Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by phillmv 5334 days ago
I listened to the podcast over the weekend.

In a nuthsell, Isaacson doesn't understand computing, or the computing industry, and so he let a lot of errors in (OS X contains no NEXT code) and spends a lot of time focussing on things that don't matter.

It's more important because he was the one and only guy that was given that much access and he blew it. He didn't ask hard questions, he didn't perform a lot of research; all the bits in the book that seem extensively well researched were cribbed from other sources (hello folklore.org!) and for everything else he takes people at their face value.

2 comments

He didn't ask hard questions, he didn't perform a lot of research; all the bits in the book that seem extensively well researched were cribbed from other sources (hello folklore.org!) and for everything else he takes people at their face value.

I think you've just summed up modern mainstream journalism.

This is really it. For a journalist, I would have expected him to ask my questions, push back at Steve more and do more research.