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It is a dichotomy. On one hand you have an innovative titan of the tech universe doing really amazing things. On the other hand you have, by all accounts, not a

It is a dichotomy. On one hand you have an innovative titan of the tech universe doing really amazing things. On the other hand you have, by all accounts, not a very nice human being to those around him. I think the hero/innovator narrative really wars with the asshole narrative in popular media. He was both of those things and it’s okay to acknowledge his insufferableness along with his great accomplishments. I don’t think the worst of his behavior was required to be the industry titan he was. A lot of people mix these up as somehow critical to the success of Jobs. The truth is, inspiring leadership that treats people fairly is very hard. It’s an understandable fault, but still a fault. That is why I always tried to understand Steve as an innovator first and leader second. People followed him despite his lack of leadership because he was getting things done and it was worth it to be a part of the show. The people that stuck around made peace with his behavior (as illustrated in the article) and learned how to filter it in a way that let them work together, but that is not an easy working relationship and again I think it speaks to how much people believed in what they were doing despite the poor (human) leadership.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Jobs was a textbook narcissist. Absolutely by the numbers. But unlike most narcs he was actually good at some things, and he used those talents to create a Steve Jobs Memorial Corporation - i.e. Apple. The narcissism was the source of his drive to be the most amazing monkey in the room. If he'd been a normal human he wouldn't had the laser-like focus on creating a narrative about being the guy who made everything he touched game-changing, immaculately crafted, and insanely great. If you happen to be a narc you may have similar motivations. But it's unlikely you also have the talent. Which leaves a question - is it possible to be a billionaire wo makes game-changing, beautifully crafted, insanely great tech without being a narcissist? Arguably the 60s/70s crop of tech companies came closest. CEOs like Ken Olsen had a paternal attitude and an interest in employee welfare and development. DEC were insanely great in their own pre-Internet way, so he must have been doing something right. But there was no worldwide media attention, and the market was almost exclusively fellow grad-level professionals who were more impressed by substance and less by showmanship. As soon as you open that up and create commodified mass-market products the level of attention goes up a few orders of magnitude, and a self-absorbed rock star attitude is more effective market fit. Non-narcs just don't care about that kind of attention, and aren't driven by a need to create it. Which is non-narc CEOs may be millionaire successful, but don't have the unhinged drive needed to be billionaire successful. And they won't have the kinds of followers who need the reflected glow. And that's why the top of the tech tree is full of people who have these personality issues. They're unusually effective in some very limited areas, and a cocoon of money protects them from consequences. But they're still... limited. A real game-changing genius would be able to negotiate the attention and rock star challenge to do everything they do without paying the price of narcissism. But those people are not just vanishingly rare in general, they're actively cancelled by current corporate culture. And this is a bad thing, because we're going to need effective but healthy management over the next few decades. And it's hard to see where that's going to come from in this culture.
- 7402 6y ago
  I was confused by the above until I realized that "narc" was probably being used as an abbreviation for "narcissist." I've only ever seen "narc" being used as a slang term for a government narcotics agent.
- AlanYx 6y ago
  >Jobs was a textbook narcissist. Absolutely by the numbers. Narcissist in a colloquial sense, perhaps. But narcissist in a medical sense (i.e., a set of defined cluster B personality disorder traits), no. Jobs was known for changing his position in the face of strong enough rational arguments, sometimes a couple days later. He wasn't wedded to his positions in the emotional way typical of cluster B narcissists.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

Jobs was a textbook narcissist. Absolutely by the numbers. But unlike most narcs he was actually good at some things, and he used those talents to create a Steve Jobs Memorial Corporation - i.e. Apple. The narcissism was the source of his drive to be the most amazing monkey in the room. If he'd been a normal human he wouldn't had the laser-like focus on creating a narrative about being the guy who made everything he touched game-changing, immaculately crafted, and insanely great. If you happen to be a narc you may have similar motivations. But it's unlikely you also have the talent. Which leaves a question - is it possible to be a billionaire wo makes game-changing, beautifully crafted, insanely great tech without being a narcissist? Arguably the 60s/70s crop of tech companies came closest. CEOs like Ken Olsen had a paternal attitude and an interest in employee welfare and development. DEC were insanely great in their own pre-Internet way, so he must have been doing something right. But there was no worldwide media attention, and the market was almost exclusively fellow grad-level professionals who were more impressed by substance and less by showmanship. As soon as you open that up and create commodified mass-market products the level of attention goes up a few orders of magnitude, and a self-absorbed rock star attitude is more effective market fit. Non-narcs just don't care about that kind of attention, and aren't driven by a need to create it. Which is non-narc CEOs may be millionaire successful, but don't have the unhinged drive needed to be billionaire successful. And they won't have the kinds of followers who need the reflected glow. And that's why the top of the tech tree is full of people who have these personality issues. They're unusually effective in some very limited areas, and a cocoon of money protects them from consequences. But they're still... limited. A real game-changing genius would be able to negotiate the attention and rock star challenge to do everything they do without paying the price of narcissism. But those people are not just vanishingly rare in general, they're actively cancelled by current corporate culture. And this is a bad thing, because we're going to need effective but healthy management over the next few decades. And it's hard to see where that's going to come from in this culture.

7402 6y ago
I was confused by the above until I realized that "narc" was probably being used as an abbreviation for "narcissist." I've only ever seen "narc" being used as a slang term for a government narcotics agent.
AlanYx 6y ago
>Jobs was a textbook narcissist. Absolutely by the numbers. Narcissist in a colloquial sense, perhaps. But narcissist in a medical sense (i.e., a set of defined cluster B personality disorder traits), no. Jobs was known for changing his position in the face of strong enough rational arguments, sometimes a couple days later. He wasn't wedded to his positions in the emotional way typical of cluster B narcissists.