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In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him
- rustcharm 8y agoCertainly, the people here, who worship him, don't see any criticism of Jobs as valid.
- toast_coder 8y agoI thought the consensus was that jobs was a jerk, but since he was a brilliant jerk its OK to idolize him.
- refurb 8y agoJesus. Just when you thought maybe he’s not that flawed of a person and this comes out.
- loco5niner 8y agoDoesn't mean he wasn't a jerk.
- InclinedPlane 8y agoJerk? No, Steve Jobs was an asshole, across the board. He was also a visionary and he was able to achieve great things. Guess what, being a highly achieving visionary is orthogonal to being a good person. People need to stop conflating the two and stop idolizing people just because of their achievements.
- CharlesW 8y agoI agree with all of this but would just note that Jobs wasn't an asshole every minute of the day, or even most of every day. He was often nice, charismatic, and inspirational.
- not_that_noob 8y agoJobs was IMO a High-Functioning Sociopath - http://www.md-health.com/Sociopath-Traits.html http://www.md-health.com/Sociopath-Traits.html He turned his charm on when he need to accomplish something, but there is no real empathy for anyone who was not useful to him in some way. The sad reality of Lisa's situation was that he didn't need her. So he treated her very badly, and then as is typical with sociopaths, turn around and blame her for his behavior. I truly sympathize with her.
- Nomentatus 8y agoWhat's so fascinating to me is that his narcissism/sociopathy ending up being focused on creating ever-better products, and therefore useful; that strikes me as rare, although it may not be. Wanting to be admired for doing (pushing others to do) actual good work isn't the usual sociopath thing. Maybe the highly unusual example Wozniak showed him, of the excellence humans could achieve (beyond what cut-and-paste engineers could achieve) was the real seed of that trait. Plus enjoying scalding others.
- InclinedPlane 8y agoDoesn't matter. An asshole is always an asshole even if they aren't an asshole 24/7. This is an equally important thing to understand. Being an asshole is a defining characteristic. Like being a murderer or a slave holder or a thief. Most murderers spend only a minute or so out of their entire lives committing a murder, that doesn't change who they are.
- Nomentatus 8y agoRight. Hitler was great to his immediate clerical staff (according to their much later reports) and liked to pet dogs. So what?
- loco5niner 8y agoedit - nevermind... forgot what orthogonal means.
- dsajames 8y agoThat's not what orthogonal means. It doesn't mean "opposite". Being a good person and being a high achieving person is very possible. Not necessary, not guaranteed. They just have nothing to do with each other.
- loco5niner 8y agoOh yeah... Whoops! You're right.
- Nomentatus 8y agoTrue. There's probably a slight inverse correlation, since achievers don't usually have as much time to learn politesse or even play team sports when young. Gotta admit, that even though I've never been a Steve fan at all, reading the book reviews made me realise I've probably given him a few too many benefits of the doubt, too.
- projectramo 8y agoFor some of this tone and context matter. If you tell someone they smell like a toilet but you smile before and laugh after, or sort of squint and say it playfully, it might be a joke and not mean. This is doubly true of a family member.
- h_r 8y agoAlthough what you say might be true, this is exactly the kind of "joke" that comes easily and frequently from those who really are cruel from what I've seen.
- projectramo 8y agowell you sound like a toilet, haha!
- Nomentatus 8y ago"You had to be there" and all that. Worth saying, and also my first thought while reading the book reviews... But on reflection: I've heard worse from my (electrical engineer) father (not delivered very nicely); and given all Steve's other less-than-charming traits, it seems unlikely he found a way to spare her feelings while delivering the news.
- bribroder 8y ago> The neighbors next door worried about the teenage Lisa, and one night, when Mr. Jobs was out, they moved her from his house and into theirs. Against Mr. Jobs’s wishes, the neighbors paid for her to finish college. (He later paid them back.) > Ms. Brennan-Jobs describes her father’s frequent use of money to confuse or frighten her. “Sometimes he decided not to pay for things at the very last minute,” she writes, “walking out of restaurants without paying the bill.” When her mother found a beautiful house and asked Mr. Jobs to buy it for her and Lisa, he agreed it was nice — but bought it for himself and moved in with his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs. > Ms. Brennan-Jobs said she wrote “Small Fry” in part to figure out why he withheld money from her even as his wealth ballooned, and as he spent it more freely on the children he had with Ms. Powell Jobs. She said she now sees it was about teaching her that money can corrupt. It's almost as if whenever financial support was involved, he went out of his way to actually embody the moral corruption and decadence of wealth. It's an extraordinarily Spartan and hard-bitten way to teach these lessons. One must marvel at the mental fortitude required to keep coming back to him with such obvious love. She seems to have taken it as an almost Islamic lesson in peace-through-surrender, requiring the same absolute faith without recompense.
- badrequest 8y agoOr maybe he wasn't sacrificing his natural humility to teach his daughter an important lesson on the toxicity of wealth, and he was just an asshole. Which explanation is simpler?
- bribroder 8y agoOh I didn't mean to imply any humility or positive traits in Jobs, I was thinking more about how it must have felt for his daughter and how she had to rationalize it.
- meowface 8y agoEspecially considering he treated only one of his children this way, and not the rest (at least to such an extreme extent). If his motives were really to teach them a lesson in fiscal responsibility and greed, I don't think he would subject only one of his children to such cold-hearted "education".
- RickJWagner 8y agoJobs famously used his wealth to jump in line for a kidney transplant. His penchant for parking in handicapped spaces is well documented. I don't think the book is making him out to be a jerk....
- sxp62000 8y agoI've seen this pattern from quite a few authors before. They describe Jobs as a jerk, and then go on to explain how his jerktitude actually helped them later on, like he was teaching them a life lesson or something. He was just very good at manipulating people.