The New York Times spent most of their review of Becoming Steve Jobs comparing it to Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs, the authorized biography.

The former is mostly praised by current management, the latter mostly scorned.

What I found fascinating about the non-review was this:

A battle has broken out between these two biographies. Mr. Isaacson’s book was the officially authorized version. But Apple’s top brass has noisily endorsed “Becoming Steve Jobs” as a corrective, and Apple history can’t get much more official than that. If the Isaacson book ruffled Apple feathers, its executives had better brace themselves for Alex Gibney’s documentary “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine,” which just had its premiere at the South by Southwest festival. It’s one thing to read about someone’s behavior. It’s quite another to watch the extensive archival footage of the unguarded Mr. Jobs that shapes Mr. Gibney’s portrait.

Can you separate the man from his work? Is that appropriate? We all know Steve’s foibles, the way his ego ruled and, sometimes, ruined him. All that negative is the cost that Steve Jobs paid for his abilities, for all that he accomplished. But he would not have been Steve Jobs without those inner demons. And to me, that’s the key.