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Comment by yitchelle | Hacker News Reader

"Brennan, 22 at the time, had become Jobs' girlfriend in high school when she was 17, a relationship he later trashed when she became pregnant. Jobs disavowed the child, Lisa, despite naming the Apple Lisa machine (in development in 1978) after her. Jobs only admitted Lisa was his daughter when she reached her teens."

Is Jobs as much of an assh*le as this statement makes out to be in the article?

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The Lisa incident was pretty much the lowest point for Jobs, in terms of him being an asshole. It's often brought up as an example of how horrible he was. However, he was young when it happened, he later regretted it and he did mature over the years (some people say that when he was fired from Apple, that was what fixed him) so it doesn't feel particularly fair to use it to characterise him later in life. That said, there were more recent incidents showing him to be a bit of an ass too.

Thanks for the clarification. For someone like me who is not so involve in the Silicon Valley scene, it was the first time I have heard about the Lisa incident. I have also heard about some snippets from the Walter Issacson's Jobs biography (not read) how tough he is on his own family. As someone else mention, we are all humnan. As humans, we are all somekind of assholes one way or another, one of our aims in life is minimise its affect on others.

I don't know, colluding to keep the wages of your employees down is pretty low.

You need to watch "Pirates of Silicon Valley".

Pretty much. People need to realize that Steve was a human being, absolutely riddled with flaws and prone to fuckups, just like everyone else.

In his early days he was. But then who of us was/is a mature adult at that age?

Read the two Jobs biographies and especially Ed Catmull's book on Pixar and see how he changed.

Lots of dudes become dads at 22 and go on to raise their kids proper.

Highly recommend the book by Ed Catmull (Creativity Inc).

He is regarded as being one of the great people managers.

Sure, if you think that wage-fixing and being a great "people manager" are aligned.

http://www.osnews.com/story/27836/Pixar_s_Ed_Catmull_central...

Edit: grammar

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