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Appreciate your frustration, but you should appreciate something else in turn: Steve Jobs was an asshole to many, many people for many, many years -- and "Stev

Appreciate your frustration, but you should appreciate something else in turn: Steve Jobs was an asshole to many, many people for many, many years -- and "Steve stories" abound among the veterans in our industry. Speaking personally, my own introduction to Jobs was being at a friend's house as a kid, and overhearing her father being absolutely screamed at by someone on a speaker phone in his office. I looked at her, alarmed -- and she explained that this was just Steve Jobs, and that Jobs screamed at her father frequently. Her father, it must be said, is Fred Ebrahimi, then CEO of Quark.[0] It took me many years to appreciate that he was likely being screamed at by Jobs -- who was then CEO of NeXT -- because Jobs desperately needed software for the NeXT Cube, and that QuarkXpress was high on the list. (And as relayed in Randall Stross's book on Jobs at NeXT[1], he in fact did much worse than scream at Ebrahimi, stooping to belittle him based on his national origin.) So yes, I'm afraid you are just going to have to be frustrated; Jobs was -- to put it generously -- complicated: his vision is rightfully lauded, but his conduct should broadly not serve as a model. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(company) [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/226316.Steve_Jobs_the_NeXT_Big_Thing https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/226316.Steve_Jobs_the_Ne...

johnwheeler 5y ago
I know I’ll get downvoted, but who cares. I know that’s callous but people have too much an aversion of getting yelled at by their bosses nowadays. That’s ego and vanity.
- flitzofolov 5y ago
  Your response is sad.
  - johnwheeler 5y ago
    Why? Would you rather know where you stand or have your boss put on on a performance improvement plan and marginalize you until you quit? Which is worse?
    - bradlys 5y ago
      Who says you have to be belittled and yelled at to know where you stand and what you could do to perform better?
      - zepto 5y ago
        Nobody is saying that, the point is that what Jobs did is no worse than the everyday corporate passive aggressive manipulative stuff that nobody bothers to comment on.
        bradlys 5y ago
        Eh, I disagree. It's not like the anger didn't come with firings. In terms of things I'd like to get - I'd prefer someone doesn't yell and belittle me. If they want to do some corporate jargon speak to say, "you're gonna be fired in 4 weeks and this PIP is really just a formality" then I prefer that over yelling and belittling and then the firing happens anyway. It's a false dichotomy anyway. Steve could've been a nice person but instead he was an asshole. You're just letting him get away with it because someone else does bad things too. It's like comparing different forms of beheading - end of the day someones head comes off and I'm just saying... it's ALSO an option to not.
        zepto 5y ago
        > It's a false dichotomy anyway. Steve could've been a nice person but instead he was an asshole. You're just letting him get away with it because someone else does bad things too. You won’t find anything in what I said that is related to this straw man. Nothing I said excuses his behavior. It’s also absurd to suggest he got away with anything. He is well known as an ‘asshole’. My point is that you and others who focus on Jobs are letting everyday passive aggressive corporate asshole behavior go unexamined just because the anger is hidden with a fake veneer of cordiality. Jobs is a scapegoat in this regard. Steve was no worse than a passive aggressive middle manager. The difference was, he wasn’t fake. To put it another way - he would stab you in the front rather than the back.
- bcantrill 5y ago
  I regret I have but one downvote to give; not only is it wrong (and ineffective!) to yell at one's employees, that's also not what happened here: Ebrahimi was the CEO or a partner that Jobs sorely needed, not a report. As it happened, Quark didn't port their software -- and NeXT suffered as a result.
  - johnwheeler 5y ago
    Getting yelled at is not a tragedy. I find it hard to believe that Jobs used racism. He wasn’t a stupid man. The people who worked at NeXT did fine. The people at Quark, not so sure. Overt acknowledgement of workplace power dynamics are verboten. Yet those dynamics remain. It’s this ugly thing everyone skirts around, and the problem is it makes things even uglier. People acting strange at work and playing politics. What’s sad is people accept that as normal
- audiometry 5y ago
  The asshole yelling is the one with the ego and vanity problem.
- csomar 5y ago
  If you are constantly yelling, you are either under too much stress or have unresolved psychological issues that requires medical assistance. Jobs probably had both but people did tolerate him because of the business/execution/ideas he had. Either way, if you yell frequently, you need some assistance.
- WhompingWindows 5y ago
  How can Jobs go to Japanese Zen temples which teach the exact opposite of being a total asshole and yelling at everyone? It's incongruous, he just comes across as entitled and unnecessarily mean in these stories. He could've gotten the same amount out of people by sternly asking, not screaming and demeaning.
  - johnwheeler 5y ago
    He was entitled. I’m sure he did a bit of both asking and screaming.

johnwheeler 5y ago

I know I’ll get downvoted, but who cares. I know that’s callous but people have too much an aversion of getting yelled at by their bosses nowadays. That’s ego and vanity.

flitzofolov 5y ago
Your response is sad.
- johnwheeler 5y ago
  Why? Would you rather know where you stand or have your boss put on on a performance improvement plan and marginalize you until you quit? Which is worse?
  - bradlys 5y ago
    Who says you have to be belittled and yelled at to know where you stand and what you could do to perform better?
    - zepto 5y ago
      Nobody is saying that, the point is that what Jobs did is no worse than the everyday corporate passive aggressive manipulative stuff that nobody bothers to comment on.
      - bradlys 5y ago
        Eh, I disagree. It's not like the anger didn't come with firings. In terms of things I'd like to get - I'd prefer someone doesn't yell and belittle me. If they want to do some corporate jargon speak to say, "you're gonna be fired in 4 weeks and this PIP is really just a formality" then I prefer that over yelling and belittling and then the firing happens anyway. It's a false dichotomy anyway. Steve could've been a nice person but instead he was an asshole. You're just letting him get away with it because someone else does bad things too. It's like comparing different forms of beheading - end of the day someones head comes off and I'm just saying... it's ALSO an option to not.
        zepto 5y ago
        > It's a false dichotomy anyway. Steve could've been a nice person but instead he was an asshole. You're just letting him get away with it because someone else does bad things too. You won’t find anything in what I said that is related to this straw man. Nothing I said excuses his behavior. It’s also absurd to suggest he got away with anything. He is well known as an ‘asshole’. My point is that you and others who focus on Jobs are letting everyday passive aggressive corporate asshole behavior go unexamined just because the anger is hidden with a fake veneer of cordiality. Jobs is a scapegoat in this regard. Steve was no worse than a passive aggressive middle manager. The difference was, he wasn’t fake. To put it another way - he would stab you in the front rather than the back.
bcantrill 5y ago
I regret I have but one downvote to give; not only is it wrong (and ineffective!) to yell at one's employees, that's also not what happened here: Ebrahimi was the CEO or a partner that Jobs sorely needed, not a report. As it happened, Quark didn't port their software -- and NeXT suffered as a result.
- johnwheeler 5y ago
  Getting yelled at is not a tragedy. I find it hard to believe that Jobs used racism. He wasn’t a stupid man. The people who worked at NeXT did fine. The people at Quark, not so sure. Overt acknowledgement of workplace power dynamics are verboten. Yet those dynamics remain. It’s this ugly thing everyone skirts around, and the problem is it makes things even uglier. People acting strange at work and playing politics. What’s sad is people accept that as normal
audiometry 5y ago
The asshole yelling is the one with the ego and vanity problem.
csomar 5y ago
If you are constantly yelling, you are either under too much stress or have unresolved psychological issues that requires medical assistance. Jobs probably had both but people did tolerate him because of the business/execution/ideas he had. Either way, if you yell frequently, you need some assistance.
WhompingWindows 5y ago
How can Jobs go to Japanese Zen temples which teach the exact opposite of being a total asshole and yelling at everyone? It's incongruous, he just comes across as entitled and unnecessarily mean in these stories. He could've gotten the same amount out of people by sternly asking, not screaming and demeaning.
- johnwheeler 5y ago
  He was entitled. I’m sure he did a bit of both asking and screaming.