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Walter Isaacson

Born: May 20, 1952 – New Orleans, Louisiana, United States

Social links:

Official Website (Tulane Profile)LinkedIn Official Publisher Page (Simon & Schuster)

Genres:

Walter Isaacson is an American biographer, journalist, and historian known for acclaimed works on figures bridging science, technology, and the humanities, including Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, and Elon Musk. His books have been international bestsellers, earning widespread critical praise, and he received the National Humanities Medal in 2023.

Biography & Author's Journey

Walter Isaacson was born on May 20, 1952, in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he developed a passion for history and storytelling that would shape his remarkable career. He attended Harvard College and went on to become a Rhodes Scholar at Pembroke College, Oxford. Isaacson began his professional journey at The Sunday Times of London and the New Orleans Times-Picayune, before joining TIME in 1978, eventually serving as the magazine’s 14th editor. His sharp editorial instinct and leadership led to further high-profile roles as chairman and CEO of CNN and later as CEO of the Aspen Institute, a prominent nonpartisan policy studies organization.

Quotes

One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are

-Steve Jobs

Vision without execution is hallucination. .. Skill without imagination is barren. Leonardo knew how to marry observation and imagination, which made him history’s consummate innovator

-Leonardo da Vinci

People are mistaken when they think that technology just automatically improves. It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better

-TED Talk

We relate to Leonardo da Vinci because his genius was just being passionately curious about everything. He wanted to know everything he could know about our universe, including how we fit into it

-Leonardo da Vinci

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and, therefore, the foundation of all invention and innovation

-Various interviews

Throughout his life, Albert Einstein would retain the intuition and the awe of a child. He never lost his sense of wonder at the magic of nature's phenomena—magnetic fields, gravity, inertia, acceleration, light beams—which grown-ups find so commonplace

-Einstein: His Life and Universe

The most acceptable service to God is doing good to man

-Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

Case applied the two lessons he had learned at Procter & Gamble: make a product simple and launch it with free samples

-The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away

-Steve Jobs

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently

-Steve Jobs

Popular Books

Steve Jobs

Walter Isaacson

Biography of Apple's visionary founder

Leonardo da Vinci

Walter Isaacson

Exploring Leonardo's life, art, and genius through his notebooks and works.

The Innovators

Walter Isaacson

Captivating saga of visionaries who shaped the digital age, exploring collaboration, creativity, and technological breakthroughs that revolutionized our world.

Elon Musk

Walter Isaacson

Intimate biography of Elon Musk, tracing his innovative triumphs and personal turmoil.

Benjamin Franklin

Walter Isaacson

In-depth biography of America's founding father