The Story of Steve Jobs: An Inspiration or a Cautionary Tale?

One of the things that struck me while reading Jobs' biography was how frequently he cried. Numerous times throughout he's described as weeping, sometimes at momentous occasions, like getting fired from Apple, and sometimes over relatively trivial matters. Think about it. When was the last time you saw a grown person cry about something at work? Ever?<p>I think one of the things that made Steve Steve, and made him capable of doing the things he did, was how deeply he felt things. When a design wasn't right it actually seemed to cause him great emotional pain. People in emotional pain tend to lash out angrily. Just like you might forgive your spouse for saying something awful in the heat of an argument (I honestly believe it affected him on that deep of an emotional level), I think people forgave Steve because they knew that even when he was being vicious, it wasn't because he literally hated them. He was just deeply, personally wounded that his expectations weren't being met.<p>Now, it's not normal for anyone to care that deeply about what most people consider minor details, like the angle a corner is beveled at or something like that, but he did. And that level of caring about the details is what made Apple's products great.<p>Think about the last time anyone has done any work for you. Was there anything that was off? Probably there was. Most people weigh the benefit of fixing whatever minor problem there might be against the hassle of explaining what's wrong and waiting for it to be redone and the possibility of insulting the person who did the work and decide it's not worth it. You probably do this without even thinking about it. Obviously, for Steve it was always worth it, and that probably had a lot do with how emotionally sensitive he was.<p>It's easy to look back and say that you could have achieved the same results while being a nicer person, but I think it's easier said than done. I'm not saying it's impossible in general, but I think the deeply emotional place that Steve's sense of design came from made it nearly impossible for him. The important thing to take away was how much he was able to achieve because he cared so deeply, not the tyrannical aspect. That was a side effect. If you seek to emulate his tyranny (because you like being a tyrant, maybe) assuming that you'll get the same results, you're bound to be disappointed.

I have read Steve Jobs biography and this is definitively a cautionary tale and a great warning for anybody, but for other reasons that stated in this article.<p>I am no Apple fan, as a matter of fact I don't like the look and feel of their product but I gained a great admiration for Steve Jobs because he seemed like a man in immense suffering. I'm not talking about the obvious physical pain of cancer and all his crazy diets ( we share something in common ) but mentally he seemed like a sad sad person. I don't want to do bar stool psychology but it seemed pretty obvious that he was missing something in his life and he probably never found it.<p>But he's the paragon of the self made man, in the Ayn Rand sense and people ( especially here, where there's something approaching a cult ) look up to that and as soon as they encounter problems they imagine themselves in the shoes of this man and try to act tough... or <i>act Steve Jobs</i>.<p>If there's one paradoxical lesson that should be taken from his biography it is that you should never to listen to anybody that tells you how to act, don't try to fit in a mold, even in the mold of a great man, because you fundamentally don't have the same substance and thus you won't come out the same way: ie successful nor happy. Be your own man, forge your own mold and challenge the statu quo.

It seems to me that being dictatorial and downright mean only works if you are right about whatever you've decided to be dictatorial about. So when Jobs dropped that iPod prototype in water to prove that it could be smaller still, this helped the iPod's success largely because Jobs was right about the smallness, not because he berated his engineers. That ability to be right about what people wanted, not his apparently capricious and unpleasant demeanor, is why we still talk about him a year after his death.<p>Incidentally, it is also the difficult to reproduce part of his success.

In the ten years I worked at Pixar I had the pleasure of seeing or hearing a couple of Jobs famous tantrums first hand. At least in Pixar's case, they always seemed childish and destructive to me.<p>Meanwhile, Ed Catmull, the CEO, commanded the instant respect of absolutely everybody in the company despite being unfailingly polite and soft spoken because we all had such enormous regard for his intellect and maturity.

If we're still talking about him half a year after he's gone he must have gotten something right. I think something that techies don't see is that Jobs real gem is Pixar, a company that Lucas couldn't make work and a company that became Disney's animation studio. My bet is that as these devices go from being cool gadgets to the mundane that Jobs will be remembered for those Pixar films which will seem charming even if their technique is crude next to animation in the year 2032.

<i>&#62; Soon after Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO in 1997, he decided that a shipping company wasn’t delivering spare parts fast enough. The shipper said it couldn’t do better, and it didn’t have to: Apple had signed a contract...But the lesson here might make us uncomfortable: Violate any norm of social or business interaction that stands between you and what you want.</i><p>I've heard that many Chinese regard contracts more as guidelines than as iron-clad rule sets to be interpreted like bytecode. The relationship between the parties and their needs are more important than the letter of the law. (Or the letters on the contract.) By this set of norms, the shipper was the transgressor in this case, and Steve did the right thing.<p>Take care of the customer, or someone else will.

How many of your bosses were assholes?<p>Asshole wise I think Jobs might have been on the gentler side than some I've worked for.<p>Ever worked in a bank for a trading desk or a trader? That trader will make Jobs look like father christmas.<p>Bezos, the old bill gates, jobs,Steve balmier, marissa Mayer, all of my bosses except 2, Bloomberg, - all mutherfucking ahole bosses. Hell During my first stint, I sucked at it too. Don't single out jobs here.<p>The Only one who has grown up is Gates. In my mind Gates beats all these guys fr the amazing foundation he as created and how he has reinvented himself completely and the vigorous passion with which he is helping humanity.<p>I never thought I'd defend gates-I hae windows mre than anyone I know.

In my opinion the success of Apple with the more recent products is the only reason most people tolerated his shitty behaviour. It is easy to stay positive when everything is going so well.

Whenever I read these articles tha have arisen lately about Steve Jobs' managerial style, I'm surprised that no one mentions the most obvious thing: the people working for Jobs were building the iPhone, and the iPad, and some of the other <i>greatest products the world has ever seen</i>. Why on earth would the executive of a second-rate financial services software company (or whatever) think that they could motivate people in the same way?

The outline of his personality should be quite familiar to anyone who has worked with a famous (or even semi-famous, or just in their own mind) creative person in a field such as music, fashion, movies, TV, publishing, or high-end food. It's the classic prima donna genius-in-pain trope.<p>I suppose it's just somewhat rare in tech, where you more often see the Brian Wilson, asperger type of personality -- the introverted genius-in-a-thick-shell.

The market is absolutely ruthless. It doesn't sugarcoat things for you or hold your hand.<p>Startups know this and act accordingly.<p>Large organizations do not necessarily know this or act accordingly. There are too many layers insulating people from reality. But they ability to scale processes and that's why they survive.<p>Steve pushed reality hard and got through more of those layers. And that organization can really execute as a result.<p>That was just one of his abilities.

How long are blogs going to milk the Steve Jobs thing?

This seems like one occasion when a headline question is correctly answered "yes" :-)

This article is Bullshit. It is heights of insanity that a no name wired writer can just assume himself to be qualified to make judgements on someone who has had a huge impact (positive) on the world. I use an iPhone, iPad and a mac and I can vouch that my life is better with them than what I would imagine it to be without them. And what is the accusation? that he bullied a few? for making hundreds of millions of lives better? bullied as in asking people who are free to quit whenever to work more? The writer of this article is nuts

Did no one ever pull back and just punch him in the face? If not, why? Even the worst possible repercussions don't stop some people. And if so, did it have any effect?

There are a number of things that I find annoying about stories like this about Jobs — but the most pronounced is that I doubt he would have condoned his own behavior as seen from the outside. Jobs' attitude is a side-effect of his convictions.<p>I think people seem to overlook how a personality like that actually works. Oftentimes this happens while overtly being assholes in an attempt to imitate someone they admire but could probably never become.

I think there are good examples to take from Jobs. It's all about a time and a place, sometimes you want to drive to resolution, and be a dick, because that is what will produce the most efficient best result, and for other things, good enough _is_ good enough, and additional pushing will not result in substantive improvement. Wisdom is the ability to pick those two situation apart.

Why can't it be both? The one thing I gathered was to be passionate, but it really seemed like he wished he had more involvement with his children in the end.<p>He was a person, complex in many ways. I choose to follow Bruce Lee's advice, take whatever good you can learn from his life and apply it. Be that the manager style if it works, or the tale of being a better parent. I reject this dichotomy.

If you believe in MBTI, Steve Jobs is pegged as an ENTJ.<p>This is the brief definition of an ENTJ:<p><i>"They tend to be self-driven, motivating, energetic, assertive, confident, and competitive. They generally take a big-picture view and build a long-term strategy. They typically know what they want and may mobilize others to help them attain their goals. ENTJs are often sought out as leaders due to an innate ability to direct groups of people. Unusually influential and organized, they may sometimes judge others by their own tough standards, failing to take personal needs into account."</i><p>Here's the kicker:<p><i>ENTJs are among the rarest of types, accounting for about 2–5% of those who are formally tested.</i><p>A generation of people are going to try really hard to emulate a cult status figure's personality but at the end of the day that's all it really is: a bad fidelity copy.<p>Don't live to be Steve Jobs, be you. And if it so happens that you turn out awesome then great. If not, then work on acceptance.

Just reacting to the first anecdote: Breaking a contract that is not optimal for your business is not the same thing as breaking a social norm like parking in a handicap space or berating people regularly.<p>Contracts exist to serve the business. If you are smart you will employ great lawyers to make sure your contracts are at least equitable, if not advantageous to your company. To do this effectively, the lawyers will provide advice and create internal rules.<p>However if you are not careful the lawyers can backdoor themselves into making business decisions. The optimal rate at which parts are shipped is a <i>business</i> decision. If you need to break a contract to improve the business, then break it. Calculate the risks and costs, then break it if it makes business sense. That's what Apple did and the results obviously speak for themselves. Their supply chain is the envy of the entire world.

I just wonder if he was happy.

In my experience "the rules of social engagement" are as often used to entangle and obstruct as they are to create civility. Think of "foot-in-the-door" phenomenon.<p>Sometimes rudeness is respect, especially if it's an honest communication.<p>Jobs needed an on-time supplier, and it was arguably worth the cost of a legal battle in order to get one.<p>As others have said, though, it spawns imitators that think "Steve berated his employees, so I can too."

The lasting cultural influence of Jobs seems to me to be that he made ruthless Machiavellian sociopathy acceptable to a large segment of the population. What does it really matter how shiny and "faux-zen" the design of the perishable toys he sold was? He was to business ethics what Kiefer Sutherland in the show "24" was to law enforcement.

No one said it better than RMS:<p><pre><code> “Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died. As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, “I’m not glad he’s dead, but I’m glad he’s gone.” Nobody deserves to have to die – not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs’ malign influence on people’s computing. Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective.”</code></pre>

Wasn't he a buddhist? Not that that means anything. Buddhist's are more then capable of being shit-heads.<p>But if he was a practicing buddhist.. wouldn't he had recognized what leads to suffering? Desire of course. Desire to be be perfect. Or maybe his desire to prove he was right?<p>There are other words I'd use to describe him (and several other corporate giants); arrogance comes to mind.<p>Sometimes these men think there really did do it all on their own. Why I love hearing a billionaire say, "I'm a self made man". Oh really? So all the people who worked for you, cooked for you, kept your schedule, managed your companies, investments and life didn't do a damn thing? Really?<p>And that's what I think of Steve Jobs. No doubting he was brilliant and had amazing taste. But he wasn't the most important person in the room. At it's start Woz built Apple. Steve just sold it. And today, he didn't design the products, but he had vision of what he wanted. And many of us wanted the same thing. He was a damn good salesman. And he had a great ability of keeping everyone on focus. But he wasn't the most important person in the room. Apple could (and it does) go on without him. And I think he knew it. And it dogged him all his life.<p>I'm also believe in karma. And the way he died,, his long battle/suffering - leads me to believe he had debts to pay. I only hope, in the end he died clean.