life, I’ve felt that there must be more to our existence than meets the eye.”

That Yo-Yo Ma quote was really astonishing to me. Yo-Yo Ma didn’t say a word and yet probably brought Steve Jobs to his closest encounter with God.

Bill Gates

Another topic that stuck out to me was Steve’s relationships with Bill Gates and other celebrities and politicians. Steve and Bill Gates fought a lot but also had a deep respect for each other. Towards the end of Steve’s life, Bill Gates went to Steve’s house and they reminisced for 2 hours. Oh to be a fly on the wall during that conversation.

It appears that Steve Jobs was only nervous around one person. That was Bob Dylan. Steve Jobs idolized Dylan. Otherwise, Steve had no problem cussing out Bono, telling Obama he was weak and headed for a one-term presidency, and telling Bill Gates that Windows sucked and was unoriginal.

Design

The staircases in the Apple stores were designed by I.M. Pei. He’s the architect who designed the Louvre’s pyramid (and the building where I currently work). Steve’s famous turtlenecks were actually created by a famous Japanese designer. This designer sent Steve over 100 of the shirts so that he would always have them available. I loved that Steve was so demanding of the design aspects of his products and would also seek out the best designers for collaboration on product design, logos, and store design. He took it a bit too far at times as evidenced by his mansion being empty because he couldn’t decide on the right furniture.

Honesty

Steve never held back. He told it how he saw it. But there was also a mischievousness about his honesty. For instance, many colleagues accused him of taking their ideas as his own, usually after he called the ideas “shit.” Steve was adopted and was acutely aware that his real parents had abandoned him. Yet, Steve did the same to his first daughter somehow convincing himself that he might not be the father, and excusing himself from the responsibility. I was intrigued and challenged by reading about Steve’s comments to people. I often sugarcoat my comments, which is a form of dishonesty. Steve didn’t have that problem.

Overall, this book will be interesting to a wide audience. If you like reading business books, this one is for you. If you are interested in reading biographies about entrepreneurs, Jobs was an entrepreneur extraordinaire. If you love design, read this. If you are curious how Apple became the most valuable company in the world, get the book. If you like reading about powerful people being told off, there are some great episodes here.

One of Jobs’ goals was to build a company that outlasts him. I hope that is the case and that we continue to see incredible innovation out of the company he founded.