8 ms·

Apple Co-Founder’s Allies Take Aim at Hollywood Over ‘Steve Jobs’

33 points by spking 11y ago

twexler 11y ago
Full text: Four years after Steve Jobs’s death, a new movie is reopening a debate over the Apple Inc. co-founder’s legacy. Mr. Jobs’s allies, led by his widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, say the film “Steve Jobs,” and other recent depictions, play down his accomplishments and paint Mr. Jobs as cruel and inhumane. Ms. Jobs repeatedly tried to kill the film, according to people familiar with the conversations. She lobbied, among others, Sony Pictures Entertainment, which developed the script but passed on the movie for financial reasons, and Comcast Corp.’s Universal Pictures, which is releasing the $33.5 million production on Friday. “A whole generation is going to think of him in a different way if they see a movie that depicts him in a negative way,” said Bill Campbell, a longtime Apple board member and friend of Mr. Jobs. Mr. Campbell hasn't seen the film. The movie’s creators, who include “Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle and “The Social Network” screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, say it is within the bounds of artistic license. The film is based on a best-selling biography of Mr. Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Mr. Jobs cooperated with Mr. Isaacson while he was writing the book, but some friends and former colleagues, including Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, have criticized it in recent months. Asked about the movie by “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert recently, Mr. Cook said, “I think a lot of people are trying to be opportunistic and I hate this.” People behind “Steve Jobs” say they offered to include Ms. Jobs in the film’s development, but she declined. “She refused to discuss anything in Aaron’s script that bothered her despite my repeated entreaties,” producer Scott Rudin said in an emailed response to questions from The Wall Street Journal. He said Ms. Jobs “continued to say how much she disliked the book, and that any movie based on the book could not possibly be accurate.” Ms. Jobs declined to comment for this article. The Hollywood-Silicon Valley sparring echoes that over “The Social Network,” the 2010 film about Mark Zuckerberg and the rise of Facebook Inc. Facebook sought and won script changes. Mr. Zuckerberg later said the movie “made up a bunch of stuff that I found kind of hurtful.” “Steve Jobs” arrives amid a broader reassessment of Mr. Jobs. His 2011 death provoked public mourning unusual for a business executive, and Apple has since become the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. More recent depictions of Mr. Jobs look beyond his achievements at Apple and probe his personal life, including a complicated relationship with his eldest daughter. In March, Apple Senior Vice President Eddy Cue walked out of a screening of “Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine,” a documentary directed by Alex Gibney. Mr. Cue later tweeted that the film was an “inaccurate and mean-spirited view of my friend.” Mr. Cue also talked to several Hollywood executives about the coming Universal movie, echoing Ms. Jobs’s concerns. Mr. Gibney said in a statement that his film “certainly wasn’t mean-spirited, just truthful.” “Steve Jobs,” which stars Michael Fassbender in the title role, is divided into acts focused on the launches of three Jobs products: the Macintosh computer in 1984, a NeXT computer in 1988 and the iMac in 1998. It portrays Mr. Jobs as brilliant but abrasive and focuses on sometimes-contentious relationships with key figures in his life, including co-founder Steve Wozniak, marketing executive Joanna Hoffman, his successor as CEO, John Sculley, and his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs. Mr. Sorkin interviewed people portrayed in the movie, and the finished product differs significantly from Mr. Isaacson’s book. Ms. Hoffman and Lisa Brennan-Jobs were minor characters in the book, for example. “When you’re writing about real people…you have a big responsibility,” Mr. Sorkin said in an interview. The filmmakers say “Steve Jobs” is intended more as an impressionistic portrait of its subject than a photograph. “The truth is not necessarily in the facts, it’s in the feel,” said Mr. Boyle. In an emailed statement, Universal Pictures Chairman Donna Langley said, “The film was made with the utmost integrity and we are enormously proud of it.” Mr. Wozniak, who was paid $200,000 to consult on the film, according to a stolen copy of the budget posted online, said he understands that the movie doesn’t precisely portray real events. “It’s about Jobs and his personality,” Mr. Wozniak wrote in an email. “I feel that it did a great job.” Mr. Jobs’s allies aren’t comforted by such views. “If they want to make a drama, they shouldn’t do it at somebody else’s expense,” said Mr. Campbell. “He’s not there to defend himself.” Reviews from the Telluride Film Festival, where “Steve Jobs” screened in early September, were largely positive, but the box-office prospects for an adult drama are challenging at a time when television is packed with them. Sony had projected the movie needed to gross $100 million world-wide to break even, according to a document stolen in a corporate hack. Among the reviews many in Silicon Valley await is that of Ms. Jobs. Universal offered to show her the film, but only if she signed a nondisclosure agreement forbidding her from discussing it publicly until it opened, said her spokesman. She declined.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - CyberDildonics 11y ago
    Ok... so how was it a hatchet job and what was the truth that never came out?
  - on_ 11y ago
    Walter Isaacson is a well respected biographer asked specifically by jobs to write the book. I dont have time or the access to corroborate it, but it felt accurate reading it and was in line with other things i've read. Also, some objective facts like screwing over early employees and disowning his daughter make it easier to believe he was capable of pretty bad actions. Bill Gates also grew up a lot and devoted the latter half of his life to helping people, which helped. What parts were wrong?
    - mwhuber 11y ago
      I don't see any comments from the Jobs' camp about inaccuracies, falsehoods, etc. that came about with Zuck. They seem to just not like that his lesser known (to the greater public at least) side is being publicized.
      - adventured 11y ago
        Doesn't everyone in the tech and media sphere already know that the Social Network was heavily fraudulent? What point would there be for the Jobs' camp to point those out again, after they were pointed out for years?
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - knight17 11y ago
sigmar 11y ago
>Asked about the movie by “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert recently, Mr. Cook said, “I think a lot of people are trying to be opportunistic and I hate this.” I'm not positive, but I'm willing to bet Cook was talking more about "Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine" with that comment. That movie was a documentary and was quite critical of Steve Jobs.
acomjean 11y ago
"That said, I think it’s a fine movie, brilliantly written and performed and full of humor and feeling. It deviates from reality everywhere — almost nothing in it is like it really happened " Andy Hertzfeld, member of the mac team. He was consulted for the movie. http://recode.net/2015/10/02/original-mac-team-member-andy-hertzfeld-talks-about-the-hollywood-steve-jobs-qa/ http://recode.net/2015/10/02/original-mac-team-member-andy-h...
dsugarman 11y ago
paywall getaround link - https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8QqQIwAGoVChMI8ZjX-ZSqyAIVQqw-Ch1s6QRm&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fapple-co-founders-allies-take-aim-at-hollywood-over-steve-jobs-1444000308&usg=AFQjCNHQnCGbMX8cNNY8o2OucRaEEDi7oQ https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
SCAQTony 11y ago
Woz' and Isaacson are pretty damn credible. If someone attacked Bill Gates for being a "bully' or a "jerk" it really wouldn't wash for his humanitarian achievements from education, farming, immunizations, on ad infinitum would blow away any character criticisms. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-Information/Foundation-Factsheet http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-Informatio... Steve Jobs' defenders on the other hand aren't bringing up many stellar character examples. This is a problem for a company that needs "demigod personality" as the face of their brand. Your milage may vary. (Edit typos and grammar corrected)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - melling 11y ago
    I didn't downvote you but I would suggest providing links to support your claims.
  - new299 11y ago
    I'd like to see a reference on the Oregon school forced to buy Windows licenses for Macs. But could only find references to Microsoft/BSA raids on school with legitimate licensing issues: http://www.salon.com/2001/07/10/microsoft_school/ http://www.salon.com/2001/07/10/microsoft_school/ (though the story is pretty bad)
- adventured 11y ago
  It's a challenging problem when you're diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer at just 48 years of age. Do you spend what may be a short amount of time that you have left on trying to build a foundation to give your wealth away, or do you spend it doing what you enjoy most? Jobs gets viciously and unfairly criticized on this point. If other people ('normal people') choose to pursue what they want to with their remaining time in the face of such a diagnosis, few would dare criticize them. That becomes an even more important question when you realize that Jobs knew his wife would be fully capable of giving his wealth away after his passing. In the second half of his cancer battle, it was pretty obvious he was not going to survive longer term. So what do you do at 52 or 53 years of age, when it's apparent you're going to die? Do you spend years (which you may not have) trying to build a successful foundation? My personal opinion is that's an absurd premise. The reality is, we'll never know if Jobs would have become a successful philanthropist, or whether he would have focused on his work as Buffett has and leave the giving to eg his wife. If Bill Gates had been diagnosed with a terminal cancer at 48, and died in his early to mid 50s - it's likely his legacy would look a lot different too. When Gates was 48 in 2003, his public reputation was far different than it is today, he was openly reviled as an abusive monopolist and robber baron with a long reputation for having been mean and abusive to employees. It's Steve's vast billions that will be given away by Laurene, and he deserves a lot of credit for that, as much as someone like Warren Buffett does for the good his wealth will do. I don't see many examples of Jobs getting a comparable treatment versus what someone like Buffett does on this point however. edit: if you care to, feel free to explain why you disagree with me, assuming it's not just based on a reflexive need to bash Steve Jobs and not give him credit for any of the good his wealth will do and or has done (while someone like Buffett gets a lot of credit, while performing almost none of the actual philanthropic effort either)
danso 11y ago
I don't understand why Jobs' friends feel the need to paint him as a saint. He was brilliant and inspiring, but he was also a jerk in inexplicable ways, throughout his life. I imagine if most of us had as much scrutiny as Jobs did over 50 years, the result wouldn't be a clean or tidy screenplay. But it's important to accept his mercurial personality, if only to remind people that great leaders are not at all perfect. Besides him being horrible to the mother of Lisa...the other unpleasant episode that comes to mind is how he cheated Woz even before Apple began...this is a thing so small and so long past the time that Woz and Jobs became legends and yet Jobs, rather than not admitting what he did, doubles up and points out how Woz would be nothing if Jobs hadn't brought him on to Apple. Isaacson devoted a substantial part of the early chapters to this episode: > Recollections differ, but by most accounts Jobs simply gave Wozniak half of the base fee and not the bonus Bushnell paid for saving five chips. It would be another ten years before Wozniak discovered (by being shown the tale in a book on the history of Atari titled Zap) that Jobs had been paid this bonus. > “I think that Steve needed the money, and he just didn’t tell me the truth,” Wozniak later said. When he talks about it now, there are long pauses, and he admits that it causes him pain. “I wish he had just been honest. If he had told me he needed the money, he should have known I would have just given it to him. He was a friend. You help your friends.” > To Wozniak, it showed a fundamental difference in their characters. “Ethics always mattered to me, and I still don’t understand why he would’ve gotten paid one thing and told me he’d gotten paid another,” he said. “But, you know, people are different.” When Jobs learned this story was published, he called Wozniak to deny it. “He told me that he didn’t remember doing it, and that if he did something like that he would remember it, so he probably didn’t do it,” Wozniak recalled. > When I asked Jobs directly, he became unusually quiet and hesitant. “I don’t know where that allegation comes from,” he said. “I gave him half the money I ever got. That’s how I’ve always been with Woz. I mean, Woz stopped working in 1978. He never did one ounce of work after 1978. And yet he got exactly the same shares of Apple stock that I did.” > Is it possible that memories are muddled and that Jobs did not, in fact, shortchange Wozniak? “There’s a chance that my memory is all wrong and messed up,” Wozniak told me, but after a pause he reconsidered. “But no. I remember the details of this one, the $ 350 check.” He confirmed his memory with Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn. > “I remember talking about the bonus money to Woz, and he was upset,” Bushnell said. “I said yes, there was a bonus for each chip they saved, and he just shook his head and then clucked his tongue.” As always, Woz demonstrated his near-infinite compassion and wisdom when Isaacson pressed him on Jobs' deception: > Whatever the truth, Wozniak later insisted that it was not worth rehashing. Jobs is a complex person, he said, and being manipulative is just the darker facet of the traits that make him successful. Wozniak would never have been that way, but as he points out, he also could never have built Apple. “I would rather let it pass,” he said when I pressed the point. “It’s not something I want to judge Steve by.”
meeper16 11y ago
The dude was focused on taking over sliver of the meaning of life, a phone and such. Let Jobs screw Wosniak, take his idea (US Festivals) and pass it off on the music industry, borrow money from Gates, steal from Parc and try to shut down streaming music comapnies while stepping in front of the line for a liver he never used. Not interested. I like what Google is doing 10000000000000000x better: Google's Company That Wants To Cure Death Now Has Its Own Website http://www.businessinsider.com/calico-website-google-curing-death-2014-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/calico-website-google-curing-...
staunch 11y ago
I hope Lauren Jobs knows that Steve Jobs will continue to inspire generations of entrepreneurs. He showed Silicon Valley how to change the world in an exciting and delightful way. Every founder is trying their best to follow his example of excellence, whether they acknowledge it or not. Most fall far short. Anyone trying to create things should study Jobs, and anyone who does study him (with an open mind) will come away with a profound respect for him as a creator and as a person. As Elon Musk said, "there was a certain magic about Steve Jobs that was really inspiring" Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things...
- ryandvm 11y ago
  The flip side of that is that we're now about 5 years into the phenomenon of managers and entreprenuers cargo-culting assholeism as a way of acheiving success. Every time I read about some jerk lamenting the fact that his employees like to eat dinner with their families, we have guys like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk to thank for it.
  - staunch 11y ago
    Unless you're talking about children, you can safely blame the people themselves for their own behavior. Most people who worked with Steve Jobs consider it a highlight of their professional careers. He was as demanding of himself as he was of others, and worked as hard as anyone. These are some of the traits that the assholes don't copy.
andrewtbham 11y ago
I agree with Eddie Cue, Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine, was a hatchet job.
- Apocryphon 11y ago
  How so?
mattmaroon 11y ago
It's been a long time since Aaron Sorkin did something that didn't feel like a recent film school grad doing a bad impression of Aaron Sorkin. See The Social Network for a great example. He's become a weird cliche parody of himself, where every character has the exact same diction and incredible grammar and rapid fire wit. It's like dozens of different actors channeling the ghost of Josh Lyman. Forgot about accuracy, treat it as a work of fiction and be surprised if it just doesn't suck as a film.
mattmaroon 11y ago
It's been a long time since Aaron Sorkin did something that didn't feel like a recent film school grad doing a bad impression of Aaron Sorkin. See The Social Network for a great example. He's become a weird cliche parody of himself, where every character has the exact same diction and incredible grammar and rapid fire wit. It's like dozens of different actors channeling the ghost of Josh Lyman. Forgot about accuracy, treat it as a work of fiction and be surprised if it just doesn't suck as a film.

33 points by spking 11y ago

Full text: Four years after Steve Jobs’s death, a new movie is reopening a debate over the Apple Inc. co-founder’s legacy. Mr. Jobs’s allies, led by his widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, say the film “Steve Jobs,” and other recent depictions, play down his accomplishments and paint Mr. Jobs as cruel and inhumane. Ms. Jobs repeatedly tried to kill the film, according to people familiar with the conversations. She lobbied, among others, Sony Pictures Entertainment, which developed the script but passed on the movie for financial reasons, and Comcast Corp.’s Universal Pictures, which is releasing the $33.5 million production on Friday. “A whole generation is going to think of him in a different way if they see a movie that depicts him in a negative way,” said Bill Campbell, a longtime Apple board member and friend of Mr. Jobs. Mr. Campbell hasn't seen the film. The movie’s creators, who include “Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle and “The Social Network” screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, say it is within the bounds of artistic license. The film is based on a best-selling biography of Mr. Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Mr. Jobs cooperated with Mr. Isaacson while he was writing the book, but some friends and former colleagues, including Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, have criticized it in recent months. Asked about the movie by “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert recently, Mr. Cook said, “I think a lot of people are trying to be opportunistic and I hate this.” People behind “Steve Jobs” say they offered to include Ms. Jobs in the film’s development, but she declined. “She refused to discuss anything in Aaron’s script that bothered her despite my repeated entreaties,” producer Scott Rudin said in an emailed response to questions from The Wall Street Journal. He said Ms. Jobs “continued to say how much she disliked the book, and that any movie based on the book could not possibly be accurate.” Ms. Jobs declined to comment for this article. The Hollywood-Silicon Valley sparring echoes that over “The Social Network,” the 2010 film about Mark Zuckerberg and the rise of Facebook Inc. Facebook sought and won script changes. Mr. Zuckerberg later said the movie “made up a bunch of stuff that I found kind of hurtful.” “Steve Jobs” arrives amid a broader reassessment of Mr. Jobs. His 2011 death provoked public mourning unusual for a business executive, and Apple has since become the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. More recent depictions of Mr. Jobs look beyond his achievements at Apple and probe his personal life, including a complicated relationship with his eldest daughter. In March, Apple Senior Vice President Eddy Cue walked out of a screening of “Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine,” a documentary directed by Alex Gibney. Mr. Cue later tweeted that the film was an “inaccurate and mean-spirited view of my friend.” Mr. Cue also talked to several Hollywood executives about the coming Universal movie, echoing Ms. Jobs’s concerns. Mr. Gibney said in a statement that his film “certainly wasn’t mean-spirited, just truthful.” “Steve Jobs,” which stars Michael Fassbender in the title role, is divided into acts focused on the launches of three Jobs products: the Macintosh computer in 1984, a NeXT computer in 1988 and the iMac in 1998. It portrays Mr. Jobs as brilliant but abrasive and focuses on sometimes-contentious relationships with key figures in his life, including co-founder Steve Wozniak, marketing executive Joanna Hoffman, his successor as CEO, John Sculley, and his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs. Mr. Sorkin interviewed people portrayed in the movie, and the finished product differs significantly from Mr. Isaacson’s book. Ms. Hoffman and Lisa Brennan-Jobs were minor characters in the book, for example. “When you’re writing about real people…you have a big responsibility,” Mr. Sorkin said in an interview. The filmmakers say “Steve Jobs” is intended more as an impressionistic portrait of its subject than a photograph. “The truth is not necessarily in the facts, it’s in the feel,” said Mr. Boyle. In an emailed statement, Universal Pictures Chairman Donna Langley said, “The film was made with the utmost integrity and we are enormously proud of it.” Mr. Wozniak, who was paid $200,000 to consult on the film, according to a stolen copy of the budget posted online, said he understands that the movie doesn’t precisely portray real events. “It’s about Jobs and his personality,” Mr. Wozniak wrote in an email. “I feel that it did a great job.” Mr. Jobs’s allies aren’t comforted by such views. “If they want to make a drama, they shouldn’t do it at somebody else’s expense,” said Mr. Campbell. “He’s not there to defend himself.” Reviews from the Telluride Film Festival, where “Steve Jobs” screened in early September, were largely positive, but the box-office prospects for an adult drama are challenging at a time when television is packed with them. Sony had projected the movie needed to gross $100 million world-wide to break even, according to a document stolen in a corporate hack. Among the reviews many in Silicon Valley await is that of Ms. Jobs. Universal offered to show her the film, but only if she signed a nondisclosure agreement forbidding her from discussing it publicly until it opened, said her spokesman. She declined.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- CyberDildonics 11y ago
  Ok... so how was it a hatchet job and what was the truth that never came out?
- on_ 11y ago
  Walter Isaacson is a well respected biographer asked specifically by jobs to write the book. I dont have time or the access to corroborate it, but it felt accurate reading it and was in line with other things i've read. Also, some objective facts like screwing over early employees and disowning his daughter make it easier to believe he was capable of pretty bad actions. Bill Gates also grew up a lot and devoted the latter half of his life to helping people, which helped. What parts were wrong?
  - mwhuber 11y ago
    I don't see any comments from the Jobs' camp about inaccuracies, falsehoods, etc. that came about with Zuck. They seem to just not like that his lesser known (to the greater public at least) side is being publicized.
    - adventured 11y ago
      Doesn't everyone in the tech and media sphere already know that the Social Network was heavily fraudulent? What point would there be for the Jobs' camp to point those out again, after they were pointed out for years?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - knight17 11y ago

sigmar 11y ago

>Asked about the movie by “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert recently, Mr. Cook said, “I think a lot of people are trying to be opportunistic and I hate this.” I'm not positive, but I'm willing to bet Cook was talking more about "Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine" with that comment. That movie was a documentary and was quite critical of Steve Jobs.

acomjean 11y ago

"That said, I think it’s a fine movie, brilliantly written and performed and full of humor and feeling. It deviates from reality everywhere — almost nothing in it is like it really happened " Andy Hertzfeld, member of the mac team. He was consulted for the movie. http://recode.net/2015/10/02/original-mac-team-member-andy-hertzfeld-talks-about-the-hollywood-steve-jobs-qa/ http://recode.net/2015/10/02/original-mac-team-member-andy-h...

dsugarman 11y ago

paywall getaround link - https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8QqQIwAGoVChMI8ZjX-ZSqyAIVQqw-Ch1s6QRm&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fapple-co-founders-allies-take-aim-at-hollywood-over-steve-jobs-1444000308&usg=AFQjCNHQnCGbMX8cNNY8o2OucRaEEDi7oQ https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

SCAQTony 11y ago

Woz' and Isaacson are pretty damn credible. If someone attacked Bill Gates for being a "bully' or a "jerk" it really wouldn't wash for his humanitarian achievements from education, farming, immunizations, on ad infinitum would blow away any character criticisms. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-Information/Foundation-Factsheet http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-Informatio... Steve Jobs' defenders on the other hand aren't bringing up many stellar character examples. This is a problem for a company that needs "demigod personality" as the face of their brand. Your milage may vary. (Edit typos and grammar corrected)

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- melling 11y ago
  I didn't downvote you but I would suggest providing links to support your claims.
- new299 11y ago
  I'd like to see a reference on the Oregon school forced to buy Windows licenses for Macs. But could only find references to Microsoft/BSA raids on school with legitimate licensing issues: http://www.salon.com/2001/07/10/microsoft_school/ http://www.salon.com/2001/07/10/microsoft_school/ (though the story is pretty bad)
adventured 11y ago
It's a challenging problem when you're diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer at just 48 years of age. Do you spend what may be a short amount of time that you have left on trying to build a foundation to give your wealth away, or do you spend it doing what you enjoy most? Jobs gets viciously and unfairly criticized on this point. If other people ('normal people') choose to pursue what they want to with their remaining time in the face of such a diagnosis, few would dare criticize them. That becomes an even more important question when you realize that Jobs knew his wife would be fully capable of giving his wealth away after his passing. In the second half of his cancer battle, it was pretty obvious he was not going to survive longer term. So what do you do at 52 or 53 years of age, when it's apparent you're going to die? Do you spend years (which you may not have) trying to build a successful foundation? My personal opinion is that's an absurd premise. The reality is, we'll never know if Jobs would have become a successful philanthropist, or whether he would have focused on his work as Buffett has and leave the giving to eg his wife. If Bill Gates had been diagnosed with a terminal cancer at 48, and died in his early to mid 50s - it's likely his legacy would look a lot different too. When Gates was 48 in 2003, his public reputation was far different than it is today, he was openly reviled as an abusive monopolist and robber baron with a long reputation for having been mean and abusive to employees. It's Steve's vast billions that will be given away by Laurene, and he deserves a lot of credit for that, as much as someone like Warren Buffett does for the good his wealth will do. I don't see many examples of Jobs getting a comparable treatment versus what someone like Buffett does on this point however. edit: if you care to, feel free to explain why you disagree with me, assuming it's not just based on a reflexive need to bash Steve Jobs and not give him credit for any of the good his wealth will do and or has done (while someone like Buffett gets a lot of credit, while performing almost none of the actual philanthropic effort either)

danso 11y ago

I don't understand why Jobs' friends feel the need to paint him as a saint. He was brilliant and inspiring, but he was also a jerk in inexplicable ways, throughout his life. I imagine if most of us had as much scrutiny as Jobs did over 50 years, the result wouldn't be a clean or tidy screenplay. But it's important to accept his mercurial personality, if only to remind people that great leaders are not at all perfect. Besides him being horrible to the mother of Lisa...the other unpleasant episode that comes to mind is how he cheated Woz even before Apple began...this is a thing so small and so long past the time that Woz and Jobs became legends and yet Jobs, rather than not admitting what he did, doubles up and points out how Woz would be nothing if Jobs hadn't brought him on to Apple. Isaacson devoted a substantial part of the early chapters to this episode: > Recollections differ, but by most accounts Jobs simply gave Wozniak half of the base fee and not the bonus Bushnell paid for saving five chips. It would be another ten years before Wozniak discovered (by being shown the tale in a book on the history of Atari titled Zap) that Jobs had been paid this bonus. > “I think that Steve needed the money, and he just didn’t tell me the truth,” Wozniak later said. When he talks about it now, there are long pauses, and he admits that it causes him pain. “I wish he had just been honest. If he had told me he needed the money, he should have known I would have just given it to him. He was a friend. You help your friends.” > To Wozniak, it showed a fundamental difference in their characters. “Ethics always mattered to me, and I still don’t understand why he would’ve gotten paid one thing and told me he’d gotten paid another,” he said. “But, you know, people are different.” When Jobs learned this story was published, he called Wozniak to deny it. “He told me that he didn’t remember doing it, and that if he did something like that he would remember it, so he probably didn’t do it,” Wozniak recalled. > When I asked Jobs directly, he became unusually quiet and hesitant. “I don’t know where that allegation comes from,” he said. “I gave him half the money I ever got. That’s how I’ve always been with Woz. I mean, Woz stopped working in 1978. He never did one ounce of work after 1978. And yet he got exactly the same shares of Apple stock that I did.” > Is it possible that memories are muddled and that Jobs did not, in fact, shortchange Wozniak? “There’s a chance that my memory is all wrong and messed up,” Wozniak told me, but after a pause he reconsidered. “But no. I remember the details of this one, the $ 350 check.” He confirmed his memory with Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn. > “I remember talking about the bonus money to Woz, and he was upset,” Bushnell said. “I said yes, there was a bonus for each chip they saved, and he just shook his head and then clucked his tongue.” As always, Woz demonstrated his near-infinite compassion and wisdom when Isaacson pressed him on Jobs' deception: > Whatever the truth, Wozniak later insisted that it was not worth rehashing. Jobs is a complex person, he said, and being manipulative is just the darker facet of the traits that make him successful. Wozniak would never have been that way, but as he points out, he also could never have built Apple. “I would rather let it pass,” he said when I pressed the point. “It’s not something I want to judge Steve by.”

meeper16 11y ago

The dude was focused on taking over sliver of the meaning of life, a phone and such. Let Jobs screw Wosniak, take his idea (US Festivals) and pass it off on the music industry, borrow money from Gates, steal from Parc and try to shut down streaming music comapnies while stepping in front of the line for a liver he never used. Not interested. I like what Google is doing 10000000000000000x better: Google's Company That Wants To Cure Death Now Has Its Own Website http://www.businessinsider.com/calico-website-google-curing-death-2014-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/calico-website-google-curing-...

staunch 11y ago

I hope Lauren Jobs knows that Steve Jobs will continue to inspire generations of entrepreneurs. He showed Silicon Valley how to change the world in an exciting and delightful way. Every founder is trying their best to follow his example of excellence, whether they acknowledge it or not. Most fall far short. Anyone trying to create things should study Jobs, and anyone who does study him (with an open mind) will come away with a profound respect for him as a creator and as a person. As Elon Musk said, "there was a certain magic about Steve Jobs that was really inspiring" Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things...

ryandvm 11y ago
The flip side of that is that we're now about 5 years into the phenomenon of managers and entreprenuers cargo-culting assholeism as a way of acheiving success. Every time I read about some jerk lamenting the fact that his employees like to eat dinner with their families, we have guys like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk to thank for it.
- staunch 11y ago
  Unless you're talking about children, you can safely blame the people themselves for their own behavior. Most people who worked with Steve Jobs consider it a highlight of their professional careers. He was as demanding of himself as he was of others, and worked as hard as anyone. These are some of the traits that the assholes don't copy.

andrewtbham 11y ago

I agree with Eddie Cue, Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine, was a hatchet job.

Apocryphon 11y ago
How so?

mattmaroon 11y ago

It's been a long time since Aaron Sorkin did something that didn't feel like a recent film school grad doing a bad impression of Aaron Sorkin. See The Social Network for a great example. He's become a weird cliche parody of himself, where every character has the exact same diction and incredible grammar and rapid fire wit. It's like dozens of different actors channeling the ghost of Josh Lyman. Forgot about accuracy, treat it as a work of fiction and be surprised if it just doesn't suck as a film.

mattmaroon 11y ago