Steve Jobs biography: What's your take?

[The_Swedish_Chef]

If you own an iProduct, you know who Steve Jobs is. If you have a TV, you know who Steve Jobs is, based on the days and days of coverage of his death, October 5th. If you watched 60 Minutes last night, you got to hear from Mr. Job's official biographer, Walter Isaacson, who's book is released today, detailing the life of Steve Jobs.

Like other famous geniuses such as Jackson Pollack and Charles Mingus, these men all had an Angel/Demon side to them. Brilliant, trend-setting, rule breakers, charismatic (when they needed to be)....but drug users, alcoholics, raging tempers that were out of control, and friend and family destroyers.

So, is a public person granted a "pass" from being cruel, vindictive, mean or violent if the general public benefits? What if the person who has these traits is just "ordinary", such as your mechanic, your son's teacher...or your spouse?

Any opinions? Read on for more. Official link to article is below.

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http://powerwall.msnbc.msn.com/politics ... 5258.story

The Steve Jobs backlash has begun, sparked by a new biography that paints a balanced but often unflattering portrait of Apple's visionary cofounder and CEO.

Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson, contains no huge revelations—which is no surprise, considering many other biographies have already covered much of the Jobs life story—but does deliver some key nuggets of information that will surprise and perhaps disappoint even those who have followed Jobs closely during his career.

Unlike other biographers, Isaacson had access to Jobs himself, interviewing the CEO some 40 times and speaking to most of the people who knew him well. Jobs first sought out Isaacson to write the biography in 2004, not long after his initial diagnosis of cancer. Isaacson demurred. But in 2009, knowing that his health had grown worse and that he did not have long to live, Jobs asked Isaacson again. At that point Isaacson, who previously had written biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, signed on for the project.

Jobs's death on Oct. 5 prompted an outpouring of grief, with Apple fans creating makeshift shrines outside Apple stores and industry luminaries delivering tributes to his genius and portraying him as a kind of selfless messiah, a silicon saint who had led the world out of darkness and into the light. more

The Isaacson book paints a more complicated picture, one that Jobs's wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, encouraged the author to present, saying that "there are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy, and that's the truth. You shouldn't whitewash it. He's good at spin, but he also has a remarkable story, and I'd like to see that it's all told truthfully."

She might not have expected, however, that Isaacson would include comments from Andy Hertzfeld, one of the original Macintosh developers and a longtime friend of the Jobs family who lives near them in Palo Alto, Calif., claiming that Laurene's story about meeting Steve by accident at an event at Stanford, where she was a graduate student, was not entirely true—that in fact she had schemed to meet him. "Laurene is nice, but she can be calculating," Hertzfeld says, "and I think she targeted him from the beginning. Her college roommate told me that Laurene had magazine covers of Steve and vowed she was going to meet him. If it's true that Steve was manipulated, there is a fair amount of irony there."

Laurene Jobs tells Isaacson that this is not the case. But still, there it is, in the book.

Also much addressed is Jobs's notorious mean streak and willingness to be rude and belittling even to those closest to him. Jon Ive, Apple's head of design and one of the closest people to Jobs during his career at Apple, recounts examples of Jobs being hurtful, something that puzzled Ive, since Jobs was also a very sensitive person. "His way to achieve catharsis is to hurt somebody. And I think he feels he has a liberty and a license to do that. The normal rules of social engagement, he feels, don't apply to him. Because of how very sensitive he is, he knows exactly how to efficiently and effectively hurt someone. And he does do that."

Jobs is painted as a stubborn egomaniac who refused to get treatment for his cancer when he was first diagnosed despite entreaties from close friends like Intel CEO Andy Grove, who is a cancer survivor himself, and Genentech chairman Arthur Levinson, who is an Apple director. "That's not how cancer works," Levinson recalls telling Jobs when he first set out to cure his disease by with a vegan diet, carrot juice, acupuncture, and visits to a psychic. "You cannot solve this without surgery and blasting it with toxic chemicals."

Eventually Jobs did have surgery, but by then it was too late—the cancer had spread beyond his pancreas. The Isaacson book also reveals that for the last several years of his life Jobs knew his health situation was far worse than he let on to Apple and the public. For years some critics have complained that Jobs and Apple were not being forthcoming enough with shareholders about the true nature of his condition. The portrait presented by Isaacson is of a man who claimed he had been "cured" even when he knew this was not the case.

Jobs comes across as hypercompetitive and vengeful, a man who, even as he was dying, remained obsessed with Google's Android operating system, which he considered to be a rip-off of the software in Apple's iPhone. "I will spend my last dying breath if I have to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs says.

Isaacson also recounts Jobs's fury when Jon Rubinstein, a key Apple engineer, left the company and later joined Palm, which was building a rival to the iPhone. Rubinstein was pushed out of Apple by Ive, who had clashed with Rubinstein and gave Jobs an ultimatum—he goes or I go. So Rubinstein left, and yet when he took a position at Palm, Jobs went ballistic, and even called rock star Bono, whose investment company, Elevation Partners, owned part of Palm, and asked him to intercede. Bono told Jobs to chill out. Jobs did, eventually, and later says, "The fact that they completely failed salves that wound."

Jobs in his dying days seems not to have gained any special wisdom or perspective. He has unkind things to say about Rubinstein, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Barack Obama, Google chairman Eric Schmidt, and others. In the case of Obama, Jobs refused to meet with the president unless Obama called him personally to ask for the meeting. When the pair finally met, Jobs comes across like a version of Montgomery Burns on The Simpsons, suggesting, among other things, that the U.S. should be more like China when it came to regulating (or not regulating) companies as they built factories, that the president should get rid of teachers' unions, and that schools should stay in session until 6 p.m. and operate 11 months out of the year.

Perhaps the most disappointing side of Jobs involves his family. Isaacson delves into the story of Lisa Brennan-Jobs, the daughter Jobs fathered when he was 23 years old but refused to acknowledge, forcing her mother to live for a time on welfare and food stamps, and later on a meager subsidy even while Jobs became one of the wealthiest people in America. Jobs later acknowledged Lisa, and at age 14 she moved in with Jobs and his new family, after some kind of difficult situation that Isaacson hints at but, for reasons that are unclear, decides not to divulge completely. Even then, though, Jobs and his daughter had a rocky, on-and-off relationship, with the tech titan often cutting his daughter off when they had disagreements, forcing her to borrow money from Hertzfeld to pay for her tuition at Harvard, for example.

Jobs had three children with Laurene—a son, Reed, and two daughters, Erin and Eve. According to Isaacson, "Jobs developed a strong relationship with Reed, but with his daughters he was more distant. As he would with others, he would occasionally focus on them, but just as often would completely ignore them when he had other things on his mind." Says Laurene: "He focuses on his work, and at times he has not been there for the girls."

Isaacson says Jobs told him one reason he wanted to have a biography written was so that his children would know him. He said he hadn't been around much for his kids, and he wanted them to understand why that was. This must be one of the saddest things I have ever read. The picture here is of a brilliant, successful yet amazingly narrow, limited, and ungenerous man, who, even as he was dying, could not let go of his desire to outdo his enemies and could not imagine anything more fulfilling to do with his limited time on earth than building more new gadgets and gizmos, a man who put work ahead of his family and was often appallingly hurtful to the people closest to him. He was, in other words, a man of his time, a symbol of all that is great and all that is wrong with our culture.

[Cranberry]

Oh oh oh! fantastic topic. I just have to run for a bit for groceries but great topic!

[The_Swedish_Chef]

I appreciate your comment, Cranberry! Look forward to what you have to add.

I'm completely neutral to Steve Jobs, owning NO Apple products. I'm aware of what his marketing has done to personal electronics, but...and it's a BIG "but"....does a Public Figure get more "Forgiveables" than an Ordinary Joe? If Steve was YOUR friend and ditched you or made a personal vendetta to see you in Hell because you were his competition, would you feel the same?

Nearly as well known as his ambitious music was Mingus' often fearsome temperament, which earned him the nickname "The Angry Man of Jazz." His refusal to compromise his musical integrity led to many on-stage eruptions, exhortations to musicians, and dismissals. Mingus reportedly destroyed a $20,000 bass in response to audience heckling at New York's Five Spot. Guitarist and singer Jackie Paris was a first-hand witness to Mingus's irascibility. Paris recalls his time in the Jazz Workshop: "He chased everybody off the stand except [drummer] Paul Motian and me... The three of us just wailed on the blues for about an hour and a half before he called the other cats back."

Jackson Pollock was one of the most influential and controversial painters of the twentieth century. He was an alcoholic with a quick temper and quick fists. He once said: “The problem isn’t painting; it’s what to do when you aren’t painting.” Indeed, his problem was not painting!

And then, of course, we have such wildly popular male leads as Mel Gibson and Charlie Sheen, both great actors who had a crazy-demonic side that led to their downfall.

So, does being creative exclude you from being Kind? Are they mutually exclusive?

[Cranberry]

"There is a fine line between genius and insanity" is applicable here. I have always known that he was a jerk. I have friends that work at Apple who have said if you get on the elevator with Steve you get off without a job. They however get a starting salary in the six figures.

As far as his actions to his children - inexcusable.

Concerning his cancer treatment - I have read about that before and it really surprised me that a man on the cutting edge of technology would respond the way he did with the carrot juice and what not. This makes me think that mentally there was a few screws loose. Howard Hughes-like maybe?

Steve's love for LSD also surprised me and makes me wonder how someone so brilliant would tell others to try it.

Him and his enemies - touch of crazy

I know an airplane mechanic who can be an absolute jerk (but not to me!). He demands lots from his students, his apprentices, and his employees. He doesn't suffer fools. When you're 35 000ft in the air do you honestly care if he's a jerk? I don't. I know he's the best. If he hurts someones feelings while fixing an airplane so be it!!!

I think as a society we are getting really "oh that person hurt my feelings" and "I'm so offended". I think there are people who just like being offended.
I appreciate both geniuses and kind people (and the combination of the two are really terrific). I have friends. I don't need Steve Jobs to be nice. Nobody on earth is perfect so I will take my iPod and enjoy. If I need cheering up I'll look at pictures of baby animals.

This is what Kevin O'Leary wrote about him. Kevin is known in Canada as being a huge jerk but very successful business man. Basically Steve yelled and screamed at Kevin which makes me laugh!
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/kevin-olea ... 01669.html

[The_Swedish_Chef]

I thank you, Cranberry, for writing such an insightful post. I did read the Huffington article and it, too, was interesting. However, as a business owner herself, you can be a perfectionist but kind. You can have excellent employee relationships AND get great productivity. You can be firm with clients and still get your ideas across.

I completely disagree with the general public thought that if you're brilliant, you can be an arse! Or, if you're an "artist" you can flip everyone off! When I heard on 60 Minutes that Steve's personal hygiene was SO horrible that they stuck him on the night shift at Atari so no one had to smell him..... Well, that's just nuts! Bare feet to work, no baths, no combed hair, no deodorant....really????

My ex-husband, the musical genius, always tried to play the "I'm different so I don't need to follow the rules" card, too. I didn't buy it. My ex tried to explain away booze, drugs, sluts, no pay as the "norm" for being an "ar-teest". Yet, in his same musical group, there were men who had families, that stayed sober, drug-free and floozy-free, too. Just like any kid who tries to pull the wool over their parents eyes, if true or so-called "geniuses" or "artists" can get away with something like not bathing or not having a license on their car, they'll try to do it. For someone like Steve Jobs who thought he was too good to obey the rules of society, I'm rather shocked how vengeful he was at people who wanted to best him at his own e-game. It appears he was one of those people who believed "Do as I say, not as I do."

Whatever. He was who he was and now he isn't. I'm sure that true iFans will find a way to dismiss the LSD, the dismissal of his pregnant girlfriends (he did it twice, to both women but recanted years later), his hatred against competitors, and his temper. But, as you said, as long as you've got your iPod and I've got my Samsung Galaxy Tablet, we're happy.

Now, it's up to Apple to carry the load, now that Steve's not there to guide/boss/threaten them any longer.

Thanks for adding to this thread, Cranberry!

[Cranberry]

I went to school with a guy who had an absolutely brilliant IQ wise but his EQ was nil. He ended up falling into depression and then I don't know what happened to him. I wouldn't excuse any of his horrible jokes except to say God wired him different (if you don't believe in God then "he was just wired different" )

I also work with egos galore and you learn not to take it personally. I'm not a big fan of Arianna since she sold out to AOL.

I'm glad you got rid of your ex!

[Cranberry]

I am addicted to this site

I have gotten very little work done but I saw this article and I wanted to share it with you. It's an interview with the author

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20124 ... ntrol-q-a/


This topic just hooked me in Swede. I could spend all day discussing it

[The_Swedish_Chef]

Wow. That's some article you linked, Cranberry. I promise (pinky swear!) that I'll read it first thing tomorrow morning. Right now, I'm powering through the last bit of my Halloween costume and I only have 1/2 an hour left of true daylight.

I need to get my head-dress done TONIGHT! The purse and stole I can do early tomorrow.

Like you, I could discuss this topic for hours. Not so much, my real life friends. Even if they're Apple fans, they are "Yawnnnnnn!" about this topic. Now, if I was talking about The Greatest Race or Survivor, I'd have a line around the block, ready to talk. Bummer.

[Denise]

Funny - I grew up in a tiny town of 1200 people, lived about a mile out of town and my Uncle, who lived with my Grandmother, was labeled a "genius" and so was our next door neighbor - what are the odds of that happening? They're both well known for their bizarre behavior. Both drug addicts, both alcoholics. And no, we didn't take their excuses, the Uncle was kicked off the family plot, never to be seen again. Last I heard, he was in a ditch somewhere in the city. I do think people with very high IQs just typically tend to be different because they see things differently.

[The_Swedish_Chef]

Funny - I grew up in a tiny town of 1200 people, lived about a mile out of town and my Uncle, who lived with my Grandmother, was labeled a "genius" and so was our next door neighbor - what are the odds of that happening? They're both well known for their bizarre behavior. Both drug addicts, both alcoholics. And no, we didn't take their excuses, the Uncle was kicked off the family plot, never to be seen again. Last I heard, he was in a ditch somewhere in the city. I do think people with very high IQs just typically tend to be different because they see things differently.

We brooked no nonsense in our family, either, Denise. Living on a farm, you "culled" the herd, regularly, whether human or animal. Of course, we didn't kill the humans, we just didn't baby or pander to their mischief!

I subscribe to a Daily Word email and this word was todays. I read it and literally, the first person I thought of was Steve Jobs. I guess being a megalomaniac has it's pluses, if you deal in the tech world.

"Do you feel really great? Like, greater than everybody else around you? If so, be careful that you do not suffer from the mental disorder megalomania, in which you imagine yourself to be much greater and more powerful than you really are. Other people may point this out to you (if you can be bothered to listen). The word is from Greek roots, megalos ("large, great, much") and mania (from a root meaning "to be mad")."