An anecdote from the book "Steve Jobs in Exile" I just read: at the beginning of one product announcement, Jobs told the audience that he was a little nervous, but his coworkers said that he was never nervous for keynotes. It was pure manipulation.
He doesn't actually answer the question until over 25 seconds have passed!
He takes a sip of water, sits in silence, the crowd starts heckling. Jobs gives a small quip to buy time. Sits in silence again. It's an eternity on stage.
You wouldn't be nervous without an audience, so why would the coworkers be talking about the practice talk and not the real talk?
Or are you saying that they claimed he was nervous before the talks or backstage, but that the nerves went away once he stepped onstage? If so, why would he need to manipulate his coworkers into thinking he's nervous?
Or are you saying that he was nervous during the talks in a way that couldn't be captured by the cameras or the audience? In which case again - manipulation wouldn't have worked.
Or am I missing something?
EDIT: It seems I misread the original comment - he actually told the audience he was nervous. I'd love to know which product announcement that was and see it for myself. I'm still not sure how a coworker would be able to know what he was feeling any better than the audience did.
Correct.
> I'd love to know which product announcement that was and see it for myself.
Some NeXT computer.
> I'm still not sure how a coworker would be able to know what he was feeling any better than the audience did.
Because his coworkers had known him for years, worked through many product announcements with him, and the audience did not?
The whole book "Steve Jobs in Exile" was basically the reminiscences of his coworkers.
> Because his coworkers had known him for years, worked through many product announcements with him, and the audience did not?
I'm skeptical. There are video interviews from that era (I think) where he appears very nervous on camera, asking repeatedly if "we're on", self-interrupting and asking for a second try to attempt an answer, taking lots of sips of water, etc. I'd have to try to find the video.
EDIT: here it is, his first TV appearance (1978), he is extremely nervous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ODMJE6lDbY. So it doesn't contradict the anecdote from the NeXT era, but certainly seems like he got used to the job rather than simply being some kind of psychopath/manipulator.
Sounds like an interesting book though, I'll check it out.
Obviously lying to people you know is generally unhealthy but when you are putting on a performance to an audience I don’t judge so harshly. Of course I imagine he did both.
Edit: what a weird thing to downvote lol