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Steve Jobs: A Genius, Yes; A Role Model for the Rest of Us, No Way
- ethank 15y agoThis article reads as if its from someone who has never worked for someone like Steve Jobs. I have once, and I worked with another for a long time. People are speaking as if Jobs was alone in his truculent and persnickety management style, and alone in using that to extract good things from the people around him while simultaneously pissing others off. My view is that you need a balance of Jobs and Cooks to run a company. I've been very fortunate to work for one place that had this, and while difficult, it made me better. EDIT: That being said, I worked for 30 year industry veterans in their fields and they were demanding but fair and well earned their ability to inspire through demand. I loathe to think of how many Steve Job's "taught me the ways" middle managers we'll see justifying being dicks because of honoring a legacy.
- pagekalisedown 15y agoEveryone SHOULD be concerned that a lot of Jobs wannabes will come out of all this idolatry. Instead of merely working for incompetents, our managers will also be dicks.
- badclient 15y agoMost people who seem to think there will be a lot of DICK Jobs wannabes are people focusing on Jobs' being a dick. There is a lot more to Jobs than his dickish personality. If you can't see beyond it and wanna fearmonger, you should take your own advise. As for non-dick SJ wannabes, hey why not? We're all wannabes to some extent.
- arctangent 15y agoI think they're suggesting that other managers shouldn't try to imitate him because more than likely they'll be unable to do it successfully. FTA: "It would be unfortunate if the remembrance of Jobs spawns a legion of Steve wannabes. Jobs, in geekspeak, was an 'N of 1.'"
- fleitz 15y agoBeing a leader sometimes means pissing people off. If you don't like your boss: quit. Steve Jobs probably wouldn't make a good boss for everyone but that's OK, he only needed to be boss of one or two companies, Apple and Pixar. The other companies in the world can run their company as they see fit. Other bosses probably make good bosses for other personality types. You simply can't please all of the people all of the time. Sometimes you need to refuse to do things do that you can do the other things well. More on real leadership. http://www.slideshare.net/guesta3e206/colin-powells-leadership-presentation http://www.slideshare.net/guesta3e206/colin-powells-leadersh...
- j_baker 15y agoI don't see your point. I absolutely agree that sometimes you have to piss people off to be the boss. But wouldn't you agree that this is offset by the number of times you have to empathize with people and be their friend? After all, a complete asshole gets neither respect nor friendship. And a lot of the people who work for the asshole boss will probably take your advice and quit. What good is a boss without workers? Other bosses probably make good bosses for other personality types. I disagree. If an organization is a round hole, the only person who benefits is the round peg who built it (if anyone benefits). The key is building a hole that can accommodate as many pegs as possible, even if some pegs require a bit more "accommodation" than others.
- badclient 15y agoAfter all, a complete asshole gets neither respect nor friendship. Considering Steve Jobs seems to have plenty of respect and friends, he's not a complete asshole. Right? So what is he? Why even mention the complete asshole(and risk suggesting that he was one) when by your own logic he wasn't a complete asshole.
- afterburner 15y agoWas Steve Jobs a genius? Is this granted? I feel like he was a great salesman, and knew how to identify and manipulate smart people in order to attain a goal (with the intention of cashing in on it himself). He also had a strong vision of what he wanted, was willing to be bullheaded about it, and managed to accumulate the credibility from early successes to keep people working on his vision and not deviating (although I feel like often his vision happens to be something he liked that someone else came up with, but the origin of the idea is not the point here). His cultural interests probably made it easier for some people to think he had some special insight. But... genius? Unless we're talking genius manipulator (the best con men are almost magical in their abilities), for me the jury is still out. EDIT: Actually, the comments on the site itself bring up a lot of great points along the lines of what I wrote. EDIT2: Thanks for interesting discussions, was certainly worth the karma-risk.
- georgemcbay 15y agoI've never been a huge fan of Jobs, but I don't doubt he was a genius. His genius may have been sales/showmanship/leadership as opposed to traditional technical genius, but it was genius just the same.
- afterburner 15y agoShowmanship, yes. His presentations were memorable, when computer tech presentations are usually quite forgettable.
- danilocampos 15y agoIgnoring the silly con man remark, "but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?"
- afterburner 15y agoI didn't mean to imply Jobs was a con man. But I don't get why your comment applies, especially since it credit a large group which I would be entirely willing to accept contained numerous geniuses. It would be equivalent to praising Apple as a whole, which I would definitely be fine with. Lots of excellent work from very talented people going on there no doubt.
- rokhayakebe 15y agoI don't mind arrogant co-workers so long as they know their shit better than anyone else in the building.
- scottschulthess 15y agoThis whole article seems based entirely on conjecture
- wanorris 15y agoAmidst the various hagiographies and anti-hagiographies circulating, I can't help wishing someone could pull it all together into a cohesive whole and act as Speaker for the Dead. Does anyone know if the new biography attempts this?
- vailripper 15y agoIsaascson had 40 some-odd interviews with Jobs, and none of it was censored by Jobs apparently, so the biography ought to give a good picture of the real jobs. From the 60 minutes interview with Issaacson, it seems like a fairly honest appraisal of Jobs.
- danilocampos 15y agoHah. You know what? I'm a third into the Isaacson bio right now. The following thought popped into my brain as I went: "Wow. This is some Speaker for the Dead shit, right here." It's an honest, unbiased, thorough appraisal of his life. Very human. Very real.
- mrb 15y agoYes. I started reading the biography. I am about 1/5th through. The author meticulously tried to depict true facts, and Jobs' true personality, often directly quoting 3-4 persons involved in some of the "incidents". In the preface, it is also revealed that both Jobs and his wife asked the author to not attempt to sugar-coat reality. So I would say it is pretty well done.
- gujk 15y agoIsaacson's biography of Ben Franklin is much like you describe. I alternately revered and resented Franklin while I was reading, and took notes to apply to my own life. I would trust the Jobs book to be similar.
- ebrenes 15y agoI'm half-way through the biography and I think that's a good description of it. I think it's brutally honest and really portrays Steve as a mere mortal subject to the ups and downs of life, while presenting various perspectives. I've been really impressed with how it doesn't try to sugar coat anything, and I find myself hating Steve yet at the same time admiring him. It really does seem to put you through his life, and in the end you do have to make a call on what to make of it, and what you can take away. I think it really added depth and nuance to the way he's portrayed and illustrated the costs of his way of running things.
- pg 15y agoThere's not much to this. The only specific evidence he offers about Jobs's character is "stiffing early Apple employees out of stock options when the company first went public." Which (a) is an inaccurate description, because options were not so much the norm in the 1970s as they are now, and (b) may not have been, and in fact probably wasn't, even his decision. Other than that, his only basis for the conclusions in this article is something we all know: Jobs was supposed to have been a difficult man. This article may be correct, in the way a broken clock is twice a day. Jobs may well (a) have been a jerk in a way that would normally make someone ineffective as a manager, and (b) have had other qualities that compensated for that; and maybe (c) the latter qualities were extremely rare. But we are told practically nothing about (a), (b), or (c). This would have been a better article if he'd just written "Steve Jobs was successful, but beware of imitating his bad qualities, because most people couldn't get away with behaving like he did."
- vailripper 15y agoThe 60 minutes interview gave an anecdote where employees with options were giving some of their own options out to other founding employees without after they went public. When one of the first employees, and a close friend of jobs asked for some options, another founding employee told Jobs that they should help him out, and offered to give out some options if Jobs would match him. Jobs declined, and never gave out any of his options. While it's certainly his decision to make, I think it's entirely reasonable for people to say he doesn't deserve the worship he's been receiving.
- michaelochurch 15y agoI'm glad this was written, in a way, although I think he's a bit too hard on Steve Jobs. From everything I've heard about the guy, he was a totally different man at Pixar. When Jobs started Apple, he was young and very unpolished in his interpersonal style. When he re-joined it the culture had become something that he wasn't entirely responsible for, having been out of the company for over a decade. Also, the impression I've had of Jobs is that he was very harsh on VPs (whose high salaries and job status justify the difficulty) but not on lower-level employees. That said, the worst thing about Steve Jobs isn't the man himself. It's the Fake Steve Jobs's out there. No, I don't mean the parody blogger. I mean the two-bit clowns who think that being "visionary" gives them the right to behave like complete assholes because that's what they understand Jobs's management style (I've never worked for him) to be. There was a lot of good to Steve Jobs, and apparently a lot about him that was difficult. A lot of people assume they have the good and that it allows them to be difficult. That's toxic. The "fake Steve" (he actually cited Steve Jobs to justify his personal shortcomings) whom I encountered was an "entrepreneur" who lied (to his angel investor and employees) for over 3 years to keep people in his company. I left when I got tired of the insanity, micromanagement, and dishonesty, but I lost a hell of a lot of time there.
- runjake 15y agoHaving gotten a significant way through the Steve Jobs book, I'm fairly certain he would agree with the article's title. The recurring theme is that he made a lot of mistakes in life and people should carve out their own path, and specifically not try to emulate him. The book specifically quotes Jobs and his wife's desire not to sugarcoat anything in the least, and from what I've read, the author abided by those wishes, for better or worse.
- spinchange 15y agoI can only assume those objecting to this article and responding to it as an attack, haven't really looked at the book or watched the Isaacson interview yet.
- badclient 15y agoSpeak for yourself.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- DanielBMarkham 15y ago1) It's too soon. Jobs had a great impact on the tech community. Give it a few months at least. 2) I'm concerned about black-and-white thinking. As great as Jobs was, he was only a human. He had all the frailties and foibles as other humans. I don't want the tech community to put Jobs up on a shelf where he could do no wrong and he's some sort of patron saint of technology or something. That's not fair to Jobs or us. Once enough time has passed, and it hasn't yet, a 3-dimensional picture of Jobs will emerge, warts and all. At that point we might get into a good discussion about what kind of role model he was. Odds are, parts of his story will be very inspirational and parts will not. That's usually the way these things work. Seems like everybody is in a hurry today to get to the next story. Geesh folks, give things time.
- 010100101 15y agoThere's a lot to this. What does genius mean? Has the meaning changed over time? Look it up, observe the etymology. There's much more to being a man of character than simply being a man of genius. And Jobs failed to show he was a man of character. We have no evidence to suggest he was a man of character. If the article is meant as a cautionary note to young people who might mistakenly attribute character to anyone who posseses what we define as genius (again, look it up), then it's certainly justified. There's a common misperception promoted by business journal type literature that to be a financially successful CEO one needs to treat others well. This is simply not true. There is at least one study that has examined the issue but the vast majority of studies aim at other conclusions. They avoid the question. The reason to treat others with respect is not one that arises out of the pursuit of financial gain. It comes from another source. You might say it's rooted in a man's character.
- jonmc12 15y agoThe article points out a weakness in the author's philosophy of management, not the weakness in Jobs as a manager. The notion of 'personality disorder' seems largely out of context for someone of the mindset change the world. 'Old Steve'? People grow. How does an individual overcoming personality 'disorders' make someone a bad role model? Sounds like the last paragraph of the article is actually contradicting to the headline.
- jad 15y agoI think it's always questionable to approach people as if their personality traits can be selected a la carte, as if there's no interdependence between them. "Well, I love the world-changing products with the amazing attention to every detail that requires extremely difficult execution of the highest order. Oh by the way, could I have that delivered to me in a nice and laid-back manner?" Sorry, life just doesn't work that way. I'd be willing to guess that a lot of the personality traits that made Jobs an extreme asshole at times were essential in enabling his success.
- 010100101 15y agoAs long as you're "doing what everyone else does" you're ok. lol. Great thinking.
- teyc 15y agoYou can only imitate a master, but by doing so, one will never become one. Steve Jobs was an adept at connecting with human emotions (consumers and employees alike) and not only built products which did the same, but also marketed them in a deeply human way. I believe it is this connection that attracts so many people.
- spinchange 15y agoF. Scott Fitzgerald said the test of a great intellect is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in one's mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. I think that quote should be kept in mind, because Steve Jobs was a deeply complex and dynamic man. His wife told Isaacson not to pull any punches. From what I've read, and from the things people closest to him have recounted, they did not. A lot of people are having a hard time reconciling the insanely great with the insane. Humans are complicated.
- kitsune_ 15y agoI think this quote is hogwash, because having two opposed ideas in one's mind is a core functionality of the human mind. Everybody does it. Take this vulgar example: Idea 1: "I really want to have sex with that waitress" - "She is so hot" Idea 2: "I really do no want to have sex with that waitress" - "Because I have a wife and kid" Conclusion: "I will do nothing silly"
- afterburner 15y agoKinda makes it sound like great intellect = ability to be self-delusional.
- jhuni 15y agoSteve Jobs apparently wanted to destroy Android and for at least that reason, like Stallman, I am glad he is gone, so that he cannot do any more damage to computing.
- crag 15y agoAny person with so much of the spotlight on them is gonna go off the farm a ways. I won't even get into the eccentries of Hollywood celebs so lets just focus on "our" tech world. Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, and so on and so on. The point is, with that much money and fame and responsibilities would any of us not be a little "off the mark"? (This is assuming "we" aren't already). From my point of view, people are strange. Hasn't anyone seen Citizen Kane?
- meric 15y ago"By the time Jobs did have surgery, nine months after being diagnosed, the pancreatic cancer had spread through his tissues and was largely unstoppable. He died soon after." 6 - 7 years is hardly "soon".
- sharmajai 15y agoA very beautiful and probably very correct interpretation of Jobs' management approach was given by 'alexqgb' in a not so old thread here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3078669 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3078669 This difference, I suppose, is between someone bending your will to theirs, reducing you terribly in the process, and someone who sees you failing to deliver everything you're capable of, and pushing you (hard) to do what he thinks what you can. The former doesn't care about who you are. The latter cares deeply, and expresses in by placing genuine faith in you. Everything being said by the people who worked with him indicates that they feel humbled and honored by the experience. It's hard to get upset with someone's approach when you know in your bones that it got you to the top of your game. What people feel in response to that is love. "He was dubbed a megalomaniac, but Steve Jobs often gambled on young, largely inexperienced talent to take Apple forward; Jony Ive and his team prove that such faith was spot on." I say probably very correct owing to the Al Gore's remembrance speech about the love and genuineness in respect that Steve held for others in the 'Celebrating Steve' event.
- tmh88j 15y agoI have yet to read Steve's bio, however, based on the information that I have seen over the years from both large scale and rumor based media, I can say with confidence that he was a marketing wizard. I have nothing to say regarding his demeanor until I finish Isaacson's work, but unless it turns out that he was another Edison finagling Tesla, I doubt my opinion will change too much.
- pbreit 15y agoThe article pretty much admits that the "new Jobs" (ie, the one most know) could be an excellent role model. Why is it so hung up on actions from 20 or 30 years ago?
- chunky1994 15y agoI don't see the point of this article, even if all the claims are true, (and like PG said they may not be) and Jobs was really a bad man in his personal life, why bring it up? I see only harm in doing so, because people who've already looked up to him as a role model, will continue to do so (I'm presuming it takes more than an article to stop him from being one) and this article only gives them means to be more like Jobs, except that they'll only emulate his bad qualities because it's easier, much easier than emulating his sense of design or for that matter, any aspect of his genius. So if there really is a point, can anyone direct me to it?