I'm a fan of Isaacson's biographies of people who died before he started his research. I particularly liked his Benjamin Franklin book.

But his biography of Steve Jobs (and now Musk) betrays a central problem in the genre.

When immensely powerful people, about whom there is intensely curiosity among the general public, give one biographer uniquely close access, they are giving huge gifts -- sometimes worth millions of dollars -- to the biographers.