Absolutely everything I have read about Steve Jobs paints him as a narcissistic asshole who is impossible to work with. How is it that he was so successful and how did apple become the behemoth it is today if the man at the wheel was so insufferable?
I want to believe that this has only been a recent development and that he used to be an easier person to deal with in apple's early days, because to be quite frank the only way I could see such an individual being so successful with the attitude he had was if he was just riding the coattails of other forces in the company.
Hopefully someone can enlighten me as to how this kind of person could lead a successful company when everyone fears him and doesn't question anything he says.
Ultimately, Steve Jobs had an insight into what computers could be, how technology could work, that was not only powerful but that Apple worked to execute throughout the entire stack of its product. From industrial design to operating system to software, his vision infused Apple's products in a way that very few other computer manufacturers have seen. Even now, as "well-designed products" are becoming a popular thing – due, in no small part, to Apple's influence – it is difficult to find products that are as thoroughly, nit-pickingly well-thought-out as Apple's stuff.
Back when nobody had much of a reason to believe in Steve Jobs and his vision, his tyrannical style was what got teams working outrageous hours, sacrificing personal lives, and shipping products that all sane people were convinced couldn't be done. So at a key moment in Apple's history, he provided a push that brought the company great success.
Very few people have that sort of all-pervasive vision; most of the people who think they do are deluding themselves. Most of the time you don't need an asshole on top driving things. Heck, it's possible that even Steve didn't have to be an asshole, that his dickish personality was just a shortcut he used to get things done conveniently.
Plenty of brilliant people have unpleasant or antisocial personalities. Sometimes it's because that's what it takes to make people who don't share your vision do what they're told. Sometimes it's because brilliant people are human too, and as flawed as any of us. Usually it's somewhere in between.
> How is it that he was so successful and how did Apple become the behemoth it is today if the man at the wheel was so insufferable?
Strangely, it was partially because he was so insufferable that Apple became as successful as it is today. Steve Jobs was notorious for being in-your-face brutal about the quality of work being done simply not being good enough. Crying, screaming, throwing tantrums - all these histrionics went hand-in-hand with that.
What's interesting about this is that Steve had two things that most people lack: (1) vision in spades. And more importantly, very good vision. (2) an ability to push people beyond their limits by berating them, but then having really amazing work come out of that process.
Steve Jobs was awe-inspiring because he could dress people down and grill them on details that most other people either didn't notice or would gloss over. If you read many of the books about Steve Jobs, there's a common refrain said by many of those who worked under him.
"I'd never work for him again, but he pushed me to do things I never knew I was capable of."
[EDIT: forgot to add] The reason Steve was able to get away with all this negative behavior is that it produced amazing results. But for most people, being so belligerent and nasty without having an amazing vision to back it up will not get you very far. And, for the most part, such people are completely egomaniacal. (Steve was too, he just happened to be right a lot).
There's a third factor - Steve was very good at active listening. He oozed it in interviews.
I saw it big time when Walt Mossberg made some comment about "Oh, we can't say that". Steve latched onto him like a pitbull - "Why not?". Walt said "Well, people get annoyed. They write ... letters".
You could just see Steve's thinking - "I don't understand what he's saying, or why he's saying it. Figure out why."
You can also see it, indirectly, if you watch him when he was talking tech. He's well known to not be a great techie, but he knew quite a bit. Maybe he was just well briefed, but I think it was because he knew to ask questions to the guys who were briefing him.
"The market pulls the product out of the startup." -- Marc Andreesen [1]
Steve Jobs was remarkably good at finding new markets. And once you've found one, you can screw up a lot and still succeed. Because at the end of the day, people want to work on a successful product, and they'll put up with a lot of shit to do so.
Steve Jobs probably would've been even more successful had he not been so abrasive; who knows, maybe he wouldn't have gotten thrown out of Apple the first time and we would've gotten the iPhone 15 years earlier rather than the Newton. But he got the thing that matters most right, and then pretty much everything else fell into place despite his flaws.
Honestly, I don't think he could have been more successful no matter what he did. Apple's comeback is easily the most dramatic in the history of business.
True, but he's also responsible for Pixar and NeXT. NeXT had many of the ideas of the current Mac a decade earlier, but failed to take off. Whether that's because the market wasn't ready yet or because Steve failed to manage the company can't really be answered.
(Also: "most dramatic in the history of business"? IBM was about 3 months away from bankruptcy when Lou Gerstner took over - it's not a household name now because their comeback involved pivoting to big-business services, but they're solidly profitable. Intuit nearly died and all the employees went several months without salary in its early days, and now they basically own the accounting-software market.)
Jobs' first ouster is often credited as the reason for his vision and success when he got back. Believe it or not he was a much worse CEO the first time around
I recently saw the Woz speak at the University of Arkansas. He spent probably 30 minutes total (not all in one breath, but spread out) ripping on Steve Jobs. He really didn't say anything that was unarguably good about him.
>How is it that he was so successful and how did apple become the behemoth it is today if the man at the wheel was so insufferable?
Unlike the other commenters, I don't think the answer is vision, tho it certainly plays a part.
The reason people kept working with him is because when he wanted to he could be devastatingly charming. He was one of those people that can make you feel like what you have to say is the most important thing in the world. He was so good they coined a whole piece of slang just to describe him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field
How is it that he was so successful and how did apple become the behemoth it is today if the man at the wheel was so insufferable?
Think about it like this - how many assholes are there running companies? If you assume there are hundreds or thousands, then eventually at least a few of them are going to be wildly successful.
The fact Steve Jobs was so successful does not prove being asshole causes success, it only proves being asshole doesn't prevent you from success. Whether it contributed positively or negatively is to be contested.
I've worked for an insufferable narcissistic asshole who was impossible to work with, and we built an incredible company.
The guy at the top doesn't really DO anything. If the idea is good, and the coders/architects etc are good, a company can be built regardless of how insane the top is.
From what I've seen, he seemed to have a knack to attract top talent and push them to their limit.
He was able to charm those people he needed and knew just how to push their buttons so they'd deliver better work.
Contrary to what people thinks, assholes are not assholes 100% of the time; those people get their way by knowing when to be nice and charming. This is not antonymic with being an narcissistic asshole.
I'm fairly sure a lot of his collaborators had a honeymoon period with him, before he revealed himself to be the management equivalent of the abusive husband.
It's so obvious I'm not sure how so many people on this thread, OP included, don't understand it: people who are very demanding, expect excellence and nothing else, do not settle for great or even good, do not compromise, etc, etc, are perceived by outsiders and some insiders as "jerks", "assholes" and "hard to work with". But they make amazing achievements.
It seems less like coattails when you consider Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Jack Welch, John Rockefeller, etc. In fact, anecdotally it seems being a "narcissistic asshole" is an asset rather than a hindrance.
Note the difference between guilt and shame. Shame correlates negatively with leadership ability since it makes people shrink from challenges and disconnect from people. This may be why we get many high-functioning sociopaths in position of leadership: sociopaths are the only people who do not feel shame at all.
That non-scientific summary article is incredibly vague, but it appears to be saying that "problem solvers" are more leaderly than "problem fleers", based on the given definitions. "Guilt" and "shame" are the labels they tacked on without justification
I want to believe that this has only been a recent development and that he used to be an easier person to deal with in apple's early days, because to be quite frank the only way I could see such an individual being so successful with the attitude he had was if he was just riding the coattails of other forces in the company.
Hopefully someone can enlighten me as to how this kind of person could lead a successful company when everyone fears him and doesn't question anything he says.