the story of steve jobs an inspiration or a cautionary tale

BUSINESS

BY BEN AUSTEN07.23.12

The Story of Steve Jobs: An Inspiration or a CautionaryTale?

Photo: Gregg Segal

Soon after Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO in 1997, he decided that a shippingcompany wasn’t delivering spare parts fast enough. The shipper said it couldn’t dobetter, and it didn’t have to: Apple had signed a contract granting it the business atthe current pace. As Walter Isaacson describes in his best-selling biography, SteveJobs, the recently recrowned chief executive had a simple response: Break thecontract. When an Apple manager warned him that this decision would probablymean a lawsuit, Jobs responded, “Just tell them if they fuck with us, they’ll never getanother fucking dime from this company, ever.”

The shipper did sue. The manager quit Apple. (Jobs “would have fired me anyway,”he later told Isaacson.) The legal imbroglio took a year and presumably a significantamount of money to resolve. But meanwhile, Apple hired a new shipper that met theexpectations of the company’s uncompromising CEO.

What lesson should we draw from this anecdote? After all, we turn to the lives ofsuccessful people for inspiration and instruction. But the lesson here might make usuncomfortable: Violate any norm of social or business interaction that standsbetween you and what you want. Jobs routinely told subordinates that they wereassholes, that they never did anything right. According to Isaacson, even JonathanIve, Apple’s incomparable design chief, came in for rough treatment on occasion.

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The gospel of SteveJobs has spread farfrom Silicon Valley,inspiring people inevery field ofbusiness.

Once, after checking into a five-star London hotel handpicked for him by Ive, Jobscalled it “a piece of shit” and stormed out. “The normal rules of social engagement,he feels, don’t apply to him,” Ive explained to the biographer. Jobs’ flouting of thoserules extended outside the office, to a family that rarely got to spend much time withhim as well as to strangers (police officers, retail workers), who experienced theCEO’s verbal wrath whenever they displeased him.

Jobs has been dead for nearly a year, but the biography about him is still a bestseller. Indeed, his life story has emerged as an odd sort of holy scripture forentrepreneurs—a gospel and an antigospel at the same time. To some, Jobs’ life hasrevealed the importance of sticking firmly to one’s vision and goals, no matter thepsychic toll on employees or business associates. To others, Jobs serves as acautionary tale, a man who changed the world but at the price of alienating almosteveryone around him. The divergence in these reactions is a testament to the twodeep and often contradictory hungers that drive so many of us today: We want tosucceed in the world of work, but we also want satisfaction in the realm of home andfamily. For those who, like Jobs, have pledged to “put a dent in the universe,” histhorny life story has forced a reckoning. Is it really worth being like Steve?

In one camp are what you might call the acolytes. They’re businesspeople who havetaken the life of Steve Jobs as license to become more aggressive as visionaries, ascompetitors, and above all as bosses. They’re giving themselves over to the thrill ofbeing a general—and, at times, a dictator. Work was already the center of their lives,but Jobs’ story has made them resolve to double down on that choice.

Steve Davis, CEO of TwoFour, a software company thatcaters to financial institutions, was eager to talk aboutJobs’ influence on his own life and career. But first he hadto find a free half hour. When he finally did steal a fewmoments to speak, he explained that he had consciouslyset aside certain aspects of his family life, since he believesthat startups fail when those involved aren’t committed tobeing available 24 hours a day. Luckily, Davis told me, hewas blessed with a wife who picked up the slack.

Davis detailed these choices matter-of-factly, but his voicerose with fervor when he described the intensity and uncertainty ofentrepreneurship. He loved every minute of it. He didn’t operate with a corporatesafety net. His lawyer was calling him at that very moment with a contract question,and Davis needed to pick a direction and just go with it. What should he decide? Headmitted he didn’t know. The thrill came from the possibility that he might be wrong.“Guys who start companies are different from other people,” he said. “We’re willing tofail. Look at Jobs. He got knocked down, and he kept going. He’s totallyunconventional, driving on his particular path, and either you join him or get out ofthe way.”

Join or get out of the way—it’s a phrase that sums up what Jobs’ life has taught hisadmirers today. Andrew Hargadon, a professor at UC Davis and author of HowBreakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate, pointsout that Jobs’ brashness has helped inspire a larger reaction to several decades ofconventional wisdom about the importance of worker empowerment and consensusdecision- making. “Jobs is showing us the value in the old-school, autocratic way.We’ve gone so far toward the other extreme, toward a bovine sociology in whichhappy cows are supposed to produce more milk.” That is, it took a hippie-geek likeJobs to give other bosses permission to be aggressive and domineering again.

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This isn’t aggression for its own sake but for the good of a company. TristanO’Tierney, a Mac and iPhone software developer, helped Twitter creator Jack Dorseyfound the credit-card-swiping startup Square three years ago. O’Tierney says thathe now sees the value in bluntly telling people their work is crap. “You don’t makebetter products by saying everything is great,” he explains. “You make them better byforcing people to do work they didn’t know they had in them.” Aaron Levie, aself-described Jobs “wantrepreneur,” started Box, which allows cloud-basedfile-sharing, in his USC dorm room in 2005. To new hires, he quotes Jobs—”Somepeople aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected”—to make clearto them that Box is just such an environment. “My lesson from Jobs,” Levie says, “isthat I can push my employees further than they thought possible, and I won’t rushany product out the door without it being perfect.” He adds: “That approach comeswith collateral damage on the people side.”

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xmichaelx2 months ago

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rosswilliams2 months ago

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simonsmicrophone1 month ago

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InfernoShade1 month ago

"

This isn’t aggression for its own sake but for the good of a company."

He stormed out of a hotel for the good of the company? I don't think so. This is about a

person who was a jerk. But a lot of brilliant, creative people have been jerks. Picasso was

not a great human being, he was a great artist. But the idea that you can become a great

artist by mimicking Picasso's personality is a bit absurd. Likewise mimicking Job's

personality is not going to make you a great entrepreneur.

My take: Just think what he could have accomplished if he recognized the value of

treating others with respect.

I don't know about that. Treating others with respect almost requires that you

respect other people and it may that respect for others is an impediment to

individual creativity. Its hard to be totally arrogant about the value of your own

vision and ideas while respecting differing opinions. Of course you can at least

try to fake it ...

Being *totally* arrogant about the value of your own vision and ideas is

one way to make your vision and ideas unpalatable to others.

What a bunch of hating buttheads are on wired these days. Their hate

makes them rewrite history and can't even allow them to find one

good thing in a person. Sad world full of loser.

Patrick M McMaster1 month ago

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Simon Cooper1 month ago

Cheezus_Crust1 month ago

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MustBeSaid1 month ago

Not you simon. This was just near the top.

I think that Steve was socially handicapped in some way. What he had instead was the

drive and passion to get the best product he could out of his company. I think the best

thing that ever happened to him was the failure during his first tenure at Apple. His

greatest life achievement was his family because he fell in love in spite of his personal

flaws.

There was a study published late last year by New York psychologist Paul

Babiak which found that, quite possibly, one in twenty-five business leaders

could be functioning psychopaths so you may be close to the truth. Also, for a

bit of fun, the next time you watch The Devil Wears Prada just imagine that Meryl

Streep is playing Steve Jobs.

Guess I'm old fashioned, but to me 'changing the world' doesn't mean being more

successful than your competitors at selling consumer electronics.

Amen. People toss the word genius around these days like rice at a wedding.

The real geniuses are the actual innovators that came up with all the technologies that

Apple wouldn't exists without. Without those software and hardware innovations, they

wouldn't have anything to apply their pretty facade to and market as their own. From

Unix under OSX to every piece of hardware in their computers and devices.

They're a design and marketing company, not a technology company. They haven't

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Aneesh Luthra1 month ago

been that in well over a decade. Technology just happens to be what they apply

aesthetic design to and market. It's like saying you're a computer hardware engineer

because you can buy some computer parts of Newegg and toss together a desktop.

And there good at that. I'm not saying they're not. Just don't confuse being good at

selling stuff and putting a pretty face on it with the real innovators that spent their

lives making those technologies a reality. Steve spent his life trying to figure out how

to sell more stuff to more people. Not exactly splitting the atom or inventing the

integrated transistor.

First off, you are confusing the word innovation and invention. Your sentance

should have been " The real geniuses are the actual inventors that came up with

all the technologies that Apple wouldn't exist without."

Second, invention and innovation are equally important. Xerox may have

invented the GUI interface, but without Apple and Steve seeing it differently and

applying it, in which they made hundreds of innovative tweaks, we wouldn't have

a GUI interface. The chances are that it would've sat silently in Xerox labs.

Third, although they they have great design and marketing, that doesn't make

them a design and marketing company. Steve defined design as more than just

how it looks, its also how it feels and works. It seems like Apple caring about

everything, down to the design has backfired on them, people start assuming

that it's just a toy. For some reason, just because something looks good it's

useless. We know that just isn't true. Also, they aren't a technology company?

Yes, because before the iPhone there were many smartphones that had a giant

screens and no buttons and the bottom. And that isn't just design. That is

rethinking the way a smartphone can work. Instead of having buttons that are

fixed, you have a giant screen that can change to do any task you want it to.

Then everyone hoped on that bandwagon, of having a big touch screen. That's

taking the invention of the touchscreen and smartphone, and rethinking them.

<-- That is innovation, FYI. Reseeing and reinventing something that already

exists. Same with the iPad, tablets already existed, but they were kind of useless.

They were big, clunky, tried to run full Windows OS. Apple remade it by

increasing its usablitity and portability. By loading a mobile OS and having no

stylus it was made more user friendly and more usable to the common man.

It's more than just selling something by putting a pretty face on. It's taking a

good idea that is there, that has potential but isn't being applied or applied

correctly, and taking it to a new level by remaking it and reapplying it. He didn't

spend his life trying to figure out how to sell stuff, he spent it doing what he

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Darius Jones1 month ago

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TruthSha11S3tUFr331 month ago

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rhombus1 month ago


loved, taking a good idea and doing it correctly.

It is absolutely ridiculous to think that if Steve Jobs hadn't commercialized

the GUI we would never have one. They were just first to market. Apple is

not a technology company. The Retina display was invented elsewhere. It

is manufactured elsewhere. Apple just puts their logo on it. Same with

most of their products. Give them credit where credit is due. But if you've

been in IT long enough, you'll remember their attempts at an actual

multitasking modern OS, their utter failure, and subsequent strategy of

taking BSD Unix and giving it a shiny package.

And it wasn't always that Apple was first to market either, rather in

most cases they weren't but they were better at marketing and

playing the market strategies. Steve Jobs if nothing else was a

marketing guru. I am not a big fan of Apple products, to each their

own, but he did build an empire that even I can't deny. He was

definitely a leader and a forward thinker. I also believe that you can be

a perfectionist, and a go getting boss without being an A$$h*le.

I bristle when people call him an engineer. He was not an

engineer, not even in the tiniest little way. And without engineers

(with thick skins), he would have been a lonely failure.

While I'd agree that someone would have come up with the GUI too at

R S1 month ago

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AngryRussian1 month ago

some point, but you should give credit where it's due. You could say

that about anyone or anything. Hey, if Pasteur hadn't come up with

pasteurization, someone else would have. Lame.

"Just first to market," that all? You mean like the Ford's Model T? Not

like that had any impact on our society. ;)

Manufacturing is not the same as coming up, creating, or developing

an idea. Manufacturing is mostly just the hands. Sure manufacturing

can add to the process, but that's not the seed of the idea.

So just because they made mistakes, you don't want to credit them

with any innovation. If you're so enlightened from having worked in IT,

you should know innovation is not just about being first. It's a combo

of new and the old - building on what came before. And to do that

you have to make mistakes. That goes for all industries.

Well to your argument then why didnt Nokia, Motorola, Google

(Brought Android in 2005) didnt use the multi-touch screens before

Apple released iPhone. Why no one worked on a iPad like tablet

before iPad. Unix and Linux existed before OS X but they were not

able to appeal the common consumer but its SJ's vision that made it

possible. Who cares whether Apple is a technology company or not

they make the products usable by many non-tech people. There are

many who never used computer are now using iPad to communicate

with their kids and grand kids that was purely made possible after

iPad. Retina display might have been developed some where else but

its Apple who got it to the common man. If it was just putting a Logo

on "Retina Display" or "Tablet" or "Phone" how come others are not

doing it?

UNIX and Linux appeal to common consumer only in some

linuxoid wet dreams, period. Jobs did nothing to popularize

those, on the contrary, he wanted enduser to never even think

about what runs his device.

simonsmicrophone1 month ago

bewlaybrother1 month ago

Amanda Green1 month ago

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EricLR1 month ago

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Your bullshit about retina(which itself is a bullshit marketing

term) is outright painful. Do your fucking research and you`ll be

amazed at what IBM and Dell were putting out in 2005.

It's called version 2. If you gave the suckers all they wanted now

and it didn't break, how would you sell version 2?

Your hate is blinding you to an incredible degree, and making your opinions

spectacularly disingenuous and pointless.

This nonsense that Apple was good at 'selling stuff' is moronic. True, Apple was

no longer working at low levels in their garage, but saying they just put a pretty

face on it is complete nonsense, and anyone who believes that is clueless.

If you think Apple are great innovators, let me ask you this:

Have you ever seen even a single story about their research and

development division?

If they're such great innovators, and not just taking other's tech, where is

all their R&D? Microsoft spends $9.4 billion a year on R&D. The great

"innovators" at Apple only spend about $2 billion.

moodIndigo1 month ago

R S1 month ago

Patrick M McMaster1 month ago

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rhombus1 month ago

Gaute Hermansen1 month ago

Still conflating invention and innovation...

It doesn't matter how much you spend on R&D and how many people

work in a R&D. Sometimes 10 people can do alot more than 1000.

Look at Yahoo they have 1000+ Phds but 60% of them they come to

collect pay checks and a hefty bonus thats all.

Apple has a policy of not talking about their R and D. They do have it

and Jonny Ive is in charge of it now. One of the secrets of Apple's

success is their willingness to cut out the chain of command so that

the innovators got to do their work in secret. This cuts down on the

hugh waste of R&D that happens when politics takes priority over

product. Microsoft has wasted hugh amounts of money on

committee run R & D and the results are not pretty.

Why is an industrial designer in charge of R&D? Somebody

needs to explain to Apple what R&D actually means.

Microsoft is a terrible case example. Look at IBM. THAT is R&D.

If you where to read the bio, you would see that he (jobs) understood

that a company such as apple dont need an R&D division. The way

he built the culture and structure nurishes creativity and ideas like

few other (M3 for instance) And read the whole posts not just selectiv

Idon't Know1 month ago

Eric Tucker1 month ago

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reading, some person clarified very nicely how to seperate innovation

and inventing. There is a clear destinction between the two.

You don't know anything about Apple or their products.

Relative to a lot of other changes, the change I'd argue the change pretty fundamental.

Jobs and the rest of the Apple team didn't necessarily originally innovate a lot of the

technology Apple sold, but they made it accessible in ways that moved it toward

real-world, widespread use a lot faster. I think it might be a fair statement that Apple

shifted the way we use computers and related technology forward about a decade

faster than it would have moved otherwise. Look at how much computers have

revolutionized our world. In geologic scale, it might be a blip ... but I'd say anybody

who has helped that much to accelerate things that much within our lifetimes

deserves some credit.

It seems inevitable had Apple not done many of the things they've done that

somebody else would have eventually come along. Would Microsoft have been under

as much pressure to create a great UI? Would smart phones have taken off like they

have? Would the design principles of simplicity and function with a powerful yet

hidden engine underneath have been echoed the same way in many modern online

services including Google? Would people have found computers pretty? Would a

mainstream audience have enjoyed technology, paid money for it and contributed to

the growth of the industry as quickly? How far does the influence reach? How many

other companies have been pushed forward because of a phenomena Apple was a big

factor in?

You really need to examine the definition of innovation. Apple innovated for sure.

(See my other posts).


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Tony Knibb1 month ago

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dsp41 month ago

R S1 month ago

It has nothing to do with being old-fashioned, you just missed the point. And are just

having a good time mocking. :)

He did have an impact on the world, just as others have. Look at people like

Zuckerberg, do you think he changed the world? Many would say yes. Jobs, and

others could be considered a precursor to Zuckerberg (and his like).

Jobs (and his contemporaries) definitely had an impact on technology, computing,

consumer electronics, music, business studies, and society in general. He may not

have been a nice guy, but he did make a mark. It may not have been a huge mark, but

still a mark. "Change the world," yeah that's subjective, but you obviously get the idea,

even though you're mocking it now.

And when you are trying to be aspirational, as leaders should be, you want the

hyperbole like "change the world." Do you think you'll inspire people with "hey, just do

do something, ok" ? No, you want to work with someone who makes you feel like your

work matters. Thing is, most of us never get to work with people who inspire us, even

if they have jerky personalities. (Read my post below for more on this.)

(Edited by author 1 month ago)

There's a huge difference between "Your work is trash, do better" and "You are an

asshole".

One of those bosses gets a smack, the other motivates.

Both get punched in my case...


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EricLR1 month ago

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Xbrotha1 month ago


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Alex Bedwell1 month ago

Its simple Inferno people who can't do shit mock other people period.

Haha, by what definition did he not change the world?

The kind where in a hundred years, not a single person will remember any of his

accomplishments.

Not many, but the accomplished of Bill Gates and his wife will be

remembered for a long, long time.

Ah, so an idiotic, fanciful and utterly unprovable definition. How pointless.

If you look out the window, the world hasn't changed one bit. It's

technology to keep us amused, it's in no way "world-changing". I love

my MacBook and I use it daily, but when I die I have the sneaking

suspicion that the only true change that will have come from it is that

I looked out the window at the real, unchanging world less often.

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barkomatic1 month ago

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Tariq Kamal1 month ago

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Mike Roberts1 month ago

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RobertSF1 month ago

"World" has more than one meaning. Sorry that confuses you

so.

I can think of no greater hell than having a 25 year old boss that thinks he is Steve Jobs and

goes around telling workers "this is shit".

And thanks to the Jobs, we’ll have 15 years of that shit, thanks to wave and wave of

assholes who take Jobs’ life as an excuse to be jerks without the brilliance to push it

through.

THANKS STEVE!

Yes, because Jobs invented the Boss as Asshole...Face it, there were untalented

jerks in the big Boy's Chair long before Jobs came along.

He didn't invent it but he took the stigma out of it.

Fleurdamour2 months ago

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justanotherengineer1 month ago

But if he constantly took credit for other people's work, how many of his supposed

accomplishments are really his?

None.

Have you ever worked in corporate america (or any corporation)?! People do this every

day to each other. It's terrible and don't be silly enough to think it's just Jobs. People

have been doing it way before he came along and they'll be doing it until the end of

time.

As for taking credit of other accomplishments, you're over simplifying. One of the

responsibilities of a leader is to pushing his people to be their best, helping them

achieve - sort be more than they can be (yes a bit cheesy). When a leader does that,

the line between who owns that accomplishment gets blurry.

Most workplaces are pedestrian, so it's rare for people to experience this type of push.

Sometimes people don't realize they are being pushed to reach levels of success they

would not have reached themselves. Then factor in some ego, and you have people

taking credit - or seemingly taking credit - for other people's work. And hey, credit

stealing even happens in the lamest of companies without real leaders.

If you haven't worked for a number of years, in various work environments, it's unlikely

you'd understand this.


It is my accomplishment, because I BEAT IT OUT of my team, insult after insult,

threat after threat, until they performed.

.

wulfcry1 month ago

Phil Simon2 months ago

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Joe_HTH1 month ago

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symbolset1 month ago

And then I fired half of them based on my judgement of who did not neglect their

family enough to serve me and my vision.

.

A system like that we don't want in Europe and sadly some politicians at least in

the Netherlands want to forward something like that as if were not pushed

enough already.

I also have mixed feelings about this. I frequently write about Jobs, Zuckerberg, Larry &

Sergey, and Bezos, among others. From everything I've read and heard, they aren't

necessarily nice guys. They are visionaries and for that I have to give them credit.

Visionaries are often difficult to work with.

Ultimately, to me, the question is whether one has to be a prick to be an effective leader. I'd

like to think that that answer is no.

Bill Gates is a visionary, and he isn't an asshole.


Bill Gates is a visionary, and he is an asshole.

He might redeem himself soon, but heretofore he was always a jerk. A visionary

jerk.

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Xbrotha1 month ago

Peter Simpson1 month ago

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Phil Simon1 month ago


maybe a jerk in personality, but not in actions.

Jobs was a jerk in personality and his actions.

Even if you are a "visionary" (or maybe just a business success), why does that mean

the rest of the world should give you a pass on having good manners?

I also have a problem seeing Apple, Facebook and Amazon as "visionary" -- they are

successful vendors of consumer products, personal web pages and consumer

products, and that's about it. Successful, innovative, but not visionary. Google is

different. Larry and Sergey really stepped apart from the status quo and built

something completely new. I give them credit for that. But that still doesn't mean I

would think it's OK if they didn't tip their waitress.

Being "special" doesn't absolve you of the responsibility of acting like a mature adult.

I'd argue that Amazon, Apple, and Facebook have all embraced platform thinking

years ahead of other companies. Hence the 'visionary' label. They were all ahead

of the game in different ways, led in large part by their iconic leaders.

OMG, he didn't tip a waitress, hang him! ;)

Newsflash: the CEO(s) of any company you name has done a lot worse than that.

If you think that Larry and Sergey haven't done some jerky things in their lives,

you're living in a dream land.


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haloguy6281 month ago

xmichaelx2 months ago

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plazman1 month ago

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Tudor Rosca1 month ago

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plazman1 month ago

We all have done "something stupid". The difference is that decent people

do not do "something stupid" 24/7/365.

'An early manager on the Mac team told Isaacson about the abuses Jobs

heaped on employees. But she said, “I consider myself the absolute

luckiest person in the world to have worked with him.”'

Somebody's daddy didn't pay enough attention to her. People who happily take abuse from

others should seek counseling.

Like Jobs there were some people who felt honored to have worked with

Walt Disney and he wasn't someone who treated people well.

It is a mixed bag to work with others and I don't see the word happily

in her quote.

Hopefully you have done your counseling and are perfect.

You can't really compare the two. One was a cold bastard that understood very

well what the paying customer wants, the other was a great artist.

R S1 month ago


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Dig deeper. You will find out that Walt Disney isn't the person who has been

portrayed in popular culture. When the studio artists struck against him in

the late 1940s Disney labeled them all Communists and testified before the

HUAC. Yes, he was a control freak, micro-manager and hardly ever gave

credit to others. He was also a great businessman.

A book is only an abstract of what a person is but it doesn't carve out every

aspect of his/her life but i can say that you are nothing but a douche bag

who can't take the good and bad from one's life to make things better for

others.

Sadly, you don't get it.

Even if you're not treated well, it's still better to work with someone of vision -

someone who you can learn something from - than to work with small-minded,

pedestrian, average joe that is the common working man.

Corporate america (in my experience) is full of people - a large part of them "leaders" -

that treat others like crap. Most of them are just average in intelligence and skillset.

(Don't get me started on how the became upper management.) These people suck the

soul out of work and will be the downfall of corporate america in general. (Obviously,

I've only worked in America.) It's horrible working for/with them.

So people who are strong and thick-skinned would prefer to work with someone

smarter, sharper, passionate, an A-player and take some insults than to be treaty

nicely and live in mediocrity. It would be great to get both, but it's beyond rare.

Again, not everyone gets it. But that's ok.


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Pat Goudey O'Brien2 months ago

Yeah, just downvote me. :)

Xmichaelx, makes a silly a joke about daddy issues, He gets tons of up votes.

Sure it was funny, but misses the point.

I explain the psychology behind the guys statement. I get downvoted. Without

even thought or comment.

Just shows people refuse to be open to other points of view.

Do you need someone to help get that sand out of your vagina?

This deserves a highly measured response, but my first impression is to reject Jobs attitude

toward dealing with business and dealing with people. I rather like people, and it seems like

he rather didn't. I can't document that -- never met him or talked to others who knew him,

but his REPORTED attitudes indicate that he was impatient with human nature and didn't

particularly like most people at all, or people in general, though I don't doubt that he loved

many that he knew. BUT, that's not my point. My point is, not much of what Steve Jobs did

for the world was actually required. It was nice stuff that moved our technology forward, but

we didn't have to move our technology forward to continue to live and thrive on our planet.

What Jobs did was change the culture, but did he change it for the better? (He sped it up!

Did we need that?) Or just change it so we noticed (fed his ego and a lot of other people's

envy, but didn't do anything the world couldn't have gotten along fine without)? So, my

question is, why should anyone pay attention to Steve Jobs's philosophy of business? Well,

answer one: if you have a great big ego and want to make a huge splash and be famous and

rich, you might fashion yourself after Jerk #1 (yes, that's a value judgement -- I think the

way he acted toward employees, handicap parking, and random service people was

abhorrent). If you think the mission of business is to serve business itself (e.g., that it's not

a function of society and embedded in a culture as a means to create and foster an

economy that allows humanity to co-exist on a vastly over-populated planet -- are my

biases showing yet?), then sure, follow Jobs's model that makes business a means AND an

end unto itself. I don't subscribe to that attitude. If the guy were creating something truly

needed on this planet -- a way, for instance, to get clean water to people who are having to

PAY some entrepreneur to bring it to them, after some OTHER powerful people put a dam on

a river and diverted water to some city somewhere -- well, then, maybe I'd say a little

hide 2 replies

bikesh sapkota1 month ago

davossherman2 months ago

Mike | Homeless On Wheels2 months ago

hard-nosed behavior could be overlooked. And, yes, blah, blah, blah ... I know Jobs's

products are used to promote the welfare of people all over the planet, but so are the

technology products of tons of other people who don't go around abusing the help the way

he did, and who would have done it all anyway, if Steve Jobs never existed. So, I guess my

point is, Jobs acted like what he was doing was the be-all and end-all of existence and he

acted like it excused his obnoxious behavior, and to my mind, it was not and it did not. We

could have done just fine on Earth if Steve were never born or he never succeeded in

bringing Apple and Mac to the people (and I'm typing on a Mac, so I'm not disparaging the

product, just the guy). I think the planet would be a much nicer place if we all realized we're

all PEOPLE, people, and if we had some empathy and compassion for each other (not a bad

thing for us to develop, if we're to stop these crazies from donning riot gear and shooting up

movie theaters). More justification for treating people like unimportant cogs in a wheel does

nothing for the quality of life on this planet, no matter how many iPods you invent.

(Edited by author 2 months ago)

I think he felt betrayed by John Scully( the CEO he hired) and apple board of directors

and he was showing lots of misplaced anger towards his employees when in fact he

was very bitter about what happen in the boardroom when he was fired. He harbored

that anger and it pretty much shaped his life from that point forward. And after

winning his way-back to save the fallen company, he had justification to act out on his

anger. But we human and human-systems are not designed to harbor negative

feelings so his human-system or body started to develop cancer. It is body's way of

coping. But the fact is he is truly a visionary and made a dint in the universe. He was

very successful but in the end we are only humans.

You're trying to make a point, not a blob.

Pick your best 2 to 3 sentences, delete the rest.

graham krenz1 month ago

MarkSaysThings1 month ago

FrankSeaweed1 month ago

John LeBourgeois2 months ago

So is the moral of the story "One must be an asshole to be successful in business?"

In my book the end doesn't justify the means. And frankly, I don't think it was a strategy -

Jobs was just naturally an asshole. Sadly, the fact that it seemed to work for him just

reinforced his atrocious behaviour and, sadly, probably inspired some otherwise nice people

into acting similarly.

This isn't new, this is just the next generation of stupid Gordon Gecko knockoffs. They'll die

alone and sad and not realize it until 10 minutes before the buzzer. Good luck to them, I

hope they enjoy their misery. They'll deny it, but I know an empty skull when I meet one.

Idolize steve jobs at the cost of your soul. Do your best work because you want to, not

because you have to.

A visionary jerk who doesn't listen to people is one thing. Most CEO's aren't so lucky. And if

you're a just an ordinary jerk who doesn't listen to people that's worse than anything for

your company.

I worked for a person similar to Jobs. At least in the area of treatment of employees. I think

she thought of herself as an assertive go-getter. The fact is she was a flaming a-hole. One

of the amusing moments was when a new hire was asked to attend two training sessions

with her before his actual start date. That's all it took. He never showed up after that.

I used to say that he was one of the smartest people she ever hired.

People do not even begin to understand the psychodynamics underlying steve jobs, so they

hide 1 reply

jujutsuka1 month ago

Hal O'Brien2 months ago

fixate on what attracts them.. bully, power, your shit etc..

Jobs is what the asian's call "half-cooked rice" in terms of his spiritual evolution. Too wet to

put back in the bag.. too hard to eat. He took from his mystical journeys that which would

work with his ego structures.. He got pristine perfection and an archtypical connection to

the world of forms from his lsd/zen experiences. However he never developed the other half

of the Zen experience, compassion.. because it didn't fit with his personality structure. Nor

did he apply the principals of self-observation of his ego process and concomitant

reduction as a means of development.. so he supercharged his belief structures and had no

counterpoint to reduce his excesses.

He would have been much better served to have taken a few tabs of ecstasy along with his

LSD.. he would have been a changed man.

His frustration/aggression with a world that did not meet his aesthetic or artistic standards

spills over in his relations with human beings. Yet he would be moved to tears by a

particularly "pure" or essential piece of music or art. Yes he exemplified the fact that to get

true excellence or perfection, you have to push people beyond their comfort zone.. The

japanese culture has that value implicit in their norms.. That's why their cars eat american

manufacturer's lunch.. He had to brute-force it into american norms.. So if you haven't done

zen, and you don't know where your aiming the arrow.. best not to push people in emulation

of his tactics.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I think a lot of his personality was shaped by his

time spent in India and his interest in Hinduism and Zen, but he seems to have picked

and chosen what he liked, to others' detriment.

Shooting from the hip, he seemed very impatient with (and abusive of?) those who

didn't function on his wavelength.

The whole topic of Steve Jobs and his sociopathy towards others reeks of survivorship bias

when it comes to other companies. That is, how many CEOs have treated their employees

like crap to emulate Steve, and then (unlike Steve in the long run) run their companies into

the ground anyway?

Nassim Taleb asks of Wall Street traders, "Are you good, or are you lucky? How do you

know?" The very rarity of Jobs' results implies he had what the baseball guys call

hide 1 reply


Bill Maslen2 months ago

hide 1 reply


non-repeatable skills, and was in fact mostly lucky. Pasteur's "Chance favors the prepared

mind," aside, the odds are blindly copying Steve's style won't actually produce the results

you want.

Dude, CEO's or other executives, don't treat people badly to emulate Steve Jobs. They

are jerks all by themselves. There were type A jerks before Jobs and they'll be here

way after Jobs. It's the personality type, not a Jobs-like leadership style. Why can't

people understand that. That doesn't mean I condone it, just to be clear.

Though for counter-argument's sake, one repeatable skill is embracing a vertical

business model. He had other repeatable skills but I'm not going to get into it.

This is a nice, measured evaluation, I must say. I am increasingly concerned by that tiny

percentage of extremely wealthy and powerful people who appear to have got there, and

most certainly remain there, because they believe they have absolute rights - they believe

they are more entitled (to everything) than anybody else. This sociopathic - even

psychopathic - trend in senior management has already been identified and questioned by

a growing series of commentators, and it does beg the question: are the qualities needed to

lead a major corporation also qualities that will eventually turn that corporation into a

frighteningly self-obsessed power hub, one that relies on legal action, political influence but

above all, sheer arrogant self-belief both to suppress the competition and to enforce

corporate priorities on customers and consumers? In short, turn the entire corporation -

with all its overt and covert power - into a mirror image of its senior manager(s)? We're

seeing similar moves from banks, publishers and energy companies - in this sense, Jobs

was not unique. Aggression and arrogance must be balanced by something, but we don't

appear to have worked out what. And while politicians play the revolving-door game with

the private sector, I wonder how long we're going to have to wait...

Well said. And thank you for realizing this is more than just Steve Jobs. He represents

pjcamp1 month ago

Jeff Redman1 month ago

a personality type that is seen everywhere. What's worse is this personality type with

no skills or vision. At least the guy had vision, and appreciated creativity.

He was an obsessive compulsive narcissist. Without his fortune, he would be on the street

corner talking to air molecules.

And despite the article's implicit assumption that his designs were brilliant, there are a lot of

us who find them obtuse, unnecessarily constrained, myopic and even tyrannical, and don't

admire them in the least. His greatest ability was to generate hype, not design.

I read this article with interest and being a person who uses both Apple and PC computers

with, I believe, some detachment from the platform wars. That said it seems to me that the

article is founded on a false premise - Mr. Jobs was a genius who changed the world.

To crib his own metaphor, I believe that any dent he made was very very small indeed. It

seems to me that his accomplishment, notable and financially rewarding as it was, did not

noticeably change the world. He did not, for instance, invent the personal computer. Others

did that, as others invented every part of every computer made by his company. For the

most part, Jobs created a business that merely refined the inventions of others. This is the

sort of task for which Japanese industry has been renowned for more than half a century.

His accomplishment does not rise to the heights of other similar industrial innovators such

as Thomas Edison, who registered 2332 patents of which about half were things he

invented, or Jack Kilby or Robert Noyce who invented the integrated circuit. Not even his

drive for perfection was unique. Tiffany had it. Michangelo had it. Faberge had it. The stone

cutters who built Chartré had it. Charles Rolls and Sir Royce had it.

What he did do is create a couple of companies that make great products, made him and

many others very wealthy, and that captured the nation's and perhaps the world's

imagination, but then so did Louis B. Mayer, Samuel Goldwin, and Gustave Eiffel, to name

but a few, but I don't believe that his accomplishments include even a single original

discovery or idea. If he had not made Apple computers the world would not be much, if any

different.

On that basis, I can't but conclude that he was a brilliant, misanthropic, lonely, bitter, and

probably frightened man, who channeled his need for perfection as he defined it into a

series of products and against his own personal weaknesses adopted the adage "the best

Social Oracle1 month ago

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EricLR1 month ago

AUTOPIA BUSINESS

CLOUDLINE DECODE

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defense is a good offense."

Seems the guy was basically a lucky prick who stood on the shoulders on the giants that

built Apple, the employees. The fact this asshole was celebrated by anyone doesn't say

much about the people who worship him. He didn't program, he didn't design and his pet

projects were mostly failures. His genius was getting people to believe his bullshit.

Well, he was a genius at stealing credit. Got to give him that.

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