"Having made a pattern of writing biographies of important men — and one important woman, Jennifer Doudna of #CRISPR fame — #Isaacson is now in the position of a kind of kingmaker. To keep up his pattern, everyone he writes about implicitly is branded a genius."
#Musk #biography

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/1/23895069/walter-isaacson-biography-musk-review

Great take-down of Walter #Isaacson's #Musk #biography:

"I am lingering here because it highlights a major problem with Isaacson’s biography. We are dealing with not one but two unreliable narrators: Musk and Isaacson himself."

Come for the snarky comment and stay for a long list of the many stories that Isaacson should have really looked into more closely.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/1/23895069/walter-isaacson-biography-musk-review

„Elon Musk - Die Biografie“ Walter Isaacson

#elon #musk #elonmusk #biografie #isaacson #walterisaacson #biography #bertelsmann #randomhouse #buch #book #leseempfehlung #lesen #reading #rofopho #literatur #literature #lesenmachtglücklich #readersofinstagram #bookstagram #bookworm #bücherliebe #bookselfie #lesefreude #lesenmachtfreude #literatur

All you need to know about Walter Isaacson’s book about the creepiest of creeps, #Elon Musk:

“We are dealing with not one but two unreliable narrators: Musk and Isaacson himself.”

Having read #Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs,” I had no intention of reading anything by him about that deluded jerk-slash-loser. But nice to have confirmation of that decision.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/1/23895069/walter-isaacson-biography-musk-review

The #Musk #Isaacson thing is perhaps best summed up by this from https://mstdn.social/@fka_tabs

We are three levels deep at this point. Person A (Shawn McCreesh) is writing about person B (Isaacson) who is talking to a third person about Musk. All three of these people, two of them respected writers (until recently) are confused about simple facts …

“We are dealing with not one but two unreliable narrators: #Musk and #Isaacson himself.”

@the_verge

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/1/23895069/walter-isaacson-biography-musk-review

Dave Karpf, on Walter #Isaacson's problematic Musk biography:

The “Great Man” version of history is always limiting (and, as Brian Merchant argues, it should probably be retired at this point), but it is particularly ill-suited to a character like Musk. Isaacson wants his reader to appreciate #Musk’s accomplishments and also ponder his personal “demons.” But there is a deeper puzzle that Isaacson constantly avoids “Is Elon Musk really some world-bending genius, or has he just benefitted from the world’s biggest case of survivor bias?”

https://open.substack.com/pub/davekarpf/p/elon-musk-and-the-infinite-rebuy?r=1n9xi&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

#Twitter #uspol

As a colleague just pointed out, there's now special joy in reviews of unreleased books that can't be written by #ai ...especially ones so creative and deliciously irreverent

"Famed biographer of intellectually muscular men Walter Isaacson’s dull, insight-free doorstop of a book casts a wide but porous net in search of an answer."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/13/elon-musk-by-walter-isaacson-review-arrested-development

#elon #elonmusk #isaacson