
Chrisann Brennan on Steve Jobs - spking
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3258888/The-new-Steve-Jobs-biopic-travesty-says-ex-Cold-Ruthless-Obsessive-No-FAR-worse-denied-father-child-ROTTEN-CORE.html
======
dang
Although the tabloid could hardly have framed this article in a viler way,
what Brennan actually wrote is reflective and poignant and deserves to be
read. If there's another URL we can switch to, we'd be happy to (I tried but
couldn't find one).

If you comment on this article, please be charitable and please stick to
what's interesting about it.

~~~
PhilWright
I do not understand the need to be charitable to Steve Jobs.

If he was not the brilliant leader of Apple we would simply say he was a
douche bag. Just because he was great in one area does not excuse behaviour in
another. Is there any level of business achievement that says that it is ok to
have millions whilst the mother of your daughter is struggling to survive
whilst bringing up your daughter?

As a business man he was brilliant. As a father he was a loser.

~~~
dang
It isn't about excusing anything, but about avoiding tedious tirades. Articles
that are interesting enough to be on HN deserve discussion about what they
actually say. Being charitable involves stopping and reflecting rather than
spewing a prepared statement, which most of us are all too ready to do,
especially when given a shot of anger. HN is about seeking to understand,
which is not compatible with reciting pre-existing judgments. (Edit: I'm not
referring to you here, but to a tendency we all have, which consequently tends
to build up in HN threads.)

Brennan's piece struck me as a pretty good example both of seeking to
understand and of being charitable without excusing bad behavior. If anyone
has reason not to do those things it's her, so I don't see why we can't too.

------
skc
He was a disgusting person to have treated people this way. It's mildly
annoying that he was also brilliant because people end up rationalizing his
faults away.

~~~
greatthanks
A lot of people use those types of biographies to justify their own
destructive behaviour.

------
DanBC
Just checking: You know that a bunch of people took Nazi propaganda, changed
the word "Jew" to "migrant", and posted it to the Daily Mail comment section,
and that those comments were upvoted by DM readers?

[https://medium.com/@bestofthemail/i-was-upvoted-for-
posting-...](https://medium.com/@bestofthemail/i-was-upvoted-for-posting-nazi-
propaganda-about-migrants-in-the-daily-mail-8996899810b4)

And, scarily, the Nazi propaganda was mild in contrast to other comments
openly calling for the murder of migrants?

Look at the upvotes on these comments:
[https://twitter.com/DMReporter/status/650656856529092608](https://twitter.com/DMReporter/status/650656856529092608)

DM engages in the worst kind of click-bait. They are the scum of the earth.

Posting links to the Daily Mail on HN is like flinging excrement at your
readers.

~~~
NoCulturalFit
I am probably missing something, but I take it you're okay with The Guardian
as a source? How is this not clickbait?
[https://twitter.com/somuchguardian](https://twitter.com/somuchguardian)

~~~
muddi900
I do not know if the original commenter(commentator?) is okay with The
Guardian as a source, but that twitter account is trash.

Sadly, one thing the original commentor(commentator?) seem to not understand
that it's about what's being said, rather than who's saying it.

------
meeper16
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3s-qZsjK8I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3s-qZsjK8I)

~~~
dang
You've posted several random comments about Steve Jobs that have nothing to do
with this article. Those are not substantive comments. We don't need an "I
love Steve" vs. "I hate Steve" discussion here—as generic as it is tedious.

~~~
meeper16
Random?

~~~
dang
Yes. This isn't the all about Steve Jobs thread, it's the memoir excerpt by
Chrisann Brennan thread. By making the discussion more generic you make it
less interesting. Please stick to the content.

~~~
meeper16
whoops, thought context was important.

------
meeper16
Also interesting on a related note- "Steve Jobs made Warner Music sue my
startup" [https://medium.com/startup-study-group/steve-jobs-made-
warne...](https://medium.com/startup-study-group/steve-jobs-made-warner-music-
sue-my-startup-9a81c5a21d68)

------
meeper16
How Steve Jobs used Carly Fiorina's HP iPod deal to preinstall iTunes on
millions of PCs and prevent HP from creating its own iPod competitor
[http://www.techmeme.com/151004/p7#a151004p7](http://www.techmeme.com/151004/p7#a151004p7)

------
saturdaysaint
Ick, ick, ick. I wish I could downvote this. I stopped reading when it became
clear what Brennan was doing - betraying a lot of confidences with Jobs to
make a lot of money. I believe that he was often genuinely awful, and for all
I know, Brennan could have been cheated out of a lot of money. But there are
things in here that could hurt Jobs' wife and kids. Brennan should be ashamed.

~~~
jessaustin
The abandoned mother of the abandoned child of a multimillionaire is justified
in recounting any awful behavior she cares to recount.

~~~
pluckytree
"We should not seek revenge on those who have committed crimes against us, or
reply to their crimes with other crimes. We should reflect that by the law of
karma, they are in danger of lowly and miserable lives to come, and that our
duty to them, as to every being, is to help them to rise towards Nirvana,
rather than let them sink to lower levels of rebirth." — the Dalai Lama

~~~
jessaustin
Is this a religious discussion now? I'm not sure that applies, anyway; ISTM
that Jobs is already a dung beetle, or whatever. Besides, TFA is hardly
"seeking revenge". The tone isn't even particularly harsh. It's just: here's
some shit that dude did.

