When there are multiple versions of a story, you really have three ways to go. You can pick the most sensational version. You can try to balance things in your gut to get to what you think is the honest truth. Or you can err on the side of kindness.

I think one problem we've had is that people who are smart and creative and innovative as engineers went into financial engineering.

Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius.

More generally, I made an effort to leave out things that weren't relevant to the main narrative themes of the book, namely that there were two sides to Steve Jobs: the romantic, poetic, countercultural rebel on one side, and the serious businessperson on the other.

It seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan ...[Showing the misery of Afghanistan ran the risk of] promoting enemy propaganda...we must talk about how the Taliban are using civilian shields and how the Taliban have harboured the terrorists responsible for killing close up to 5,000 innocent people.

I wonder now how tough you have to be to get big things done.

You know, one of these things that happened in the '60s and '70s was this confluence of, sort of, a counter-culture with computer culture.