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Comment by salgernon | Hacker News Reader

Back in 1999 or 2000, shortly after Steve had rejiggered the cafeteria staff, I was walking back to my office in another building with an "afternoon doughnut" - that is, one that hadn't sold in the morning at the coffee place in the main lobby, and probably sold at a discount.

I passed Steve in the hall and he glared at me as I walked with my doughnut. Steve was in great health in those days while I was pasty and obese. (Still am, sad to say.).

But I was happy with my doughnut. Steve glared at me but didn't say anything. I slunk away.

The next day, there were no more doughnuts at any of the cafés on the main campus. I don't think it's a coincidence.

View on HN

Do you think 14 years later is a safe time to admit it was you who causes the donuts to disappear?

I really had a great laugh at this, Thank you for that.

That's a great damn story. And I'm certain it wasn't a coincidence.

My only other story would be walking around a pillar in the cafeteria and smacking him face to face as he came around the other side. He said excuse me and moved aside!

And the pillars were allowed to stay?

They were patented soon after.

This little story is great. It's anecdotes like this (and on the linked URL) that I would have liked to see in that Jobs movie. Paint a very interesting picture of Jobs, with fresh perspectives.

and yet you're still alive and (I guess) obese... and he died of not paying attention to cancer. Donuts ftw I guess.

He paid attention, just the wrong kind of attention -- crackpot cuckoo crazy alternative medicine attention. If he had received the recommended surgery immediately upon the initial diagnosis, he very likely would still have been alive.

Didn't he have pancreatic cancer? That's not the kind a little chemo can fix. It has a very high rate of mortality. Patrick Swayze died from it not too long before Jobs.

I'm not defending the new age medicine he opted for first. But I don't think it's what caused his death. Might have hastened it a little is all.

Steve Jobs had a neuroendocrine tumor.

These are generally fair better behaved than the more common and far more deadly type of cancer you are probably familiar with, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. While pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas have a dismal prognosis, most neuroendocrine tumors have a good survivability index.

Yeah, a hacker artist friend passed just last year from a pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

My favorite Steve story.

Oh man. I haven't eaten a donut in years. I'm going to go get one now.

salgernon, Please check out the Four Hour Body by Tim Ferriss. You can change your life, get in shape, get healthy. It's so important.

Really HN, you down vote this fucking comment? Unbelievable.

Let me try then: http://www.crockford.com/pwl/

If he's already aware of the idea that being fat and pasty is bad for him, he probably doesn't need people on HN telling him that.

I used to be fat. I knew it was unhealthy. It was incredibly obnoxious and, frankly, unhealthy, to hear people tell me that I needed to get healthy like I didn't know better. What I needed was to get away from poisonous relationships (I eat to cope with sadness) and hellhole suburbs that make it impossible to walk or cycle anywhere. Moving to the city and going out more instead of keeping a freezer full of crap made a world of difference. The assumption that a stranger on HN knows more about health than he does is insulting and counterproductive.

"What I needed was to get away from poisonous relationships (I eat to cope with sadness) and hellhole suburbs that make it impossible to walk or cycle anywhere."

Agree with this. In many (but of course not all)[1] cases there is a root cause to overeating in order to mask pain or give you pleasure.

The unfortunate part though is that not everyone can make a lifestyle change to remove the pressure or geography to allow them to make the needed changes. For example someone might be in a relationship and/or have children and need to work where they are or need a certain amount of $$. (But for sure that is not everyone.)

[1] While it is definitely true that there are people that have body types that prevent them from losing weight when this is not the case it usually boils down to some other issue that is causing the overeating or lack of control.

That's fucking hilarious!

I'm confused. You suspect he stopped donut service for staff fitness reasons, or because there was no point to subsidizing them on-campus if people preferred to buy them elsewhere.

I don't get it either and I have no idea why you're being downvoted.

One time when I attended WWDC all the food served was vegan at the main social event. The impression here is Job's food preferences filter down as a mandate for all. At least in this instance.

Then there was WWDC in 2002 where there was a mound of Krispy Kreme donuts for the afternoon snacks.

OMG, I remember that year! It was even worse in 2003 when they moved it to Moscone. Fresh made Jamba Juice and mounds of Krispy Kreme donuts galore. It was super gross to be honest. :-) I haven't eaten a Krispy Kreme donut since that year.

sounds unoptimal

I can explain.

a. It was bought on-campus.

b. If he stopped all donut services because of one guy who looked unhealthy, then it again shows how capricious he was. One person who looked a little unhealthy ate a donut on one occasion and he removed donuts from every single store on campus for every single person for no reason other than he didn't like to see someone who looked pasty and obese walking around eating a donut.

Because that's the sort of guy Steve Jobs was. A sociopath.

Funny, I thought it was the discount price that was the cause, Jobs thinking people will only buy later for cheaper and he'll lose profits (I pictured him making money from Apple's cafeteria)

Jobs wasn't really motivated by money. Not like other people were, at any rate.

Why would he intentionally screw Woz out of money then?

to prove a point

Yeah, I bet he spent a lot of time thinking about the price points of the cafeteria...

As a counterpoint (and believe me, I take no pleasure in defending Jobs here) it would probably have been illegal to ban donut sales only to the obese.

I... don't think the GP was suggesting he should have done that...

Controlling, yeah, but that makes Steve a sociopath?

Is Michelle Obama a sociopath too?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/6/1m-kids-stop-...

The Washington Times? Are you a right wing Moonie nutcase?

Overreaction to sarcasm.

And you must be a member of this thought police that seem to be invading every aspect of out lives.

You clearly haven't heard of the Washington Times. The world must be new and full of wonder for you.

I just posted the first link that came up when I googled for Michelle Obama school lunch or something like that.

The poster to whom I was responding was associating the control of menus with sociopathy. I was simply pointing out that the First Lady is on record as attempting to do the same thing at a much larger scale.

You didn't bother to check the source? This is the Moonie-run "newspaper" that puts quotes on gay "marriage." The text of the article you posted is full of lunacy.

No, I wasn't. I was referring to all the many, many clear documented other things that leads me to believe that Jobs was a sociopath. This is just one more example. To then turn around and accuse Michelle Obama of being a sociopath because of school lunches is, frankly, absurd. The response to your comments was actually pretty measured, given the ridiculousness of your answer.

Except that it is well known by people who follow this that the Washington Times is hardly any better than those tabloids that talk about Bigfoot or whatever. Read this article about its (now late) founder and tell me if you think he had a couple of screws loose: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61932-2004Jun... -- basically it's as if Kim Jong Il ran an American newspaper.

>Because that's the sort of guy Steve Jobs was. A sociopath.

Yes, god forbid someone takes our precious donuts away from us...

Could sympathy not have played a part? Given his position, Jobs could conceptually have held himself responsible for enabling poor nutrition.

Indeed, most organizations that offer on-site catering have such paternalistic concerns. Google historically (I don't know if it still does) limits and effectively taxes unhealthy food, while providing healthy food for free. Does that make Sergey and Page sociopaths?

I will add the disclaimer that what is healthy or not is a passing fancy, enduring unending change. But people act on the best knowledge they have, and often the best intentions.

A sociopath in the right job.

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