About halfway through my last blog, it dawned on me that I was taking on a praiseful tone of Steve Jobs, perhaps a bit more than I intended or rightly agree with. While I respect the level of charisma he displays, as well as his impressive ability to motivate people, I also believe that it is important to view Jobs in perspective. During his first round at Apple, many people hated working with Jobs, and while many would later come to appreciate the creative value of their time at Apple, it is apparent that Jobs stepped on a few too many toes.
Just as the people surrounding Jobs changed their opinions of him with time, I find myself changing my personal opinions about his morals and conduct more than I probably should if I plan to convey a consistent message in this blog post. With a bit of reflection, however, I've narrowed my opinion of Jobs down to two completely opposing statements.
1. Steve Jobs was a creative genius who took well designed hardware and software, packaged and marketed it with exceptional skill, and influenced the computer industry to appeal more to the individual.
2. Steve Jobs was a "shithead" who took other people's products, marketed them as his own, reaped all the rewards, and was extremely abusive to those around him, including his friends and family.
However these two opinions only consider Steve in relation to Apple, whereas I would hope to consider his spiritual views in my opinion of him as a person. Everything from his belief in LSD as a spiritual tool to his natural dislike of authority figures create an image of Steve Jobs as a technological follow-up of the Counter-Culture, and it is this image that tends to swing my opinion of Jobs to the "positive" end of the spectrum. While I can conclude that I probably would not have wanted to work under Jobs, that does not stop me from appreciating him as an entrepreneurial and spiritual example to follow. There are lessons to be learned from Jobs' story, both good and bad, and he himself admits it. History will remember Steve Jobs as a creative genius whether we like it or not, and with time everyone Jobs ever pissed off will, like Jobs, be dead. Perhaps we judge Jobs harsher than other historic figures because of his recency, or perhaps because his impression on our everyday lives is so obvious. But who knows if Alexander Graham Bell was a dick or not? And we know Edgar Allen Poe was just as harsh to the people around him. In the end, I think we must reflect on the impact he left on the world as a whole, not on the emotional doormats of a few individuals.
I can definitely agree that Jobs is a man with many distinct facets. I look at him more toward the negative end of the spectrum, maybe it’s just because I feel sympathetic to the people around him but there are so many things about him that I personally didn’t like. Even with reading the biography I think it’s hard to get a real sense of Jobs unless you personally knew him, maybe he had some really endearing qualities one could only understand by knowing him.
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