the CEO of the Aspen Institute, a former head of CNN and editor of Time , and also the author of biographies of Kissinger, Franklin, and Einstein. Huey, who wrote Sam Walton: Made in America with Walton , is the editor-in-chief of Time Inc., the former editor of Fortune , and my boss. The inspiration for this conversation came from an interview of Huey and Isaacson that I conducted in early September at the Global Summit for the Closely Held, put on by BDT & Co., a merchant bank for family-controlled companies headed by Byron Trott , who founded the company three years ago after leaving Goldman Sachs, where he was famously Warren Buffett's banker. Huey and Isaacson had plenty to say about their subjects. (As you can see, I didn't really have to ask many questions!) What follows are the highlights. Andy Serwer : These books are must-reads for students and practitioners of business -- there's no doubt about that. Sam Walton and Steve Jobs are two of the greatest business leaders in history. So I want to start by asking our biographers: How did you get to know the subjects of your books? Walter Isaacson : I'd known Steve Jobs since 1984, January, when I was at Time magazine, a junior writer, and he came to show off the original Macintosh. I saw both sides of his personality. He had us use a jeweler's loupe to look at the cool icons. Then all of a sudden he turned