Katie's Reviews > Steve Jobs

Oops! The publishers forgot to include a subtitle, so I've taken the liberty of helping them come up with one. May I suggest:

Steve Jobs: Unrelenting Narcissist, Suspected Sociopath and Giant Fucking Asshole

Isaacson writes a great biography: He tells a coherent, cohesive story, he interviews all the players and most important he doesn't feel the need to hoist his subject on a pedestal with his pen. When it comes to carrying a story, our author did all the right things.

His subject, however, left much to be desired. It's startling to see how someone can be so immensely successful in one aspect of his life and such a complete, utter failure in virtually every other. To illuminate just a few of the many failings of Steve Jobs, allow me to expound upon my proposed subtitle:

Unrelenting Narcissist: It's true that if you're going to launch a business in a cutthroat industry and be willing to fight to the death to succeed, you gotta believe in yourself. Jobs, however, took a little positive self-esteem to a whole new level and chose to recreate truth to position himself in the best light. He steals the concept of the GUI from Xerox and it's collaborative sharing, but Microsoft does, well, anything and it's because they're thieves, and we have no respect for thieves. Good ideas? He took credit for them, even if he would veto them upon first review. The man truly believed he could do no wrong, and I can't help but think he probably, just before taking his last breath, was thinking, "Well there goes the future of Apple."

Suspected Sociopath: To be clear, I'm using the term "sociopath" like I would if I were Wong's junior psychologist on SVU: that is, to define someone with an anti-social personality disorder. The man - Jobs, not Wong; Wong is amazing - fit the profile to a T: Despite having the ability to charm someone's head off when he needed to, Jobs had an absolute lack of genuine regard for almost everyone around him - his wife, his employees, his poor, cast-aside daughters (his son seemed to escape his scorn, which is a charmingly sexist detail), even his supporters (I can't bring myself to call them friends) who were there for him from the beginning. If a person could not - or could no longer - provide a benefit to Jobs, he would cast them aside...but not before cruelly shitting mounds of aggression and abuse all over their bare heads. See? Sociopath.

Giant Fucking Asshole: There are seriously almost too many examples of this to count, but let me curate a sample for your consideration. 1). He screwed one of the founding members of Apple out of founders stock that would now be practically priceless. 2). He thinks he can explain away the abuse he doled out to employees by saying that was "just who I am." Seriously? Do you not think that the people around you want to rip your head off every single day? They do, I assure you. But you know what? They hold it in, because collaborative, encouraging environments are better for everyone (unless you're a narcissist and/or a sociopath, in which case, see above). 3). There's something atrocious about a multi-multi-multi-billionaire who can envision how personal computers/GUIs/the mouse/touchscreens/computer animation/digital music/tablets/etc. can change the world for rich consumers, but who can't see that a fraction of his wealth could have changed the world for people who don't have water.

It's undeniable that Jobs was fantastically talented and will go down in the books as one of the great visionaries in history. I'm writing my review on my MacBook, and both my iPhone and my iPad (as well as a slew of iPods, Nanos and Shuffles) are nearby, so I guess the guy was doing something right. Still, I don't believe that being an asshole is the answer, and I don't believe it gets better results; it may not get worse results, but if today's Apple is what he created with vinegar, then I'd love to see what he could have done with honey.