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Every time I read something about Jobs I'm struck by how similar he is to various assholes I've worked for over the years.

This scenario, pretty much every nasty behavior described in the Isaacson biography, the recent salary-fixing emails - I've witnessed them all repeated.

It might seem crazy to entertain, but having seen first-hand that these folks can consistently climb and succeed while being what most decent people would consider scumbags - I have to wonder if Steve was just alpha-scum in the right place at the right time.

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I can attest to that. I met Steve in the summer of 1976 when he was a barefoot hippie who'd just started a computer company with his buddy, and we got to talking about some software they needed, a 6502 disassembler. I told him I could do that and it was right up my alley.

We exchanged phone numbers and shook hands on a "deal" - no money involved yet but it just seemed like an interesting side project to do for the fun of it.

Steve called me back a couple of days later and chewed me out: "Mike, I've thought about this, and I've decided you couldn't possibly do this project. This is a microcomputer. It's nothing at all like the mainframes you've worked with. It's completely different, and you couldn't possibly do this project. So forget it."

I tried to persuade him that my eight years of experience in machine language programming in a variety of architectures just might mean that I could tackle a simple instruction set like the 6502. But no, he knew I simply couldn't do it.

Of course he wasn't a programmer and had no idea. But he did know for certain that a mainframe programmer like me couldn't possibly understand microcomputers.

The sad part for me (besides the possible billions of dollars I might have made!) is that I didn't get a chance to meet Woz before Steve dissed me. A few friends have told me that we probably would have gotten along famously - if I could have somehow gotten past the doorkeeper. But so it goes; you can't second-guess history.

I told a longer version of this story, with a few links to interesting stuff from the old days, here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/h4n5w/i_was_one_of_the...

Had I gotten that call from Steve, I probably would've laughed in his face. Hard. For close to a minute.

When I was calmed down enough, I'd have been like, "Well, Steve, I was just reading through the instruction set, interesting how it does X, Y, Z, seems like that would make it easy for it to do that thing you said wanted in a disassembler, I was just about to borrow a little simulator time to test out my theories, knock up a quick and dirty proof of concept, but since it looks like you think I can't do it, I'll just go ahead and toss these pages of notes I wrote up away because they're obviously useless." Then shut up and wait for him to crack. You have to talk to people in a language they understand.

Oh man, I wish I'd had the presence of mind to do that.

Instead, after we got off the phone, I went ahead and wrote enough of the disassembler to have a good proof of concept. Then, since the phone call with Steve hadn't gone so well, I decided to go show him the code in person.

I looked up the address of Apple Computer - 770 Welch Road in Palo Alto - and dropped in to show Steve the code. When I walked in I didn't see anything computer-related, just a row of telephone switchboards.

I told the nearest operator that I was looking for Apple Computer. She hesitated a bit and said "uh, this is their answering service."

So I walked out and told myself, "Those guys are flakes. They're never going to make it."

I think I like your idea better! :-)

edit: I just remembered a strange coincidence. I was reading Michael Moritz's Return to the Little Kingdom last year and ran across this:

> At first there was great uncertainty at the Regis McKenna Agency about Apple’s prospects. The account executive, Frank Burge, explained, “People who knew Markkula and Apple wondered whether they would make it. We kept saying ‘These guys are flakes. They’re never going to make it.’”

Nah, your solution was not so bad really!

But of course nobody expects an answering service in place of the real thing.

I'm surprised that no one seems to have considered that was exactly the outcome Jobs was after. You do the work for free just to prove him wrong, then he says "OK fine.." and offers some minimal amount. You take it, because you've done the work already.

Who wins there exactly?

In terms of who would have won and who would have lost, it's far worse than you might suspect.

I actually would have given Steve the disassembler for free, just to see where it might lead. It wasn't that much work, not much more than some of the coding tests companies ask for these days.

Or maybe I would have asked for a few hundred bucks. Not much difference one way or the other.

Suppose Steve then asked me to join up with him and Woz. I'd just read some crazy business book that said people shouldn't have stock in companies because you can't really influence the outcome of the whole company. Instead you should just get paid what you're worth, and the best way to do that was to be a contractor instead of an employee.

How exciting that would have been - I could have been Apple's first contractor!

> I'd just read some crazy business book that said people shouldn't have stock in companies because you can't really influence the outcome of the whole company.

Oh man, if only you'd have read about Standard Oil.

Back in Rockefeller's day, there was this event that was later called the "Cleveland Massacre". John was borrowing enormous sums of cash and buying out local refiners.

He had this routine. You'd get invited to sit down with him at his office, he'd have his checkbook with him. Very cool and refined-like, he told you you'd have no chance remaining in business and you had two choices, sell to him or get crushed. You could choose a check or stock in Standard Oil. "I suggest you take the stock."

Anyone who took stock at that time and held onto it would have gotten wildly rich. Most of them didn't. John had to scramble to ensure he kept enough cash on hand to continue his shopping spree. He had an unusual relationship with banks, they trusted him and were willing to extend credit to him that they wouldn't to anyone else. It wound up being his biggest trump card in those early days.

That is an amazing story, and a lesson to all of us. Thanks for sharing it!

You don't have to take it at all. You can walk away, putting Steve in the position of having an already working solution slip through his fingers and having to find someone else to do it. You considered it a fun side project, maybe you'd have done it even without someone like Jobs asking for it.

And you also now have something that somebody wanted, so there's a good bet someone else wanted it too. You don't have to sell to Jobs to get paid. Just sell it to someone else.

That does sound like Jobs. He might have been an asshole but he knew how to handle engineers.

Indeed - Paul Allen, using a PDP-10, actually wrote an entire 8080 emulator that Gates/Allen used to develop the original Altair Basic.

Writing a disassembler at that time would have been trivial in comparison.

> Then shut up and wait for him to crack.

I don't know if this is what would happen. We don't know whether Jobs believed what he was saying about the fellow who programmed mainframes. But I suspect that Jobs was also playing upon the fellow's desire to do the project in order to better his own bargaining position.

I'm pretty sure Steve wasn't bargaining. He was simply so certain of his own opinion that mainframes and microcomputers were totally unlike each other, that it was inconceivable that someone who was an expert at one could ever bridge the gap to the other.

There was some evidence for his position if you knew anything about the computing culture in the Cupertino area in those days, especially at Tymshare where I was working at the time.

Tymshare had a profitable business going, selling dial-up access to their mainframes for $30/hour. They knew about these newfangled microcomputers, but one thing they definitely knew was that they didn't want to get involved in them. Because if they did, the microcomputers could turn into a threat to their mainframe business.

And you know, it turned out they were right! The microcomputers were a threat to their business, but they didn't get in on it.

Tymshare wasn't the only company like this. There were several little timesharing companies in the Bay Area, and they all must have looked like dinosaurs to anyone who was playing around with microprocessors.

I had told Steve in our first conversation that I was working at Tymshare, so really the most straightforward explanation is not that he was negotiating, but that he thought I was just one of those dinosaurs.

You should still meet Woz. From the likes of it, you probably would get along swimmingly.

Thank you for saying that, and I think you're right, we probably would. Woz just seems like a really nice guy, personable and interesting and fun to be around.

I've bumped into him once or twice over the years, most recently at the Homebrew Computer Club reunion, where he gave a great talk full of enthusiasm.

Woz was a breath of fresh air after Ted Nelson's keynote-of-sorts, which was interesting enough but so sad and bitter! (Anyone who was there will know what I'm talking about.) I suppose I can relate to that, as someone who's never had the kind of success I could have imagined for myself.

But Woz reminded me that no matter what happens in your life, stay cheerful and enthusiastic and never let yourself become a bitter old person.

I was a huge Ted Nelson fan before that reunion, and his keynote was the main reason I attended (wasn't expecting Woz to make it). Still am a huge fan but his talk was not what I expected at all, and was a bit hard to listen to.

Fortunately, Woz had me walking out in high spirits. Woz is an awesome, awesome engineer and creator for all engineers and creators everywhere.

I am trying to find a way to go meet up with that Wizard Woz myself right now, since I didn't get a chance to talk to him at the reunion.

I wish more engineers were like Woz, in that he builds technology but isn't blind sided by its effects. He stops when he doesn't think it is right. It does have consequences in how it is used and we are part of that. I had a huge falling out with a friend of mine, he has a completely amoral philosophy when it comes to technology creation, that it is the users responsibility, the engineers just make tools and don't need to think about the application.

Yes, I see this two from end users in my company. They us as just a code monkey.

They think they know the best way to do something, not realizing the fact that as someone creating the code, you have probably seen similar problems numerous times, and have a far better way of solving the problem.

I am constantly asked for a new excel to upload data. I refuse these days, (they are far too error prone). Instead I build a web form instead, with JavaScript emulating whatever usability features they required Excel for (usually just a bit of copy pasting). Last time I did showed the user what I had come up with the response was "this is shit". I asked her what it was missing, sorted the JavaScript, and two days later she asked if I could replace another of her Excels with a similar form.

I myself, agree with you on the principle of being principled. At the same time, I can see how your friend's side (but perhaps not his reasoning), could be argued in some cases.

If you are working at a very high level of abstraction (compilers, programming languages, protocols), there is infinite potential for your work, and its purpose is going to be determined by the principles of its users. Their principles may be different from your own, possibly even evil.

I do think standing for principles that are for the good of humanity is something worth doing as an individual, regardless of the technological abstraction you work on. And if you can build or promote your technology using those principles, then the both will be stronger for it.

I have to wonder if Steve was just alpha-scum in the right place at the right time.

In the short term, luck can make anyone look like a fool or a genius, even though the reality is usually somewhere in between. However, Steve was highly successful over a number of decades. He ultimately created one of the most valuable enterprises in the history of the world. It seems that he was an unrepentant asshole, but I don't think that all of his success came down to just being in the right place at the right time.

The "luck" over the long term is, as you say, more than just the equivalent of finding a quarter on the street.

Nearly everyone I've observed with long-term "luck" has been mostly successful at recognizing and acting on opportunities.

The a-hole contingent merely has another tool to widen the funnel of opportunities. By eliminating compromise and being willing to divest others of their benefits, one can increase the likelihood of eventual success.

It just takes timing to stumble on one gold-making opportunity. It takes an approach to repeat it with consistency.

I had a conversation with a drill instructor who encapsulated (hah) the role by asking if I thought he really had that level of anger over untied bootlaces.

Many a-holes use every opportunity to send the message that not following their way will lead to dire consequences. It doesn't have to appear rational in the moment, but it is generally intended to achieve end results that the a-hole is unwilling to communicate.

>"It seems that he was an unrepentant asshole, but I don't think that all of his success came down to just being in the right place at the right time."

Sure.

Again relating this more to what I've experienced than any desire to try and peg exactly what Jobs was or wasn't - I don't think these people are living on luck. I think it's quite the opposite, they're absolutely deliberate in siphoning the talents everyone in their sphere of influence to their own ends. Like other comment here laid out so clearly they're able to take maximum personal advantage of every opportunity.

What being in the right place at the right time would do is present historically unique opportunities and possibly people to pursue/exploit, leading to a bigger sphere encompassing more opportunities.

You don't have be a good guy to become successful. Just look at all the politicians and religious leaders, at least in my country they are highly corrupted but have a massive following. If you can deceiving exploit people then its usually good enough.

"It might seem crazy to entertain, but having seen first-hand that these folks can consistently climb and succeed while being what most decent people would consider scumbags..."

One of my best friends is a psychiatrist at a large academic hospital. He works with "corporate leaders" and top athletes (college level and above). He says in his 5 years of practice, he has not yet seen a "successful" person who does not exhibit a significant degree of sociopathic behavior. He goes as far as saying that being sociopathic is an asset if you are trying to be successful in any hyper competitive human endeavor (politics, business, sports etc).

I think Bill Gates is a good counterexample. Microsoft was not the nicest company around, but as a boss he seems pretty normal, even good. And I'd say he's just as successful as Jobs, if not more. (Also difficult to imagine a sociopath being a philanthropist like Gates).

Bill Gates' first act could qualify as intense to say the least [1] [2], and second act is indeed saintly.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Management_style

[2] No judgement on him because not everyone can pull off a Microsoft.

Bill Gates' reviews were notoriously difficult - http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html. I wouldn't call him a "normal" boss either.

I guess I meant normal as in not-a-sociopath. As another commenter said, Gates was definitely intense. But then a lot of other people can be similarly described (maybe not to the same degree, but someone like Linus is not exactly known for being mild mannered[1], but he's definitely not a sociopath).

But thanks for the link though, I'll check it out. I must've suppressed all my Gates-criticism for all the good he's doing now.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5107495

Well, for one he also tried to push his co-founder out of the company while he was sick in hospital. If he wasn't a sociopath at the time, he sure acted like one.

A difficult review is not a bad thing, especially when it is a software review.

Do you really need to bean arsehole whilst doing said difficult review?

Gates had a change of heart, and a matching change of public image.

Gates got older. And realized his mortality. And he was smart enough to act on it.

And perhaps the fact that when you die, people will remember not just the billions you made but the asshole you were as well. Once you are gone, your material success won't be worth squat to you anymore. But your legacy will forever echo the dick you were to others (who now write your history for posterity).

Look, Steve Jobs, despite his accomplishments (and I don't mean to belittle them at all) is a gnat in history. Like the rest of us.

He had marketing brilliance, and was a trend-setting and trend-guesser. But he didn't truly change the world. He didn't better our lives. He (Apple) produce(s) high quality, high price hardware. Simple as that. But in America, right now, we measure wealth to be greatness. It's sad really. Wealth means nothing unless you spread it around. Which Job's never did. As a rule.

Steve Jobs was not a generous man. Not at all. And he also wasn't a kind man. Maybe to his family and close friends - the personal Steve Jobs - I don't know. But everyone else was a tool to be used. Even Woz. Hell, especially Woz.

Despite us turning him into a Saint, in 100 years he'll be forgotten. Bill Gates might not be though.

There may be an aspect of confirmation bias at hand. I would suspect that sociopaths--being narcissists--need validation and seek to advertise their success much more than successful non-sociopaths.

Pehaps it's more that the ones that make themselves visible are like that? I've known a couple of people in that social group that were quite ethical and concerned people. They didn't spend a lot of their time drawing attention to themselves, though. Not to say the the 'quiet' ones are all like that, just that perhaps there's something in pandering to the media that correlates with the 'public, sociopath' ones.

I don't really move in those circles though, so it's not like the people I do know are necessarily representative.

Relevant reading for those that are interested:

Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work - http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0061147893?pc_redir=1395239748...

> he has not yet seen a "successful" person who does not exhibit a significant degree of sociopathic behavior.

This is such a weak argument, you can subscribe some sociopathic behavious to any regular person if you want.

A psychiatrist cannot differentiate between "any regular person" and "significant degree of sociopathic behavior"?

Maybe not as simple as you think: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYemnKEKx0c

A psychiatrist cannot differentiate between "any regular person" and "significant degree of sociopathic behavior"?

No they can't. Psychiatric opinions are too mailable. It's not an easy assessment like diagnosing someone else's professional qualifications in a field unrelated to yours using a 2nd hand anecdote posted on the Internet. Now there's an analysis you can take to the bank.

Any evidence to back up the claim "No they can't."?

Their opinions seem to carry weight in courts. I'm not saying that is evidence, but that could be an indicator that psychiatrists might know what they're talking about (and its not just voodoo science).

It was heavy sarcasm.

That's a really dangerous takeaway. I've wondered, too, if being an asshole is a business advantage. Here's what I've learned:

1. This approach only amplifies whatever ideas you feed it. With the right vision behind it, you may end up becoming a force to be reckoned with. And people will endure your tantrums because you deliver them success.

2. But if your contributions aren't good—really, really good—this will only amplify your failure. And no one will endure you.

3. Most importantly, being an asshole may help great ideas get powered through, but it's not the only way. The people I most admire have found success while still being amazing human beings to work beside.

I would add #4 - it is hard to leave a functioning structure for when you aren't around if progress depends on your force of will.

If this were anyone but Jobs -- let's say your startup -- and I told you some Stanford MBA wanted to license the software you developed in order to market and support it and keep 85% of the proceeds for themselves, wouldn't you would say the MBA is the one being a huge asshole?

Eighty-five percent???? That would in fact be ridiculous, right?

This is the usual double-standard trope about Jobs/Apple. What's normal and even admirable business practice for a startup -- negotiating a fair deal -- is cast as evil and nefarious when it's Steve Jobs.

When was the last time you heard WhatsApp leadership referred to as "assholes" because they negotiated a high valuation? How about Instagram? Or any other startup that negotiated for a high valuation / better deal?

Never, right?

And let's keep something in perspective: Jobs/NeXT owned the IP in question.

How the heck does negotiating for 50% share of IP you're licensing to someone else to sell and support constitute being an "asshole"?

(Granted, tearing up the contract was a bit theatrical.)

15% of gross receipts is not atypical for a publisher that takes on the responsibility of support, packaging, distribution, sales and maintenance.

Honestly, as the owner of the IP, I would much rather have 15% of gross receipts than 50% of net. Taking a cut of net just encourages the publisher to beef up their costs, which are difficult for you to precisely track.

I've had to negotiate these in the past - and the "rational" approach, in which you sit across from a lawyer, and walk down the various details (usually it's a staged agreement, with certain levels of return for certain levels of sales) - can be painful. I'm not saying that I would enjoy Steve's hysterics, but, it would be refreshingly to the point.

A Lot of Steve Jobs success came from him eliminating the days, weeks, hell months of guidance/direction/management, and just saying let's get this f#%$cking thing done.

It might not be pretty, you really don't like the person doing it - but it can be effective. Alternatively, it can also be incredibly destructive. Very fine line to walk.

Thanks, but do you have a source for "15% gross receipts" as typical?

Quick search brings up this study, "PROFITABILITY AND ROYALTY RATES ACROSS INDUSTRIES: SOME PRELIMINARY EVIDENCE": "For software and content licensing, it could be as high as 50%"... "defined as a fixed percentage rate of sales" [1]

Which would make Jobs' ask more typical.

[Edit: on second look I think the paper's 50% figure may refer to gross margins not receipts.. but anyway, that would still cast the final deal as a completely typical software deal.]

[1] http://law.unh.edu/assets/images/uploads/pages/ipmanagement-...

A report from 10 years ago reflects a different economy from 30 years ago.

1980's software distribution was as complicated as making a manufacturing physical product. There was the manufacturing cost of the diskettes, packaging, manuals, telephone support, and marketing. Guess wrong about sales and you have a lot of worthless SKUs on you hand.

So yes, as I recall from being a software developer back then, 15% seems about right.

If this was a pure-play licensing deal, then agreed 15% is low, but the story made it clear that this wasn't a licensing deal, but a publishing deal in which the publisher had to hire developers to do ongoing development, provide support, etc...

I.E. They'd receive a hairy-ball-of-code and have to provide a soup-nuts package to customers, including bug-fixes, phone-support, etc... in return for the 85%.

15% actually seems low. Today Apple takes 30% gross receipts for anything that goes through the app store. A lot of developers seem to find that acceptable.

I could see a case where distribution (printing, deals with retailers, etc.) and ongoing support (over the lifetime of the product) adds up to over 50% of the price of the software. In that case, 50% of the profit is quite fair, but 50% of the revenue is definitely not, because that would require the writer's company to operate at a loss.

Everyone wants to maximize his/her profits. Nothing wrong in that. Insulting people, tearing contracts, talking rudely to them, deliberately making them wait (Steve Jobs was famous for that. He even made Bill Gates wait for an hour to meet, even when he was clearly seen by his engineers doing nothing in his cubicle) - all this made him the 'a' word, one of the biggest I've read about.

I think the asshole part might be necessary but not sufficient for that level of success. He had greatness too. One of the downsides of his legacy is cargo-cult asshole-ness where people think that if they act like the kind of uber-jerk Steve was, they'll be successful like Steve.

> One of the downsides of his legacy is cargo-cult asshole-ness where people think that if they act like the kind of uber-jerk Steve was, they'll be successful like Steve.

Luckily, it would appear that Tim Cook is not one of the people who believe this, from what I can tell.

For all of Tim Cook's great success in the jobs he has held and the one he holds today, no one thinks he could have founded an Apple.

But he was only at one position behind Job, and at that point he was still more successful than many a-holes.

Unless we are only scoping the discussion to "a-hole being successful in business founding".

How do you know that?

I think being a person with what we'll call 'vision' can be extremely successful regardless of temperament. Being an asshole is somewhat both a cause and symptom of extreme success, but it only represents the easiest path to success and, what's important to add, was only part of what made Jobs a success. Certainly he wasn't so ruthless 100% of the time and the takeaway from his success should not be to emulate only or put undue focus on this part of his character.

I agree 1000x. The worship of this guy in tech circles astonishes me; he comes across as the prototypical managerial leech while Wozniak comes across as the selfless genius. I bought and read the Isaacson bio to see if I missed anything, only to confirm what I thought: he is a classic bullshitting asshole that climbed to the top on taking credit for other peoples talent(Woz, Ives, etc). The best parts of that book were the people who cut through the bullshit RDF and called him on it: Wozniaks dad: "you havent done shit!" Bill Gates, re: NEXT (paraphrasing) "This is an overpriced piece of shit, Im not developing for it." The CEO of Corning, when Jobs tried to tell him, of all people, how glass is made: "Are you ready to shut up and listen to some science?"

That wasnt enough to keep me from throwing the book in the trash, however.

I really hope the Aaron Sorkin movie cuts through the reality distortion field and distills just exactly what entrepreneurs really should be emulating about Jobs.

Also of note: http://www.kevinoleary.com/kevin-oleary-steve-jobs-was-the-t...

Sorkin is deeply conventional. He will almost certainly replicate the pre-existing myth, in an edgy way and with glib zingers.

Also keep in mind that Jobs and Sorkin seemed to be on pretty friendly terms: http://qr.ae/nS6or

Thats not his job, he is not a historian. His job is to tell an entertaining story and there is a high probability you will be disappointed.

Dan'l Lewin mentioned in the article comes across as a pretty decent fellow in this video, and has done pretty well for himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD_CHfiTClg

I think every time the issue of Steve's maniacal side comes up I feel obliged to bring this up:

Wozniak on Jobs:

   I was inspired by Stanford intellectuals like 
   Jim Warren talking this way at the club. Lee 
   Felsenstein wanted computers to help in things 
   like the antiwar marches he'd orchestrated in 
   Oakland and I was inspired by the fact that 
   these machines could help stop wars. Others in 
   the club had working models of this computer 
   before Jobs knew it existed. He came down one 
   week and I took him to show him the club, not 
   the reverse. He saw it as a businessman. It as 
   I who told Jobs the good things these machines 
   could do for humanity, not the reverse. I 
   begged Steve that we donate the first Apple I 
   to a woman who took computers into elementary 
   schools but he made me buy it and donate it 
   myself. [1]

The contrast in the personalities of Jobs and Wozniak could not be more clearer.

However I agree with first part of what toddmorey has said below:

  3. Most importantly, being an asshole may help 
  great ideas get powered through, but it's not 
  the only way.

The latter part, I'm unsure and circumspect about:

  The people I most admire have found
  success while still being amazing human beings
  to work beside.

In the valley and elsewhere, I think this is increasingly not the case.

I think we should stop telling kids that life rewards the passionate and the skilled. By rewards I certainly do not mean some inner calm or contentment coming from indulging in what you love.

I mean the conventional rewards of recognition, admiration and remuneration.

Life is rigged in favor of the opportunists.

The schemers, hustlers and the witty-talkers.

But certainly not the plainspoken and the adept.

This is what many kids who have grown up on the stories of Steve Jobs and the valley lore surrounding many other iconic founders, will take away as their guiding principles.

They will grow up thinking, "Life rewards the unabashedly ravenous, merciless and ruthless blokes among us. Life does not spare the dignified, the pleasant or the mild-mannered."

There is nothing to suggest otherwise.

No matter how you dice it, your conscience tells you that this is more than a bit disenchanting if not unfair.

[1]

http://i.imgur.com/a1I9DTs.jpg

https://plus.google.com/+CarmsPerez/posts/GnVTvQNgvpf

What would make the story even better would be to have learned that Steve sent the guy out to suggest the "fix".

That would show Jobs to be... stupid and capricious. If he wanted 50% inked on paper, he could just say so.

Funnily enough, the story still shows him as capricious and stupid. She pretty much gave him the same contract, he looks for 50%, he approves it. Genius businessman.

Personally, I wish Tim Cook would actually fix some of the problems. For example, the Google and Samsung attacks.

...with the right friends :)

"good artists copy great artists steal"

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