{"id":75686,"date":"2022-08-19T14:56:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-19T18:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=75686"},"modified":"2022-08-22T11:01:09","modified_gmt":"2022-08-22T15:01:09","slug":"was-steve-jobs-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/","title":{"rendered":"Was Steve Jobs Mean to His Employees?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What was Steve Jobs like at work? Was Steve Jobs mean to his colleagues and employees?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steve Jobs is remembered as one of the greatest entrepreneurs for creating the technology company Apple. However, Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs shows that his cruel attitude towards his employees left much to be desired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read below to determine if Jobs was needlessly cruel or just a strict leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

A Black-and-White View<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Despite the brilliance of Jobs\u2019s leaps of insight, his belief in the power of his own intuition let him fall into the trap of binary \u201ceither\/or\u201d thinking<\/strong>. Isaacson argues that this temperament colored not only Jobs\u2019s vision of the future<\/a> but the way he treated the people around him. In Jobs\u2019s eyes, every person he met was either a genius or an idiot. Every idea was either brilliant or rubbish. Every product was either the best or it was garbage. But was Steve Jobs mean to his employees because of his binary thinking?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Binary thinking has a certain value in \u201cwinner-take-all\u201d scenarios, but it blinds you to situations where solutions require trade-offs<\/a>. In A New Way to Think<\/em><\/a>, management expert Roger L. Martin argues that truly successful leaders are able to consider opposing ideas at the same time<\/a> and synthesize new ones with the best qualities of both.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jobs was vocal about his opinions and would use them to build people up or tear them down, sometimes on the very same day. This type of behavior was particularly manipulative\u2014Jobs would berate a hapless colleague, then later put them on a pedestal. This made people eager to please him and terrified of failing to do so.<\/strong> (Shortform note: The idea of tearing someone down in order to build them up may have some, albeit controversial, value in strengthening a person\u2019s self-esteem<\/a>. However, when it takes place in interpersonal relationships, it\u2019s more often a sign of narcissistic manipulation<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who worked with Jobs the longest learned to reinterpret his extremist opinions. For example, if Jobs said an idea was stupid, they decided that he was really saying, \u201cExplain your idea. Why is it good?\u201d In one incident that Isaacson recounts, Jobs verbally accosted an engineer on the Mac team about a design he wasn\u2019t happy about.<\/em> The engineer then had to go on at length about why he\u2019d developed the design the way he had. Because of the way he had to spell out his thoughts, the engineer then discovered an even better solution than the one he\u2019d originally shown Jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However productive, Jobs\u2019s angry tirades were needlessly hurtful to staff and morale.<\/strong> His \u201ctantrums,\u201d as Isaacson calls them, could extend to anyone he might interact with\u2014waiters, hotel staff, and even business associates. His colleagues found that the only way to deal with him at times was to push back against him just as hard as he did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: In Mindset<\/em><\/a>, psychologist Carol S. Dweck claims that people who exhibit bullying behavior assert their superiority by enforcing a fixed mindset that their targets are inferior<\/a>. Such attacks can be countered by responding assertively and setting personal boundaries<\/a>. It should be noted, as Isaacson points out, that Jobs himself was often bullied in school, which has been shown to feed a cycle of bullying behavior<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What was Steve Jobs like at work? Was Steve Jobs mean to his colleagues and employees? Steve Jobs is remembered as one of the greatest entrepreneurs for creating the technology company Apple. However, Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs shows that his cruel attitude towards his employees left much to be desired. Read below to determine if Jobs was needlessly cruel or just a strict leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":76063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,33],"tags":[717],"class_list":["post-75686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management","category-people","tag-steve-jobs","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nWas Steve Jobs Mean to His Employees? - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Steve Jobs is most known for creating the iMac and iPhone, but he had a sour attitude towards his employees. See how mean Jobs was to them.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Was Steve Jobs Mean to His Employees?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Steve Jobs is most known for creating the iMac and iPhone, but he had a sour attitude towards his employees. See how mean Jobs was to them.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-08-19T18:56:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-08-22T15:01:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/steve-jobs-holding-macbook.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Katie Doll\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Katie Doll\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Katie Doll\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c3e1b539e89423b544ede91ab2bff937\"},\"headline\":\"Was Steve Jobs Mean to His Employees?\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-08-19T18:56:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-08-22T15:01:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/\"},\"wordCount\":563,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/steve-jobs-holding-macbook.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Steve Jobs\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Management\",\"People\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/\",\"name\":\"Was Steve Jobs Mean to His Employees? - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/steve-jobs-holding-macbook.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-08-19T18:56:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-08-22T15:01:09+00:00\",\"description\":\"Steve Jobs is most known for creating the iMac and iPhone, but he had a sour attitude towards his employees. See how mean Jobs was to them.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/steve-jobs-holding-macbook.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/steve-jobs-holding-macbook.jpg\",\"width\":1400,\"height\":700},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Was Steve Jobs Mean to His Employees?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Shortform Books\",\"description\":\"The World's Best Book Summaries\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Shortform Books\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png\",\"width\":500,\"height\":74,\"caption\":\"Shortform Books\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c3e1b539e89423b544ede91ab2bff937\",\"name\":\"Katie Doll\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6239731a3fc739640b80be30f2b1727a055d3535d0ee4569e8282faa323e47fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6239731a3fc739640b80be30f2b1727a055d3535d0ee4569e8282faa323e47fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Katie Doll\"},\"description\":\"Somehow, Katie was able to pull off her childhood dream of creating a career around books after graduating with a degree in English and a concentration in Creative Writing. Her preferred genre of books has changed drastically over the years, from fantasy\/dystopian young-adult to moving novels and non-fiction books on the human experience. Katie especially enjoys reading and writing about all things television, good and bad.\",\"knowsAbout\":[\"Bachelor of Arts in English With a Concentration in Creative Writing\"],\"jobTitle\":\"Senior SEO Writer\",\"worksFor\":\"Shortform\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/author\/katie\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Was Steve Jobs Mean to His Employees? - Shortform Books","description":"Steve Jobs is most known for creating the iMac and iPhone, but he had a sour attitude towards his employees. See how mean Jobs was to them.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Was Steve Jobs Mean to His Employees?","og_description":"Steve Jobs is most known for creating the iMac and iPhone, but he had a sour attitude towards his employees. See how mean Jobs was to them.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/","og_site_name":"Shortform Books","article_published_time":"2022-08-19T18:56:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-08-22T15:01:09+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1400,"height":700,"url":"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/steve-jobs-holding-macbook.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Katie Doll","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Katie Doll","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/"},"author":{"name":"Katie Doll","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c3e1b539e89423b544ede91ab2bff937"},"headline":"Was Steve Jobs Mean to His Employees?","datePublished":"2022-08-19T18:56:00+00:00","dateModified":"2022-08-22T15:01:09+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/"},"wordCount":563,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/steve-jobs-holding-macbook.jpg","keywords":["Steve Jobs"],"articleSection":["Management","People"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/","name":"Was Steve Jobs Mean to His Employees? - Shortform Books","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/steve-jobs-holding-macbook.jpg","datePublished":"2022-08-19T18:56:00+00:00","dateModified":"2022-08-22T15:01:09+00:00","description":"Steve Jobs is most known for creating the iMac and iPhone, but he had a sour attitude towards his employees. See how mean Jobs was to them.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/steve-jobs-holding-macbook.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/steve-jobs-holding-macbook.jpg","width":1400,"height":700},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/was-steve-jobs-mean\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Was Steve Jobs Mean to His Employees?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/","name":"Shortform Books","description":"The World's Best Book Summaries","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"Shortform Books","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png","width":500,"height":74,"caption":"Shortform Books"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c3e1b539e89423b544ede91ab2bff937","name":"Katie Doll","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6239731a3fc739640b80be30f2b1727a055d3535d0ee4569e8282faa323e47fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6239731a3fc739640b80be30f2b1727a055d3535d0ee4569e8282faa323e47fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Katie Doll"},"description":"Somehow, Katie was able to pull off her childhood dream of creating a career around books after graduating with a degree in English and a concentration in Creative Writing. Her preferred genre of books has changed drastically over the years, from fantasy\/dystopian young-adult to moving novels and non-fiction books on the human experience. Katie especially enjoys reading and writing about all things television, good and bad.","knowsAbout":["Bachelor of Arts in English With a Concentration in Creative Writing"],"jobTitle":"Senior SEO Writer","worksFor":"Shortform","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/author\/katie\/"}]}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/steve-jobs-holding-macbook.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75686"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75993,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75686\/revisions\/75993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}