Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

This is interesting to read from the angle of personality dynamics.

People underestimate the sense of control that Jobs derived, not from being prophetic or smart, but from making things extremely personal and psychologically stifling for other people. (Musk works in the same way when he gets flustered or fearful.)

Jobs talked a lot about seeing the future, but his high-use "like/dislike switch" was really in control most of the time. It's a very emotional way of being.

Notice that Brin immediately metabolizes that type of communication as A-OK, and understandable:

> he made various veiled threats too though i am not inclined to hold them against him too much

> as he seemed beside himself (as eric would say).

This particular response shows off a strength which, while impressive in patience, openness to relationship dynamics, etc. is also in some respects similar to the type of person who stays in cults while all of their friends call it quits.

Brin likely sees his own strength in nuanced understanding rather than in control-focused decisiveness. It's a logical yin to Steve's yang. I wouldn't be surprised if he saw Steve as a promising or up-and-coming feelings-relater. I.e. "if he could just move past the explosions, which maybe I can help with by talking to him, he could be so expressive and creative" or something like that.

Brin is also a bit lower in conscientiousness and a lowered-boundaries person compared to a lot of techies in leadership, but he's also high-creative, high-expressive personality. This is more of a "therapeutic" type of person in general.

With an angry Steve Jobs in the room, this kind of person will get steamrolled 99% of the time, no matter the tech in question or the negotiation setup.

I believe Brin saw a lot to aspire to in Jobs' _upside_, but shared Jobs' blind spot for diplomacy and truly creative work at a higher level, and was unable to perceive a need to work in that way.

On Jobs' part, he was extremely lucky to grow up in a capitalistic society which sees $$$ as something it's happy to exchange for control of a given domain, along with a legend to go in the books of the great man theory. In terms of group values like leadership, what you'll find is a constant communication of vision backed by a huge amount of emotional control technique which is not quite so dynamic as it is whiny.

Thanks for posting this op!

Given the millions of dollars in damages these emails caused, I'm pretty sure they went back to unsubpoenable smoke filled rooms, minus the smoke. Hell, the CEO of Twitter flew especially to Apple HQ to get their advertising spend reinstated. He wouldn't have done that if whatever he needed to say could've been said over email.

John McCarthy trolled me once!

When I met him, we were chatting about Stanford, and I mentioned that I really admired that huge radio telescope that you could see around 280 and Page Mill Road in the hills above Stanford.

He looked puzzled and confused, and asked "Which huge radio telescope?"

I was flustered and explained how you couldn't miss it, right by 280 and Page Mill Road, it's out there in a field, its huge, it's enormous, gigantic I tell you, there's no way you can miss it, bla bla bla...

He let me go on and on, describing it, and acted like he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, like I was crazy for hallucinating a gigantic radio telescope that both of us must have passed zillions of times.

Finally he let on and said, "Oh, you mean that SMALL radio telescope???"

“Poaching out of spite” is exactly what he’s threatening. And note: “stupidly expensive” for you and me is “stupidly cheap” for companies like Apple and Google.

Would have been funny if he gave the names of employees he wanted to depart instead.