As a Steve Jobs watcher, Alan Deutschman has been at it longer than almost anyone. He is the author of the 2000 biography The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, the e-essay How Steve Jobs Changed Our World and is currently working on a book entitled Why Steve Jobs Matters which will be published by St. Martins Press next year.
So why does Steve Jobs matter? According to Deutschman, who I interviewed over Skype, Jobs matters because he transformed the CEO into a rock star. Just as John Lennon was a hero for the flower power generation of the 60’s, Deutschman explained, so Steve Jobs is the “patron saint” of the “creative class” – people who have a great passion for their work and look for fulfillment in their working lives. So, for Deutschman, Jobs’ greatest legacy is a social and cultural one. He transformed the conformist world of business into a revolutionary force for massive social and cultural change.
This is the second part of a two part interview with Deutschman. Yesterday, he told me “How Steve Jobs Changed Our World”.