“I Have a Secret. My Father Is Steve Jobs”
vanityfair.com
vanityfair.com
Empty man consumed by his own emptiness, leaves shiny baubles behind.
He was not only an awful father, he was an awful person.
He was erratic. Some things Jobs did were wonderful. In this situation I could see him detesting the way his relationships were poisoned with money and not wanting his daughter to rest on her laurels waiting for a payday.
That's your takeaway from this?
> “You’re not getting anything,” he said. “You understand?
> Nothing. You’re getting nothing.” Did he mean about the
> car, something else, bigger? I didn’t know. His voice
> hurt—sharp, in my chest.It's clear that he was a dickhead to anyone he could get away with it to, while expressing the infrequent, but still present, in group-support, and the hyperbolic in-group praise, typical of a narcissist.
He even died due to his own hubris.
Gates was famously so, at least when he was leading MSFT. Ballmer, moreso. Ellison is a well known asshole. Etc.
It's especially true of founders, I reckon, because through grit and luck they find themselves atop a large heap of money and power, and it's very easy to forget how much of their success was due to luck -- and very easy to believe that it was all due to how exceptional and smart and visionary they were, or whatever.
So, yeah, probably a dick. Probably not somebody with a lot of close friends. I mean, would YOU be friends with a guy who was denying his own child like that?
From the Economist: "While [Elon Musk danced] with his first wife on their wedding day, he told her, “I am the alpha in this relationship.” [1]
[1] https://www.economist.com/business-books-quarterly/2015/07/0...
Jobs sucked.