12 Books Steve Jobs Wanted You to Read

The Golden Week Holiday is coming to China!!! Leave yourself some time to feed your brain. Unlike Bill Gates's list, almost all the books on Steve Jobs's list are about a single individual overcoming enormous odds and obstacles in order to transform either the world, himself or both.

One man's desperate struggle against an all-pervasive state that is committed to controlling people's thoughts as well as their behaviors.

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."

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A single individual brings the world to a halt by persuading the world's innovators to withdraw from it.

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists ... it is real ... it is possible ... it's yours."

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The author, by describing his life experiences, attempts to explain the laws behind both the ordinary events and miracles alike.

"You may control a mad elephant;

You may shut the mouth of the bear and the tiger;

Ride the lion and play with the cobra;

By alchemy you may learn your livelihood;

You may wander through the universe incognito;

Make vassals of the gods; be ever youthful;

You may walk in water and live in fire;

But control of the mind is better and more difficult."

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This book describes the author's spiritual transformation through yoga.

"The cosmic humor is that if you desire to move mountains and you continue to purify yourself, ultimately you will arrive at the place where you are able to move mountains. But in order to arrive at this position of power, you will have had to give up being he-who-wanted-to-move-mountains so that you can be he-who-put-the-mountain-there-in-the-first-place. "

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A collection of parables about computer programming based on the classics of Taoism.

"If you are a warrior, decency means that you are not cheating anybody at all. You are not even about to cheat anybody. There is a sense of straightforwardness and simplicity. With setting-sun vision, or vision based on cowardice, straightforwardness is always a problem. If people have some story or news to tell somebody else, first of all they are either excited or disappointed. Then they begin to figure out how to tell their news. They develop a plan, which leads them completely away from simply telling it. By the time a person hears the news, it is not news at all, but opinion. It becomes a message of some kind, rather than fresh, straightforward news. Decency is the absence of strategy. It is of utmost importance to realize that the warrior's approach should be simple-minded sometimes, very simple and straightforward."

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Rules for a healthy diet, along with many recipes for protein-rich meals that do not include meat.

"We're just a drop in the bucket, and that's meaningless. But we say, 'No, wait a minute. If you have a bucket, those raindrops fill it up very fast. Being a drop in the bucket is magnificent.' The problem is we cannot see the bucket. Our work is helping people see that there is a bucket. There are all these people all over the world who are creating this bucket of hope. And so our drops are incredibly significant."

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This book provides a road map for marketers who want to help innovators reach customers.

"After the better part of a century being content with letters, telegrams, and telephones, we have in the past 30 years adopted phones, Federal Express, email, and now the internet. In every case, until a certain mass was reached, we didn't really need to convert. But as soon as it was, it became unacceptable not to participate. As members of a market, our behavior is invariable: We move as a herd, we mill and mill and mill around, and then all of a sudden we stampede."

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The book describes the monomaniacal quest of Captain Ahab to revenge himself on Moby Dick, the albino sperm whale that had on a previous voyage destroyed Ahab's ship and bit off his leg.

"Towards thee, I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."

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Probably the best "Here's how I did and you can too" book from a successful CEO. Unlike most such authors, Grove delves as deeply into his failures as his successes.

"Your career is literally your own business. You own it as a sole proprietor. You have one employee: yourself. You are in competition with millions of similar businesses: millions of other employees all over the world. You need to accept ownership of your career, your skills, and the timing of your moves. It is your responsibility to protect this personal business of yours from harm and to position it to benefit from changes in the environment. Nobody else can do that for you."

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The book presents the classic argument that technology no longer develops incrementally and instead is subject to regular "disruptions" that favor small, nimble companies and organizations.

"When faced with disruptive technology, people and processes in a mainstream organization cannot be expected to allocate freely the critical financial and human resources needed to carve out a strong position in the small, emerging market. It is very difficult for a company whose cost structure is tailored to compete in high-end markets to be profitable in low-end markets as well. Creating an independent organization, with a cost structure honed to achieve profitability at the low margins characteristic of most disruptive technologies, is the only viable way for established firms to harness this principle."

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A collection of parables about computer programming based on the classics of Taoism.

A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application. The manager asked the master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?"

"It will take one year," said the master promptly.

"But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take if I assign 10 programmers to it?"

The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years."

"And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?"

The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed."

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It provides the basics of Zen and Zen meditation, including the method that Jobs himself used to center himself during difficult moments in his career.

Best quote: "Even though you try to put people under control, it is impossible. You cannot do it. The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in a wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: First, let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good. That is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them."

Happy reading and happy holiday!