“Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk” in Daughter’s New Memoir

Megalith

Megalith

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Early copies of Lisa Brennan-Jobs’s memoir of her famous/infamous father are beginning to circulate, and many outlets say it paints Steve Jobs as a pretty awful person. The New York Times, which has published an overview of the book and profile of its author, calls it passage after passage of Jobs being “vicious to his daughter and those around her”: in one excerpt, he told her she “smelled like a toilet,” while another reveals he refused to put heating in her bedroom.

Steve Jobs rejected his daughter for years, but that daughter has absolved him. Triumphantly, she loves him, and she wants the book’s scenes of their roller skating and laughing together to be as viral as the scenes of him telling her she will inherit nothing. Ms. Brennan-Jobs’s forgiveness is one thing. What’s tricky is that she wants the reader to forgive Mr. Jobs, too. And she knows that could be a problem.
 
He came across as a real dick before this.
Her version of events fits well.
 
his assholery was already legendary in all circles. she isn't painting him so as much as reconfirming what everyone already knew.
 
Not at all surprising. Even in the biography that tries to tone down some of Job's problems he comes off as a huge asshole to everyone around him. He was a marketing and business genius, but a terrible human being.
 
didn't he make the toilet remark when he was near death and probably full of morphine/steroids possibly delirious?
 
All the news I heard of Jobs is that he was pretty much a grade "A" douchenozzle.
 
Yeah, he was always an asshole everyone knew that. ​

MrDeaf said:
Well, clearly, you don't get your company rich by being nice, but by being relentless.
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In the business field... maybe. But that means nothing about home life. Unless I just missed the stories about Bill Gates chaining his kids outside and beating them on a daily basis.
 
lots of steroids can make cancer patients nasty to family members, plus there's metabolic imbalances/infections that come with such a nasty disease that cause delirium or confusion.
 
dangerouseddy said:
lots of steroids can make cancer patients nasty to family members, plus there's metabolic imbalances/infections that come with such a nasty disease that cause delirium or confusion.
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the guy was a grade A douche bag his entire life, cancer treatment didn't all of a sudden make him one. he was a business/marketing genius but he lacked any ability to separate his work life from his personal life and everyone around him suffered for it.
 
If anyone is surprised by this, their head's been stuck in the sand. A lot of these "great leaders" turn out to be awful people who were also obsessive enough about a particular vision to pull it off (often after many failures). Anybody still think Zuckerberg or Palmer Lucky are good, misunderstood people? Anyone think that Musk is a nice dude? As an aside, a family friend of mine (a propulsion engineer) got all the way to a personal interview with Musk during the early days of SpaceX and turned down what some would consider the opportunity of a lifetime BECAUSE of that interview. I'd rather work an honest job and take care of my family than give any more time to these "celebrities..."
 
Can't believe people are surprised by this, literally cannot believe it...he was a known asshole even from the get-go, guy redefined egomaniac and especially in the 80's, he was a failure...he got booted/left apple and did nothing that anyone cared about (understandably I am talking about the world of consumer computing, NeXt would have its day)......never deserved the god-like status he enjoyed but he absolutely craved it. In the end his ego needed and got what it wanted....now we get to watch the company decline slowly because where do you go after sheet of glass.....implants? I think we can praise him for being absolutely adept at using his psychopathy (self superiority, everyone else is useless) to drive his company to produce the products he, himself wanted...and then he mastered the whole David Koresh thing of being a decisive, uncompromising leader that people love to get behind. Guy was great at what he did.
 
I read the Jobs bio and Steve Wozniaks. Jobs was truly a class-a asshole. I would never have wanted to work under Jobs - the Woz, sure - he seems like he would have been fun and reasonable. Jobs - very reptilian.
 
shpankey said:
morphine doesn't make one delirious
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It can make one very euphoric which is close.

Opiates can do the same run your mouth with no self control that tweakers have.

Not defending the jerk. Just pointing out morphine can affect someones impulse control.
 
shpankey said:
his assholery was already legendary in all circles. she isn't painting him so as much as reconfirming what everyone already knew.
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True but I think what gets people is a lot of people think oh Steve was this brilliant guy and he just knew he had to be an asshole at work in order to get people to do what they needed to do. What his daughters book does is say well no he was just an asshole through and through and not even his family was sheltered from it.

A little side not but his daughter is now 40 years right in the middle of her mid life crisis so its not surprising she would write a book about her dad as she is probably processing a lot of childhood pain right now.
 
It sucks when you first realize that your boss is a fucking sociopath. I went through it, albeit on a much, much smaller scale.
 
mullet said:
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yeah that's fucking hilarious.

steve jobs seemed like an asshole in pirates of silicon valley.

this just cements that.
 
Well you certainly don't ascend to that kind of status by being a nice guy.
 
It is almost like this was common knowledge or something outside the cult of apple..and I don't even need to buy her stupid new book to know this.
 
Sircolby45 said:
Bill Gates did...
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lol, no, Bill Gates was as cut-throat as could be back in the 1980s and 1990s.
Anyone who thinks he is also a "nice guy" either in the tech industry or in person can save that bullshit for their ad campaign - reality paints a very different picture.
 
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