In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him
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Re: In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him
#2Certainly, the people here, who worship him, don't see any criticism of Jobs as valid.
Re: In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him
#3I thought the consensus was that jobs was a jerk, but since he was a brilliant jerk its OK to idolize him.
Re: In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him
#4Jesus. Just when you thought maybe he’s not that flawed of a person and this comes out.
Re: In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him
#5Doesn't mean he wasn't a jerk.
Re: In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him
#6Jerk? 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.
Re: In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him
#7For 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.
Re: In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him
#8Jerk? 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.
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.
Re: In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him
#9> 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.
Re: In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him
#10> 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, “wa…
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?