
In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him - marklabedz
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/books/steve-jobs-lisa-brennan-jobs-small-fry.html
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InclinedPlane
Jerk? No, Steve Jobs was an asshole, across the board. He was also a visionary
and he was able to achieve great things. Guess what, being a highly achieving
visionary is orthogonal to being a good person. People need to stop conflating
the two and stop idolizing people just because of their achievements.

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CharlesW
I agree with all of this but would just note that Jobs wasn't an asshole every
minute of the day, or even most of every day. He was often nice, charismatic,
and inspirational.

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not_that_noob
Jobs was IMO a High-Functioning Sociopath - [http://www.md-
health.com/Sociopath-Traits.html](http://www.md-health.com/Sociopath-
Traits.html)

He turned his charm on when he need to accomplish something, but there is no
real empathy for anyone who was not useful to him in some way. The sad reality
of Lisa's situation was that he didn't need her. So he treated her very badly,
and then as is typical with sociopaths, turn around and blame her for _his_
behavior. I truly sympathize with her.

~~~
Nomentatus
What's so fascinating to me is that his narcissism/sociopathy ending up being
focused on creating ever-better products, and therefore useful; that strikes
me as rare, although it may not be. Wanting to be admired for doing (pushing
others to do) actual good work isn't the usual sociopath thing. Maybe the
highly unusual example Wozniak showed him, of the excellence humans could
achieve (beyond what cut-and-paste engineers could achieve) was the real seed
of that trait. Plus enjoying scalding others.

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refurb
Jesus. Just when you thought maybe he’s not that flawed of a person and this
comes out.

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projectramo
For some of this tone and context matter.

If you tell someone they smell like a toilet but you smile before and laugh
after, or sort of squint and say it playfully, it might be a joke and not
mean.

This is doubly true of a family member.

~~~
h_r
Although what you say might be true, this is exactly the kind of "joke" that
comes easily and frequently from those who really are cruel from what I've
seen.

~~~
projectramo
well you sound like a toilet, haha!

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RickJWagner
Jobs famously used his wealth to jump in line for a kidney transplant. His
penchant for parking in handicapped spaces is well documented.

I don't think the book is making him out to be a jerk....

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sxp62000
I've seen this pattern from quite a few authors before. They describe Jobs as
a jerk, and then go on to explain how his jerktitude actually helped them
later on, like he was teaching them a life lesson or something. He was just
very good at manipulating people.

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loco5niner
Doesn't mean he wasn't a jerk.

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toast_coder
I thought the consensus was that jobs was a jerk, but since he was a brilliant
jerk its OK to idolize him.

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bribroder
> The neighbors next door worried about the teenage Lisa, and one night, when
> Mr. Jobs was out, they moved her from his house and into theirs. Against Mr.
> Jobs’s wishes, the neighbors paid for her to finish college. (He later paid
> them back.)

> Ms. Brennan-Jobs describes her father’s frequent use of money to confuse or
> frighten her. “Sometimes he decided not to pay for things at the very last
> minute,” she writes, “walking out of restaurants without paying the bill.”
> When her mother found a beautiful house and asked Mr. Jobs to buy it for her
> and Lisa, he agreed it was nice — but bought it for himself and moved in
> with his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs.

> Ms. Brennan-Jobs said she wrote “Small Fry” in part to figure out why he
> withheld money from her even as his wealth ballooned, and as he spent it
> more freely on the children he had with Ms. Powell Jobs. She said she now
> sees it was about teaching her that money can corrupt.

It's almost as if whenever financial support was involved, he went out of his
way to actually embody the moral corruption and decadence of wealth. It's an
extraordinarily Spartan and hard-bitten way to teach these lessons. One must
marvel at the mental fortitude required to keep coming back to him with such
obvious love. She seems to have taken it as an almost Islamic lesson in peace-
through-surrender, requiring the same absolute faith without recompense.

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badrequest
Or maybe he wasn't sacrificing his natural humility to teach his daughter an
important lesson on the toxicity of wealth, and he was just an asshole.

Which explanation is simpler?

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meowface
Especially considering he treated only one of his children this way, and not
the rest (at least to such an extreme extent). If his motives were really to
teach them a lesson in fiscal responsibility and greed, I don't think he would
subject only one of his children to such cold-hearted "education".

