Becoming Steve Jobs

Hundreds of millions of people use Apple products every day; several thousand work on Apple's campus in Cupertino, California; but only a handful sit at the drawing board. Creative Selection recounts the life of one of the few who worked behind the scenes, a highly-respected software engineer who worked in the final years of the Steve Jobs era, the Golden Age of Apple. 

Few entrepreneurs can claim to have radically changed the way we live, and Ray Kroc is one of them. His revolutions in food-service automation, franchising, shared national training, and advertising have earned him a place beside the men and women who have founded not only businesses, but entire empires. But even more interesting than Ray Kroc the business man is Ray Kroc the man. Not your typical self-made tycoon, Kroc was 52 years old when he opened his first franchise.  

Worry, stress, anxiety – whichever label you prefer to use – can have consequences that impact not only our lives, but the lives of others around us. When we worry it’s like the engine of our mind is constantly being revved up. It doesn’t allow us time to switch off and rest. It tires us out. And when we’re tired we are less likely to think straight. And when we’re not thinking straight it’s easy to make stupid mistakes and confuse priorities...But relax. There is a way forward.In How Not to Worry Paul McGee shows us that there is a way to tackle life’s challenges in a calmer and more considered way. It is possible to use a certain degree of worry and anxiety to spur us on towards positive, constructive action, and then leave the rest behind. With down to earth, real life advice, How Not to Worry helps us understand why worrying is such a big deal and the reasons for it, exposing the behavioural traps we fall into when faced with challenges. It then helps us to move on with tools and ideas to deal with our worries in a more constructive way.Paul McGee is one of Europe's leading motivational speakers and coaches, combining practical strategies with both inspiration and realism. He has spoken in 31 countries to date and is the author of several books, including the bestselling SELF-CONFIDENCE and S.U.M.O. (Shut Up, Move On).

In Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography, Walter Isaacson provides an extraordinary account of Jobs' professional and personal life. Drawn from three years of exclusive and unprecedented interviews Isaacson has conducted with Jobs as well as extensive interviews with Jobs' family members and key colleagues from Apple and its competitors, this is the definitive portrait of the greatest innovator of his generation.

Fifty years ago, Sir Richard Branson started his first business. In his new autobiography, Finding My Virginity, the Virgin founder shares his personal, intimate thoughts on five decades as the world's ultimate entrepreneur. In Finding My Virginity, Sir Richard Branson shares the secrets that have seen his family business grow from a student magazine into a global brand, his dreams of private citizens flying to space develop from a childhood fantasy to the brink of reality and his focus shift from battling bigger rivals to changing business for good.

South African-born Elon Musk is the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Musk wants to save our planet; he wants to send citizens into space, to form a colony on Mars; he wants to make money while doing these things; and he wants us all to know about it. He is the real-life inspiration for the Iron Man series of films starring Robert Downey, Jr. The personal tale of Musk's life comes with all the trappings one associates with a great, drama-filled story.

Whether he was introducing the latest iPad or delivering a keynote presentation, Steve Jobs electrified audiences with his incomparable style and showmanship. He didn’t just convey information in his presentations; he told a story, painted a picture, and shared a vision. He gave his audience a transformative experience that was unique, inspiring, and unforgettable. Now you can do it too, by learning the specific techniques that made Jobs the most captivating communicator on the world stage.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Who Is Michael Ovitz? by Michael Ovits, read by Dennis Boutsikaris. If you're going to listen to one audiobook about Hollywood, this is the one. As co-founder of Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Michael Ovitz earned a reputation for ruthless negotiation, brilliant strategy and fierce loyalty to his clients. He reinvented the role of the agent and helped shape the careers of hundreds of A-list stars and directors, including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Sean Connery, Steven Seagal, Bill Murray, Robin Williams and David Letterman. 

From the start, his path was never predictable. Steve Jobs was given up for adoption at birth, dropped out of college after one semester, and at the age of 20, created Apple in his parents' garage with his friend Steve Wozniack. Then came the core and hallmark of his genius - his exacting insistence on perfection, his counterculture life approach, and his level of taste and style that pushed all boundaries.

A candid, colorful, and comprehensive oral history that reveals the secrets of Silicon Valley - from the origins of Apple and Atari to the present day clashes of Google and Facebook, and all the start-ups and disruptions that happened along the way. Drawing on over 200 in-depth interviews, Valley of Genius takes listeners from the dawn of the personal computer and the Internet, through the heyday of the web, up to the very moment when our current technological reality was invented.  

Looking for advice on setting up your own company, improving your career prospects, or developing your leadership skills? Why not ask Richard Branson?

In Like a Virgin: Secrets They Won't Teach You in Business School, Richard distils and shares the wisdom and experience that have made him one of the world's most recognised and respected entrepreneurs. From his 'Top 5 Secrets of Business Success', to hard-hitting discussions about the global financial crisis, this book brings together his best advice on all things business.

In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company's early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world's most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.

As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: To make the world’s first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream first as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged an early partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later and against all odds, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever.

Ten years ago the idea of getting into a stranger's car or walking into a stranger's home would have seemed bizarre and dangerous, but today it's as common as ordering a book online. Uber and Airbnb are household names: redefining neighbourhoods, challenging the way governments regulate business and changing the way we travel. In the spirit of iconic Silicon Valley renegades like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, a new generation of entrepreneurs is sparking yet another cultural upheaval through technology.

What valuable company is nobody building? The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won't make a search engine. If you are copying these guys, you aren't learning from them. It's easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to 10, adding more of something familiar. Every new creation goes from zero to one. This book is about how to get there.