Heroic Idol Worship

Obviously, Steve Jobs accomplished something. If the story I heard is true, Apple made the personal computer popular, IBM tried to play catchup, they let Microsoft handle the operating system and that was the start of the personal computer culture that we live by today.

Jobs' career has been a dramatic story. He hired a CEO to run Apple, was then fired by his own recruit, then became the CEO again and not only rescued the company from bankruptcy but took it to new heights.

What his exact virtues are, however, have never been so clear to me. I'd read that:

-- He was a visionary who saw a world full of personal computers when few other people could see any reason for it.

-- He was a tyrannical boss who was obsessed with detail.

-- But, mostly, I'd read that he was a great showman.

This article - The First Time I Met Steve Jobs - features comments from people who met Steve Jobs or worked with him so it might give us a better idea about what all the worship is about.

Some of it is surely idol worship. The article starts out telling us that a 3 minute meeting between Frank Sinatra and Harlan Ellison, the science fiction writer, changed the latter's life.Then it goes on to quote people who enthuse about the time they met Steve Jobs for 2 minutes.

Here's something pathetic -- though I'll give the guy a break; I don't think he takes it quite so seriously.

I ran into Steve Jobs once on a sunny afternoon on Madison Avenue. He was with his family.

I complemented him on a recent speech. He thanked me and we shook hands.

At that moment Michelangelo's Creation of Adam popped into my head.

Some people are charismatic, it's true, but I have to wonder if Ellison would have been so impressed by Frank if Sinatra had not been hugely famous already.

The same thing can be seen in relation to famous religious figures. If you saw someone on the corner - who wasn't famous already - and he told you that he had a message from God, would you believe him? Probably not.

But if your parents (and millions of other very ordinary people) told you that he was the real thing, you might.

There's a sociology term for this kind of social influence but I can't remember what it is.

Here's another quote from the article:

Steve had an uncanny ability to see right through a concept and if there was any weakness he would find it and improve it.

In Canada, we had a famous pop-star leader in Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Everyone in western Canada hated Trudeau but he was still held up to the public as a philosopher king -- and this ability to understand ideas quickly and see their consequences was one of the things I remember reading about him.

I've read accounts of meetings with Lenin in which the similar things were said.

I think I've read the same thing about Castro as well in a bio by Tad Szulc. It's hard to say that Castro hasn't been successful on the world stage but Cuba itself seems to be a mess so I'm not sure what this kind of praise means.

Certainly, people look with affection at some things Steve Jobs did that they would probably resent if it was coming from someone who wasn't so famous.

One Sunday morning, January 6th, 2008 I was attending religious services when my cell phone vibrated.

The message left was from Steve Jobs. "Vic, can you call me at home? I have something urgent to discuss" it said.

"I've been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I'm not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn't have the right yellow gradient. It's just wrong and I'm going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?"

A few minutes later on that Sunday I received an email from Steve with the subject "Icon Ambulance". The email directed me to work with Greg Christie to fix the icon.

This story is irresistible but what would the CEO of Nike say if you said this instead of Steve?

He said, "Congratulations. It's great [that you've been named CEO]. You're going to do a great job." I said, "Well, do you have any advice?"

He said, "No, no, you're great." Then there was a pause. "Well, I do have some advice."

"Nike makes some of the best products in the world--products that you lust after, absolutely beautiful stunning products. But you also make a lot of crap."

"Just get rid of the crappy stuff, and focus on the good stuff."

I like this one as well. Jobs appears to have been as harsh, blunt or abusive with powerful people as he was to his subordinates. It was just his personality not abuse of social inferiors.

ESPN president George Bodenheimer... spotted Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a hallway. "I am George Bodenheimer," he said to Jobs. "I run ESPN." Jobs said "Your phone is the dumbest fucking idea I have ever heard," then  walked away.

Jobs has some friends who are apparently as Zen as he is

When I was trying to decide whether to come back to Apple or not I struggled. I talked to a lot of people and got a lot of opinions.

And then there I was, late one night, struggling with this and I called up a friend of mine at 2am.

I said, ‘Should I come back, should I not?’ and the friend replied, ‘Steve, look. I don’t give a fuck about Apple. Just make up your mind,’ and hung up.

And it was in that moment that I realized I truly cared about Apple."

Of course, once you get a profile going in your head, someone has to screw it all up.

in my entire experience with Steve I found him to be soft-spoken and gracious to the point of being deferential.

What others have characterized as bluntness struck me as simply an efficiency of words. Each word spoken by Steve furthered an objective. 

Songs About Heroes --- Songs About Heroes - Part 2

 

 

Comments

[Jerry Albright]

I couldn't read this whole thing.....but from the intro it appeared to have potential.