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About The Book

Menuez hoped to photograph Steve Jobs as he built this new computer from conception to product launch, thereby capturing the spirit and substance of innovation through the world's top technology guru. In an amazing act of trust, Jobs granted Menuez unprecedented access to him and his team, and what Menuez thought would last only three years soon stretched into fifteen. Once Silicon Valley heard Jobs had granted him complete access, they all did. Over the years, Menuez photographed behind the scenes with John Warnock at Adobe, John Sculley at Apple, Bill Gates at Microsoft, John Doerr at Kleiner Perkins, Bill Joy at Sun Microsystems, Gordon Moore and Andy Grove at Intel, Mark Anderson at Netscape, and more than seventy other leading companies and innovator.

By 2000, an era was ending, the Valley had crashed, and Steve Jobs was rising up, riding a blazing rocket back to glory. The growth of transformational technology during this singular era had led to the creation of more jobs and wealth than any time in human history. And Menuez was there, witness to a global revolution. In Fearless Genius, Menuez brings his experiences to print, showing, in 100 stunning photographs of scenes only he had access to, the human face of innovation and what it takes to transform the power of ideas into reality.

Excerpt

Fearless Genius Foreword by Elliott Erwitt
Photographing the unphotographable has long been the passion and the mission of Doug Menuez. How does one photograph genius? How does one visually communicate the creation and dynamics of world-altering concepts and somehow give insights into the personality of the men and women responsible, the people who essentially just sit and think and in so doing profoundly change our lives?

The answer is, call on Doug Menuez.

Photographs of business meetings and of disheveled people sitting and thinking for hours is hardly sexy visual material. But somehow with his extended time spent in the digital trenches of Silicon Valley and with his diligence applied, not unlike the intensity of his subjects, Mr. Menuez has managed to give us an insight into the minds and processes of these (for the most part) enigmatic people who have and will continue to influence our future more than we can imagine. You only have to consider the short trajectory of fifteen years of amazing technological evolution as chronicled in the pages of Fearless Genius.

In all great affinity groups, one individual raises above all others and we lesser humans are fascinated to know more about him or her. This is true of groups formed around matters religious (Jesus) or martial (Napoléon); revolutionary (Tom Paine) or cinematic (Marilyn Monroe); geek (Steve Jobs) or gangster (Al Capone); evangelical (Billy Graham) or political (Abraham Lincoln) or mathematical (Isaac Newton). Steve Jobs, a complicated man, surely belongs among the above group of remarkable individuals. His death long before his time compels us to wonder about his inner person. So we are fortunate indeed to have such insightful and intimate access to Steve Jobs and his peers through the exclusive photographs collected in this book.

Mr. Menuez was there, camera in hand, documenting the fundamental period of the digital phenomenon. He was deeply involved with many of its principal players, making the best possible use of his special access and bearing witness to a place, a time, and a people of extraordinary genius.

About The Author

Photo by Paolo Menuez

Doug Menuez is an award-winning documentary photographer whose varied career over thirty years began in 1981 at The Washington Post, then as a freelancer for Time, Newsweek, Life, Fortune, The New York Times Magazine, and many more publications. His many awards include honors from the Kelly Awards, AOP London, and Photo District News, among others. Stanford University Library acquired his extensive archive and created the Douglas Menuez Photography Collection at Stanford University Library.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Atria Books (June 5, 2014)
  • Length: 192 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781476752693

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Raves and Reviews

“Interesting… Insightful…Will feel nostalgic for those who were a part of the action; for outsiders, it will both confirm and explode perceptions of what really took place during a strange and exciting time.”

– Publishers Weekly

"Instructive... Interesting... A vital piece of photographic history."

– Kirkus Reviews

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