"On the Firing Line"

On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple (Gil Amelio & William Simon)

Okay, I know what you're thinking: "N Ham, you're extremely smart and good looking. Why the heck did you read this?" Well, I basically read this as a very long footnote to the definitive history of Apple Computers (a book originally titled "Apple"). This book went into more history on Amelio's 500 days as CEO before he was replaced by Steve "Steve Jobs" Jobs.
And how was the book? Well, it was entertaining, I'll give it that - in fact, I think I may need a new category to put this book and "Anatomy of a Business Failure" in. Since this is Amelio's side of the story, he of course paints himself in the best possible light, and while I did get tired of the way that you can never go a huge amount of pages between hearing about his PhD, his jet, his expensive wine cellar, his vacation house, his "Classic 1973 Mercedes-Benz", etc, I can't really say I was ever bored. I'd take anything you read in here with a grain of salt, and I wouldn't read this without reading "Apple" first (which I can't find on Amazon; Maybe a more unique title would have helped), but yes, I did enjoy this book. This is one of those books I personally enjoyed but have a hard time recommending to a general audience. I don't know that you'll get anything from this if you don't know a lot about Apple - for example, I couldn't help but laugh at Amelio bristling at his replacement killing the sad flop that was the "Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh" (which he calls "incredible," and I guess it is since it was a not particularly powerful computer priced, at the low end, to move at seventy five hundred dollars) and predicting doom for Apple after Jobs takes over again.  So I guess I would recommend this book if you already have that kind of knowledge, and it doesn't hurt that I got this out of a clearance bin for $1 (or 1/300th the price of one of the bottles of wine Amelio had to mention he owns).

Grade: C