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posted by janrinok on Friday March 20 2015, @02:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the job-creation dept.

Joe Nocera writes in The New York Times that a forthcoming biography “Becoming Steve Jobs,” is leading readers to re-evaluate the “stagnant stereotypes” of Jobs that have only grown stronger after his death. According to the stereotypes, “Steve was a genius with a flair for design,” whose powers of persuasion were such that he could convince people that the sun rose in the west and set in the east. On the other hand, he was also “a pompous jerk,” who humiliated employees and “disregarded everyone else in his single-minded pursuit of perfection.”

It is Schlender’s and Tetzeli’s contention that Jobs was a far more complex and interesting man than the stereotype, and a good part of their book is an attempt to craft a more rounded portrait. According to Nocera the callow, impetuous, arrogant youth who co-founded Apple was very different from the mature and thoughtful man who returned to his struggling creation and turned it into a company that made breathtaking products while becoming the dominant technology company of our time.

How did a young man so reckless and arrogant that he was exiled from the company he founded become the most effective visionary business leader of our time, ultimately transforming the daily life of billions of people? For Schlender and Tetzeli, the crucial period was the most overlooked part of Jobs’s career: The years from 1985 to 1997, when he was in exile from Apple and running NeXT. Equally important, Jobs also owned Pixar, the animation studio he bought from George Lucas. It took years before Pixar came out with its first full-length movie, “Toy Story.” During that time, Jobs saw how Ed Catmull, Pixar’s president, managed the company’s creative talent. Catmull taught Jobs how to manage employees.

"When Jobs returned to Apple, he was more patient — with people and with products. His charisma still drew people to him, but he no longer drove them away with his abrasive behavior and impossible demands. He had also learned that his ideas weren’t always the right ones, and he needed to listen to others." Perhaps the most important example of this was the App Store. Jobs had initially opposed allowing outside developers to build apps for the iPhone, but he did a quick about-face once he realized he was wrong. "Jobs has long been hailed as one of the great creative minds of modern business," concludes Nocera. "He was [also] a great manager. You can’t build a great company if you aren’t one."

 
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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2015, @02:35AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2015, @02:35AM (#160239)

    Hugh discovered "paragraph". :)

    Starting Score:    0  points
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    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday March 20 2015, @02:46AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday March 20 2015, @02:46AM (#160244) Homepage

    You know what I wish was not discovered? Multiculturalism. The misguided and idiotic notion that you could bring fourteenth-century barbarians into your peaceful and utopic society and expect them to bathe, or not to rape everything (including goats) with vaginas, or form enclaves and alcoves which serve simultaneously as natural history museums and bad parts of town to be avoided.

    Multiculturalism has nothing to do with skin color or geographic origin, although people frequently confound two or three of them. What is has everything to do with is a condescending, patronizing, and infantilizing forced attempt of a reconciliation of guilt felt when the forebrain feels its own internal guilt for the base urges and actions stemming from the hindbrain. People with less discord between the two acknowledge the harsh reality and keep barbarians at arm's length, but those who were taught to loathe the natural order of things live in discord and contradiction, believing they can find peace in literally trying to force everything together.

    There is only one thing savages understand -- the fist. If they don't want to live with the open hand, then they shall die by the fist.

       

    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2015, @02:54AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2015, @02:54AM (#160248)

      or not to rape everything (including goats) with vaginas

      fucking goats is wrong? it's not rape if they want it

      There is only one thing savages understand -- the fist. If they don't want to live with the open hand, then they shall die by the fist.

      we are doing that with drone strikes. maybe mecha suits next -- it's not 'boots on the ground'!

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by martyb on Friday March 20 2015, @02:57AM

    by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 20 2015, @02:57AM (#160249) Journal

    Breaking NEWS!!!

    Hugh discovered "paragraph". :)

    Sadly, not quite the case; here's the original submission [soylentnews.org].

    While I was performing a 'second-edit' of stories slated to go out, I noticed a wall-of-text and may have tossed in a paragraph element or two. ;)

    --
    Wit is intellect, dancing.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by tomp on Friday March 20 2015, @04:01AM

      by tomp (996) on Friday March 20 2015, @04:01AM (#160261)

      Yay, thank you!

      And yes, a big Yay! to Hugh too. Paragraphs or not, he's helping.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2015, @06:32AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2015, @06:32AM (#160284)

      You do good work, marty.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2015, @07:43AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2015, @07:43AM (#160290)

      On the other site, Slashcode|(the /. editors?) would only put the 1st paragraph of a summary on the front page.
      To see anything past the 1st paragraph break, you had to go to the page for the story.
      This was the way it was done for many years and only recently changed there.

      It made for the bad practice of submitters trying to cram as much into a "paragraph" as possible.
      Hugh Pickens|Papas Fritas|Ponca City is still writing in that old style.

      -- gewg_

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by TheRaven on Friday March 20 2015, @09:22AM

      by TheRaven (270) on Friday March 20 2015, @09:22AM (#160307) Journal
      Hmm, an editor editing a submission for any reason other than to make it less comprehensible? This site has surely diverged a long way from its parent...
      --
      sudo mod me up
  • (Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday March 20 2015, @03:05PM

    by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Friday March 20 2015, @03:05PM (#160420) Journal

    https://youtu.be/WHsHKzYOV2E [youtu.be]

    "Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have a faith in people, that they're basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them."
    -- Steve Jobs

    --
    You're betting on the pantomime horse...