The Little Kingdom book club questions

1. 1.

   Moritz wrote The Little Kingdom in 1984, while the story was still unfolding. How does real-time proximity change what a biographer captures versus what a retrospective biography recovers?

2. 2.

   Wozniak wanted to give away his Apple I design. Jobs saw commercial potential immediately. Which of them was right in the long run, and in what sense?

3. 3.

   Jobs is portrayed here before the mythology of the iPhone era. Does reading this early portrait change how you think about the later Steve Jobs biographies?

4. 4.

   Apple's early culture was chaotic, egalitarian, and intensely demanding. How much of its early success depended on conditions that couldn't be replicated or sustained at scale?

5. 5.

   The Homebrew Computer Club was a community of hobbyists who shared knowledge freely. What role did that culture of openness play in the birth of the personal computer industry?

6. 6.

   Jobs reportedly made people feel both specially chosen and disposable, sometimes in the same week. Is that kind of leadership a genius trait or a failure mode, or something that can't be cleanly categorized?

7. 7.

   The book describes an IPO that made many early employees rich but also changed the company's culture. Does financial success tend to kill the conditions that produced it?

8. 8.

   Wozniak and Jobs had fundamentally different values about what technology was for. How did that difference shape Apple's products in ways that are still visible today?

9. 9.

   Moritz later became a partner at Sequoia Capital and invested in Google, Yahoo, and others. How do you think his journalist's instincts shaped what he noticed about Apple that venture capitalists at the time might have missed?

10. 10.

    Apple's early advertising, including the '1984' commercial and the 'Here's to the Crazy Ones' campaign, positioned the company against conformity. How genuine was that positioning given how the company actually operated internally?

11. 11.

    What does the story of Apple in the early 1980s tell us about the relationship between individual genius and institutional competence in building lasting companies?

How to run the discussion

• Pick six to eight, not all of them. An hour of real discussion covers fewer questions than anyone expects, and racing the list is what makes a book club feel like homework.
• Open with what people noticed, not what they concluded. Asking for a verdict first hardens opinions before anyone has heard each other.
• Let the disagreement run. The questions below that split a room are the ones worth the time; the ones everyone answers the same way can be skipped.
• Ask the quiet person a specific question. A direct, narrow question is far easier to answer than an open invitation to contribute.