The FBI's files on Steve Jobs

Post by hoop » Fri, Feb 10, 2012, 12:31 AM UTC

charlieok wrote: post #145

daniel-cussen wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...distort reality..." A lot of people said that about him: it was his famous reality distortion field.

It's funny to see the famed reality distortion field, so often mentioned in terms of admiration of salesmanship and persuasiveness, with so many entrepreneurs attempting to emulate it, appear in an actual FBI file as some sort of evidence of potential criminality or unfitness for public service.

Post by kylemaxwell » Fri, Feb 10, 2012, 1:35 AM UTC

artursapek wrote: post #138

nutjob123 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the interview with the FBI Jobs also stated that "during the period of approximately 1970-1974 he experimented with marijuana, hashish and lsd. This was during high school and college and he mostly used the substances by himself." p.48

I love the page after that where they say he was "not a member of the communist party." Even for the government that seems not even worth writing down.

Post by vacri » Fri, Feb 10, 2012, 2:13 AM UTC

jordan0day wrote: post #75

rsmiller510 wrote: post #52

This is outstanding reporting requesting and staying on the request for information, and it's a fascinating look at Jobs and the government process of vetting White House appointments in 1991. Note that they are still obsessed with the idea of anyone belonging to or contributing to the Communist Party and even checked if had relatives in foreign countries who might have been Communists (they couldn't find any). I als…

To expand on liber8's point, the "red scare" and such seems funny and unreasonable now, but it's important to remember that during the cold war, the USA and the Soviet Union were very much enemies . To put it in another way, would we think the FBI was out-of-bounds today if background checks today included determining if the person being vetted (or their family members) were associated with a terrorist organization?…

Post by kirubakaran » Fri, Feb 10, 2012, 2:30 AM UTC

sukuriant wrote: post #124

tikhonj wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And programming (at least for some of us :p) is exactly the opposite--it's usually portrayed as dry and relatively boring, like clerk work, but in reality is actually pretty awesome.

Not to an outsider: Oh look... he's typing away at things for hours on end. Our results may be cool, but the process certainly isn't; at least as far as other 'building' jobs look.

Post by jrockway » Fri, Feb 10, 2012, 2:49 AM UTC

quux wrote: post #102

jrockway wrote: post #99

I enjoyed reading this. Sometimes I watch too many cop shows and think that I want to become a detective. Then I read reports like this, and realize that 99% of police work is producing reports like this one. You may get to interview the occasional reference, but you're probably not going to be getting into many gunfights. I feel mislead by fictional television programs :)

Watch The Wire. Most realistic portrayal of police work I've ever seen. Lots of watching suspects and gathering string, putting the pieces of the puzzle together slowly over a season of television, dealing with disfunctional organizations and a realistically low number of gunfights. One of the best TV shows ever made IMO.