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December 01, 2007 at 02:00 AM
I read a book last weekend that turned heads at the hair salon, and prompted a 12-year-old to banish me from the family room, because, “How can I concentrate on my math homework with you giggling over there.” So, in celebration of the year-end holidays, and the start of the New Year, we’re forsaking our normal titles that help you attract clients, serve them well and achieve all your business goals, by sharing a book whose main goal is to make you laugh.
Options was written by “Fake Steve Jobs,” (actually Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes.) In early 2006, in an effort to understand the technology involved with blogs, he decided to launch one himself (http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/). He had watched as several large-company CEOs, notably Jonathan Schwartz at Sun Microsystems, launched their own blogs, and was taken with how truly uninteresting they are with far more spin than insight. It would be interesting, he thought, if there was a CEO out there who expressed what he was really thinking. Lyons said that Steve Jobs was an obvious pick because of his dual personality of being very spiritual and “Zen-oriented,” while also having a persona described as aggressive, demanding and notoriously difficult — a person who instills both fear and respect in the people working with him.
Over the months interest in the blog mushroomed, eventually attracting more than 1 million readers per month. Lyons kept his own identity a secret, and there was much speculation in the tech community over who was “Fake Steve Jobs” until Brad Stone, a New York Times reporter, put some pieces together and identified Lyons.
Options centers on Jobs’ interaction with b-f-f Larry Ellison, Bono and Yoko Ono while detailing the all-too-real backdating options scandal that Jobs and other company executives are facing. The over-the-top egocentric Steve Jobs is introduced right out.
“Your average frigtard probably figures I’ve got it pretty sweet. I’m one of the richest people in the world, and I’m hailed everywhere as the most brilliant businessman of all time. I’m lean and handsome…and I’m famous…I love it.”
