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Steve Jobs was a superficial asshole but was fundamentally a good and ethical person. There's only one major ethical mistake documented in his entire life (bein

Steve Jobs was a superficial asshole but was fundamentally a good and ethical person. There's only one major ethical mistake documented in his entire life (being an absentee father while his first daughter was young), which he spent decades making amends for. The people that emulate Steve Jobs poorly are usually real assholes with a long list of ethical mistakes.

P_I_Staker 2y ago
He has a whole laundry list of sleezy actions and abusive behaviors.
hot_gril 2y ago
I agree, that and the "no cold call" agreement (which equally involved other CEOs). If I were that famous, someone would probably pick out all my missteps and make me out to look like a horrible person too. The most iconic superficial Steve Jobs impersonation was the Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  Well, those, and that one time when he ripped off Woz, but yeah, great guy, except for all those incidents.
jedberg 2y ago
> There's only one major ethical mistake documented in his entire life (being an absentee father while his first daughter was young) Jobs lied to Steve Wozniak. Atari gave Jobs $5000 to make Breakout for Atari. He told Wozniak he got $700 so Wozniak took home $350.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  IIRC Jobs also later blamed Wozniak's head injury from a plane crash for him not remembering several good things Jobs did for him, as a cover for those things never happening.
- rqtwteye 2y ago
  There is also the story where early Apple employees didn’t get any stock and Wozniak gave some of his.
  - staunch 2y ago
    Things are always more complicated than this... As a rule, Apple gave stock to employees prior to the IPO, many of whom got rich. But some employees weren't eligible according to the criteria Steve (really, the board) came up with, and so they did not receive stock. Their criteria were typical for the time. Woz and a few others felt bad about this and shared some of their stock. Whether those ineligible people "deserved" stock is a matter of judgement...
- staunch 2y ago
  Steve Jobs gave Woz half of the base amount, which is what Woz agreed to. Jobs withheld the fact that he was going to receive a bonus on top of the base amount, and did not share any of that money. Was it an ethical mistake? Sure. He should have at least disclosed that he was receiving the bonus money, even if he didn't want to share it. But claiming it was a "major ethical mistake" seems fairly out of touch with reality. And of course, taken in the context of all of the good things they did together, it was completely insignificant and Woz has said as much.
  - varjag 2y ago
    When you decide to hide money from your partner it's not called a "mistake".
    - staunch 2y ago
      Woz in this case was acting as a subcontractor, doing a one-off favor for a friend. This was before they became partners when creating Apple.
n2d4 2y ago
Can you be a "good" and "ethical" person if, throughout your entire professional life, you bully and berate nearly anyone around you?
- P_I_Staker 2y ago
  No. OP is a dangerous fool. These standards are important.
  - staunch 2y ago
    The fools are the people who express more hatred for Steve Jobs than cigarette, oil, and pharma CEOs that irreparably injury and kill millions of humans simple because of his obnoxious methods of demanding the best from his highly privileged teammates. Standards are important. So is perspective.
- hot_gril 2y ago
  Tensions run high in these situations, and in the end they were just building personal computers. So yes, I can understand a boss who's always yelling that the product is shit and demanding that people fix it, but is also an ok person. If there's a comic book villain tech leader out there, it's a CEO of some lifeless conglomerate that mainly buys out the competition and fires everyone aboard, or it's someone in charge of society-altering tech who is choosing to misuse it. And I'm not going to name names.
vunderba 2y ago
By all accounts, he was an incredible bully not just to his employees but also to his family as well. He refused to recognize his daughter even after a paternity test, and despite being a multi millionaire 1000 times over only paid child support when forced to by the courts. Does that sound like the behavior of a good and ethical person?
- disqard 2y ago
  Shhhhh, he's the patron saint of the tech world, and you're on HN -- do you really expect a large percentage of folks here to share your views? FWIW, I think he did understand some very fundamental truths about how to sell technology to the masses, but he definitely diverged from Alan Kay's philosophy outlined in "Dynabook". IMO, he's less of a "savior" and more of a "god-tier salesperson". Edit: I mentioned the "Dynabook", because Jobs often used the "bicycle for the mind" line, in interviews and newspaper ads.
  - staunch 2y ago
    In fact, the average person in Silicon Valley is as clueless as you are about Steve Jobs and would agree he was merely a good salesperson. But people that know what it takes to build great products almost universally respect his world-class design and leadership, and even his deep technical knowledge.

P_I_Staker 2y ago

He has a whole laundry list of sleezy actions and abusive behaviors.

hot_gril 2y ago

I agree, that and the "no cold call" agreement (which equally involved other CEOs). If I were that famous, someone would probably pick out all my missteps and make me out to look like a horrible person too. The most iconic superficial Steve Jobs impersonation was the Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.

CamperBob2 2y ago
Well, those, and that one time when he ripped off Woz, but yeah, great guy, except for all those incidents.

jedberg 2y ago

> There's only one major ethical mistake documented in his entire life (being an absentee father while his first daughter was young) Jobs lied to Steve Wozniak. Atari gave Jobs $5000 to make Breakout for Atari. He told Wozniak he got $700 so Wozniak took home $350.

lenerdenator 2y ago
IIRC Jobs also later blamed Wozniak's head injury from a plane crash for him not remembering several good things Jobs did for him, as a cover for those things never happening.
rqtwteye 2y ago
There is also the story where early Apple employees didn’t get any stock and Wozniak gave some of his.
- staunch 2y ago
  Things are always more complicated than this... As a rule, Apple gave stock to employees prior to the IPO, many of whom got rich. But some employees weren't eligible according to the criteria Steve (really, the board) came up with, and so they did not receive stock. Their criteria were typical for the time. Woz and a few others felt bad about this and shared some of their stock. Whether those ineligible people "deserved" stock is a matter of judgement...
staunch 2y ago
Steve Jobs gave Woz half of the base amount, which is what Woz agreed to. Jobs withheld the fact that he was going to receive a bonus on top of the base amount, and did not share any of that money. Was it an ethical mistake? Sure. He should have at least disclosed that he was receiving the bonus money, even if he didn't want to share it. But claiming it was a "major ethical mistake" seems fairly out of touch with reality. And of course, taken in the context of all of the good things they did together, it was completely insignificant and Woz has said as much.
- varjag 2y ago
  When you decide to hide money from your partner it's not called a "mistake".
  - staunch 2y ago
    Woz in this case was acting as a subcontractor, doing a one-off favor for a friend. This was before they became partners when creating Apple.

n2d4 2y ago

Can you be a "good" and "ethical" person if, throughout your entire professional life, you bully and berate nearly anyone around you?

P_I_Staker 2y ago
No. OP is a dangerous fool. These standards are important.
- staunch 2y ago
  The fools are the people who express more hatred for Steve Jobs than cigarette, oil, and pharma CEOs that irreparably injury and kill millions of humans simple because of his obnoxious methods of demanding the best from his highly privileged teammates. Standards are important. So is perspective.
hot_gril 2y ago
Tensions run high in these situations, and in the end they were just building personal computers. So yes, I can understand a boss who's always yelling that the product is shit and demanding that people fix it, but is also an ok person. If there's a comic book villain tech leader out there, it's a CEO of some lifeless conglomerate that mainly buys out the competition and fires everyone aboard, or it's someone in charge of society-altering tech who is choosing to misuse it. And I'm not going to name names.

vunderba 2y ago

By all accounts, he was an incredible bully not just to his employees but also to his family as well. He refused to recognize his daughter even after a paternity test, and despite being a multi millionaire 1000 times over only paid child support when forced to by the courts. Does that sound like the behavior of a good and ethical person?

disqard 2y ago
Shhhhh, he's the patron saint of the tech world, and you're on HN -- do you really expect a large percentage of folks here to share your views? FWIW, I think he did understand some very fundamental truths about how to sell technology to the masses, but he definitely diverged from Alan Kay's philosophy outlined in "Dynabook". IMO, he's less of a "savior" and more of a "god-tier salesperson". Edit: I mentioned the "Dynabook", because Jobs often used the "bicycle for the mind" line, in interviews and newspaper ads.
- staunch 2y ago
  In fact, the average person in Silicon Valley is as clueless as you are about Steve Jobs and would agree he was merely a good salesperson. But people that know what it takes to build great products almost universally respect his world-class design and leadership, and even his deep technical knowledge.