[pwthornton]

That's the passage. How could he not challenge Gates on that? Or clarify it. I'm not sure if he gets 100 percent what Gates is saying. This passage is just not accurate.

OS X's importance to Apple can't be understated. Apple, the company that kicked off the personal computer revolution and gave us the GUI, was behind technologically in the mid-1990s. Apple was in such bad shape that they had to buy someone else's OS. Can you imagine the current Apple allowing iOS to get into such bad shape that they have to buy someone else's mobile OS?

There is a big story there, and Isaacson doesn't touch it because he doesn't see the story. And this doesn't have to be a technical story.

It's a story that anyone can understand: Here is a tech company that didn't have good tech anymore. How did this happen and how did Jobs and NeXT save Apple with modern tech?

[snowwrestler]

I haven't read the book, but is the thesis of this discussion that the book is fatally flawed because Isaacson didn't challenge Bill Gates on the details of how NeXTStep evolved into OS X? This doesn't really seem like THE crucial moment in the entire life of Steve Jobs.

[pwthornton]

It's an important part of Apple's story. It shows that Isaacson didn't get the important of NeXT to Apple and how the NeXT purchase saved Apple. It was more than just getting Jobs back.

A big question I'd have is, why did NeXT have so much better technology than Apple?