It is our national trend to look deep into the life of our very talented men and women to find faults in their characters and to let it know " urbi and orbi." The more scandalous the story is the better for the profit , the worse "the genious " is the more readers the story attracts. The story of Job is a gold mine for that type of writers and some members of Job's family. His own daughter accuses him of molestation. The litany of crimes and semi-crimes is long and the voice of moderation is absent. Sometimes the daughter is trying to detoxify the written venom but the venom killed already the victim and her artificial rescue has no effect. She knows how to kill him in the book effectively.
I agree that Job as a human being was a semi- monster and a father full of serious defects and empty of paternal love. There are plenty of that type of fathers, not many mothers and
schools of parenting don't exist. Job is not alone and he increased the high number of defected or absent parental love. In general he seems to me as a person devoid of basic human feelings and is known world- wide for the omni-present telephone that changed our lives. Should we really dig so much into his private life ?
@Salomea Kape No where in the book or the review does Ms Brennan-Jobs claimed to have been "molested" by her father. Just the victim of inappropriate banter. She has every right to discuss as she sees fit, her relationship with her strange, gifted, flawed father. He had so many demons of his own he was not a fit or proper father to his first child whose mother he'd stopped living with. But to deny she was his own was cruel beyond comprehension.
2
In this era of MeToo, will those who condemn Jobs be willing to
"erase" his history by completely giving up anything electronic even slightly associated with him, or, will the convenience of those products prove too powerful? It would seem that in their eyes he should not receive "benefit".
Daddy Dearest.
You were a monster and there is no other words for you.
No matter if he made the world better for strangers and for him self . He failed as a human and the beauty of this is just his daughter's ability to forgive.
Can a narcissist be ever more obvious than Jobs. He missed love in trade for his own demons.
May his creator teach him how to love in eternity.
5
She made it out OK? Does she really believe that? Wow.
Her father was an abuser. And it’s not over.
The book sure sounds sensational, but that doesn’t mean it should have been printed.
5
I love this. Dirt without the dirty conscience. His daughter forgives him, so tsk tsk to your heart's content!
i once checked out groceries next to steve jobs in the palo alto whole foods, he smiled at me like "recognize me?" and I smiled back like "I'm just here for the carrots," so i feel i know him better than almost everyone reading this. I mean, we practically touched!
And I feel touched that so many people want to dive into another person's life and get that virtual reality thrill of bad actions vindicated by really big bucks.
But I am just waiting for the Mueller report, and I plan to read it every word, because Ivanka will also forgive her daddy ... and that means I can enjoy the pathetic decline and the courtroom reporters and the whole reality TV schadenfreude that will follow in its wake with not a single twinge of guilt.
13
The audience of "Small Fry" are not obligated nor expected to absolve Steve Jobs. Perhaps it is healthy for his daughter, Lisa, to forgive him. The rest of us? Not so much.
Steve Jobs was a mental, financial & emotional rapist. His cruelty was evil. And, that is an understatement.
Many blessings to Lisa, her Mother, her newborn son, and her husband. My bet is that Lisa is a loving stepmother to his young daughters.
Evil did NOT win.
11
The heading asks if we, who never knew Steve Jobs, can "forgive" him. I haven't yet read the book but have never pondered celebrating or denigrating him as a father. Life is complicated. To parent is to make mistakes--nobody does it perfectly;.it sounds as though his heart was in the right place. Lisa Brennan-Jobs loves her father, who, like the rest of us, was human.
85
@Biscuit
Yes, and humans shouldn’t order their children to watch their explicit sexual intimacy. Some things are complicated and some are clear violations.
24
@BiscuitHis heart was in the right place? You must have read a different profile. See Mary Cosgrove below.
12
@Biscuit Well said. My sympathies run to Lisa, the daughter!
3
I don't know these people. None of us do and even if we did we would only know one side of them. Our knowledge of Mr. Jobs is as a business pioneer. I don't find myself in a position to critique his personal relationships.
Few would argue that Mr. Jobs handled his responsibility and relationship with Ms. Brennan-Jobs well. In fact, it remains a massive flaw in his character that even he acknowledged, and with age and some degree of wisdom, he attempted to correct. Of course you can't correct the impression or self-value your behavior leaves on a child.
Mr. Jobs made it a point to keep family out of the lime-light and in a sense protect them from unnecessary critiquing of character, appearance, or behavior. We seldom heard him mention his other children, his wife, or his sister.
Ms. Brennan-Jobs has chosen quite the opposite. We're not looking for unicorns and butterflies, but I'm not sure of the purpose behind writing a book you know will sell because of who your father was and that details how poorly he treated you so you can ask the world to forgive him. Whatever resolution or forgiveness the two of you came to, in the end, that's something that should be treasured and held sacred. This book appears to scream anything but forgiveness.
85
@MMB
Who are you to judge her. Every writer ultimately writes about his or her family. She is not just writing as absolution but about a compelling subject in her life. She is not just Steve Jobs’ daughter but a writer. You don’t become a writer by keeping your mouth shut. She is as entitled to write about her father as are a bunch of strangers.
14
@MMB
Realizing that my opinions don't really matter in the world of "popular" opinion, I have a thing about forgiveness: With respect to Jobs or anyone else, forgiveness has little to do with me. I believe we all answer to something much higher than our earthly selves. No matter what, I accept apologies, and then it is up to me how much more I am willing to invest with that individual. Even if initially angry over something real or imagined, I feel it is up to a higher power to handle the forgiveness. Because after all, who am I?
1
@MMB Nope, she has every reason to write the truth. If she can find some healing and strength from telling her story then more power to her. Many children would have been permanently emotionally stunted with a father like that.
7
If the comments here are any indication, Ms Brennan-Jobs failed to make her readers forgive her father.
If she truly has forgiven her father, perhaps we should not be as judgmental.
47
Forgiveness is overrated. She is the writer, we are the readers and we have the right to our opinions.
2
A better question might be why should we care? Why should we care what kind of a person, father, boss, friend, client Steve Jobs was? We already know all that matters: he was a visionary who changed our world for, arguably, the better.
63
maybe some of us don't see him that way.
and the end does not necessarily justify the means.
9
@NRS
Sort of. Creating a climate where people sleep outside in order to spent $1000 on a phone does not constitute a visionary in my book. Marketing genius yes. Not the first billionaire who got there off the backs of the little guys.
6
@NRS
It provides a nice counter-balance to the self-indulgent hagiographies of Jobs that have been written. When I grew up in Silicon Valley, the narrative was that Apple was built on purestrain freethinking passion for design and technology, as opposed to brutal, money-hungry Microsoft. I'm all for doing whatever it takes to dilute the kool-aid.
4
The indifference that Steve Jobs had for his daughter must have been the hatred he had for her mother.
I cannot understand how a woman can pulverize a man through things like divorce, taking his house, his money, turning the children against him, etc., etc., then wonder why the man becomes heartless.
I am not saying this is what happened here, but what did Lisa's mother do to him that made him deny paternity in the first place?
7
Absolutely none of that is reported here—she didn’t divorce him, she didn’t “take his money.” If Jobs couldn’t distinguish between a woman he split up with and the child he fathered, it takes incredible nerve—not to mention a sorry dose of misogyny—to point the finger at the mother here, upon reading about jobs’ reprehensible behavior. Unbelievable.
44
Men don't mistreat their children because of the mother's actions. A man mistreats his children because of who he is.
46
@Stephen: Why does it have to somehow be the mother's fault? He treated many people terribly; is that her fault, too? He is responsible for his behavior.
30
Remember there are always 2 sides of a story, one she is telling and the one he took to his grave.
Read the headline " In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him. Should We? ", or a daughter who failed to be in her famous fathers foot step, disappointed him in a personal way, and now wants to be known as a compassionate person, a forgiver or a better human being.
Remember Mr. Jobs is known for his business and tech skills not as a charmer, even FBI didn't like him according to the media reports, his products brings joy for millions of consumers. He never abandoned his daughter, she simply was not up to his expectations. Sorry but I am sick of listening to the complaints by women about men all the time, its time they prove they want to earn respect by hard work and achievements like many do, and not by playing with the emotions.
2
@Hope786 If she 'failed to be in her famous fathers foot step' (?)...then good for her. I know who I'd rather spend time with if given the choice between the two of them!
6
@Hope786
Jobs did abandon his daughter, several times. He denied she was his to family, friends and co-workers, he denied she was his in court and refused to meaningfully parent or support her until forced to by the courts and by those who knew him. His festering anger at Chrisann Brennan, who always seemed able to break free of Jobs control, was likely the taproot, as well as that Jobs was borne out of wedlock and abandoned by his birth parents, albeit adopted as an infant. Jobs had a malignant view of females; he probably would not have abandoned a son, but a daughter was always going to be fair game.
6
@Margot
Ask yourself why he had no feelings for her, if that was the case? And how come she is cashing on his famous fathers name, if she could have put a little effort to understand his father instead of buying public sympathy, I will consider her a better human being.
Jobs was a narcissistic sociopath.
The continuous destruction of this planet is happening because of men like him. He did it all for profit and reputation. The upcoming wars, famine and deaths will be the result of the planet’s depletion of resources and they are all thanks to men like this one. None should worship him. His legacy is one of destruction and the triumph of all the dark forces that surround us.
10
@Patrick I'm not so sure it's as bad as all that. The root cause of our planet's problem is human overpopulation, which could be arrested by restricting birthrates. Free birth control for all humans, right now, will start the process. We actually CAN save our species. It's up to us.
5
Women can have abortions when they don’t want a child. I fully support this right. But unmarried men are forced to bear the life-altering financial burden of child support with no choice. This is patently unfair and sexist discrimination. Women know the law unjustly tilts to their sex and weaponize the legal system to ensnare men as indentured financial servants for 18-21 years with extreme punitive damages inflicted by the state for failure to comply, including withholding of a passport thus denying the right to travel as a human right. It is high time for male choice to be law so both sexes have a say as to whether each individual wishes to be parent or not. Equal rights should be respected by law.
This is what ticked Jobs off and made him resent Lisa for so many years. Her vindictive mother harassed Jobs for years and did not respect his choice not to be a father.
1
There is choice for men, wear protection and be a responsible young adult.
27
@W Smith
Hmm, the way I see it men do have choice: abstinence or condoms. Fairly simple to familiarize oneself with either to avoid getting hit up for an unexpected offspring.
25
@W Smith He should have taken personal responsibility and used birth control if wasn't ready for fatherhood! If he didn't want to be a father, he should have taken steps to make sure that he did not become a father. Right?
18
I can absolutely empathize with Ms. Brennan-Jobs' contradictory approach to her father in this article - one that shows an effort to forgive him and move on but ultimately seems unable to do that. Verbal, psychological, emotional, and mental abuse are absolutely abuse. And when the abuse comes from someone who financial supports the recipient of the abuse, it's difficult not to develop a bit of Stockholm Syndrome.
My experience with my own father mirrors Ms. Brennan-Jobs' experience in that regard. I have numerous memories of homophobic comments and verbal/psychological/mental abuse as well as this absolute desire to control. He was hell-bent on molding me into some sort of hyper masculinist heterosexual male archetype that I refused to conform to.
My memories of the abuse are often met (from friends and family) with answers of "Sometimes parents get children that they are not prepared for." And when you grow up without any siblings to witness the treatment and a mother who enables, looks the other way and who was herself afraid of the consequences of denouncing it, you really become stuck in a pattern of thinking "Was it really that bad?" or "Did I imagine all of this?"
My first 18 to 20 years of life were a hellish, repressive prison spent with this abusive father and with the repressive homophobia of the Catholic and Protestant Churches in 1990s South Carolina; yet, an outsider scanning the surface would argue that I lived a quite comfortable middle class life.
922
I'm so sorry you had to endure this.
8
@BFF I lived a similar trapped childhood and adolescence with a brilliant and controlling father and kind but enabling mother as an only child in a superficially "comfortable middle class life."
Very difficult to acquire support from outsiders who could not observe the dynamics behind closed doors.
Also much self-doubt and a pattern of severely abusive partners.
Godspeed.
9
@BFF I am so sorry that you lived such a hellish experience in the most important years of your life! I hope that you have learned to love yourself and live your truth! Some people should not be parents!
7
Don't we just love to be outraged by the bad behavior of the famous?
Famous quip, I don't know who said it first:
All the world is crazy except you and me. And even you I'm too sure about.
Try that on your significant other or anyone else.
14
@Mr. Samsa I believe the "famous quip" was a line uttered in one of the"Dracula" movies (Bela Lugosi) by the groundskeeper to one of the female attendants after Renfield is heard screaming and subsequently visited (or killed) by Dracula in his cell. The wording is very slightly different, but not by much.
2
@Mr. Samsa: Many of us are outraged by child abuse whether the perpetrator is famous or not.
5
I think you mean NOT too sure about
Because Jobs wasn’t a jerk to me, I have nothing for which to forgive him.
But if you insist, Einstein was a jerk too. I’ll forgive him for that, and readily forgive him for deciphering fundamental rules of how the universe works.
20
@BobMeinetz
No Einstein was not a jerk and did NOT abuse his children.
Do yourself a favor and read about Einstein's life.... (also I'm amazed that you could put Einstein in the same category as Job. This is not to diminish Job's achievements, but it's the science of Einstein and other major physicists/mathematicians that made computers possible.)
7
Why forgive? Why not acknowledge both? John Lennon was a jerk and massive hypocrite but a musical genius in the context of the Beatles. I am awed by his musical and poetic sense, but abhor other sides of him. In that there is a lesson that we can all benefit from, which is why a book like this is so useful. My only beef is that I would not forgive the man his transgressions, at least in any sympathetic sense. As someone else said, that is simply enabling.
2
Who cares what anyone feels about Steve Jobs? This is just his daughter's story and her own thoughts about it, everyone will have their own opinion and that's just the way it is.
10
This guy was a sick cookie and anyone who thinks he's a hero doesn't have their values straight.
134
So what if he was a jerk? Or not completely present as a father? Steve Jobs changed the world in ways that very few people do, and that demands sacrifices. Thank god there are people who are willing to miss holidays and birthdays to focus on, frankly, more important things.
107
@TH
Steve Jobs is not the one who changed the world. He was a shrewd marketeer who very effectively sold other people's work. He falls so short of what he could have and should have been, both as a powerful figure and as an individual. He is not deserving of the almost universal adulation he receives.
8
@TH There are people willing to miss holidays and birthdays because of work demands, but they're not nasty and cold to those family members whom they should love and support.
4
Being commercially successful and being a good father don’t have to be mutually exclusive. This notion that a character value must be sacrificed in order to attain great success is comical. No wonder our culture stands where it does.
9
It's really none of our business how Steve Jobs dealt with his daughter. That's between them alone. It's worth it to note that commonly acknowledged "geniuses", like Edison, Picasso, Newton and Jobs are often notoriously bad with people but great with ideas and devices. It's a lot to ask of anyone, to be a world-changing creative, and a sweet people-person, all at the same time. And it's still none of our business.
6
Every happy family is happy for the same reason, and every unhappy family has different reasons!
When i was reading Issacson’s 6 years ago, It never striked me as if Jobs had a happy life from childhood ; it is my phiosophy that whatever Jobs achieved was about self acutalization...it WAS about putting a ding in the universe, but put a ding to prove that you can & and something to prove why he was worthy of not putting up for adoption....Just the wrong reasons. This vulnerability and non-acceptance showed up in the form of arrogance and ego as he was building an empire!
I really would love to read a perspective from Lisa who had some first hand obervations & the a child who was put through a strong personality while growing up. I just hope this is not only about the other side of Steve Jobs; in really the greatest minds also have the greatest flaws.
If the true purpose of this book is about getting the readers to forgive like Lisa did, I see a big problem. Lisa is the one who is entitled and deserve to forgive her father for the emotional trauma. As readers we can sympathize, judge and understand; but it is all you Lisa!
The thing is, Jobs ever wanted was true love which never was handed to him when he wanted. The beauty is what he did with that vulnerability...a created a world class company, made the riches and quality products!
Each soul has a purpose,I do believe Job’s soul reached its purpose, i do forgive him before even reading the book i pre-ordered!
2
As for the book, which I will carefully read, I am grateful to Ms. Brennan-Jobs for the writing since knowing her father strikes me as important in learning how to judge others in a more balanced way. Mr. Jobs was talented but abusive and I will try to think about how to regard both aspects of his life.
5
Fascinating comments, over and over.
5
Most people think of phenomenal success when they think of Steve Jobs. If you believe, as I do, that the way a person treats their children matters far more than professional success, Jobs comes off as a loser.
15
The very title of the article is the height of arrogance.
2
Peter Drucker used to say that, individuals make money, but the computer industry as a whole never made a dime. I agree. It's gives with one hand and takes and take and takes with the other.
To give some perspective, the computer business is no different than the sugar trade from the 16th to 19th century: built on the backs of slaves, with Pope Nicholas V papal bulls to sanctify the misery. That's also how the Bank of England and Lloyds of London made fortunes.
The same is true today but we never see it: armies of the poor tearing apart antiquated electronics to sell scraps of toxic metal for pennies, while polluting their environment.
And for what? More sugar in the form of electrons?
6
Moving on through retelling one's internal story can allow for the possibilities of growing anew. We may shape our own narrative or let it be shaped unconsciously.
4
Just because someone donated half your DNA and left you millions of dollars doesn't mean you have to love or forgive them for being a total jerk.
Forgiveness is better than carrying hate in your heart or even a big chip on your shoulder, but the way people treat you matters more than blood relations and he doesn't sound like a winner at all.
He could be mad at her mom for whatever reason or non-reason. but it was wrong to take it out on the kid.
12
The relationship between Steve Jobs and his daughter is none of our business.
2
I feel for Lisa trying to make sense of a parent mistreating their child more often than not. It's apparent from afar, but I know that up close one's own impaired childhood is more difficult to pick through and understand. No person is totally black or white as they make their way through life. Lisa looks to point out positive examples in the roller skating memory and the glorious rush of surprising her in Japan that he was capable of creating moments of joy for her. Those moments stand out, as far as I can tell from the excerpts mentioned, as needing little in the way of explaining. It's the tough stuff, the psychological punishments he routinely threw at her that she has to spend so much time on to come to approach a state of understanding, even justification. That sounds painful to read, let alone experience. She has work ahead of her. As she raises her own children she has an excellent opportunity to observe that the decisions she makes on behalf of her children are her choice. Her children are affected by those choices just like she was by each of her parents choices. She need not excuse her Father nor feel responsible for choices he made. That applies to all the adults who surrounded her when she was a young person dependent on their behavior for how life was presented. The trick is to go out and do better, a negative legacy ends or continues by the choices we make when it's our turn to be the grownups.
7
"We're Just Cold People"... is not our fault!
2
I find it to be very distasteful when people air their dirty laundry for all to read. What ever happened to not speaking ill of the dead? -- Well, I hate to tell her this but we all don't have perfect childhoods, but we don't try to make a buck off of them either. Poor little me.
3
Reed Jobs has said the same kind of things about his father's inappropriate behavior - not publicly, but privately and strongly. When two children say similar things about their father, separately, relating different incidents, it needs to be taken seriously. Steve Jobs was a genius in the area of his obsession (melding tech with art and making money with it), but he was unquestionably and highly deficient in the areas of EQ, ethics, and morality.
14
Ah yes, Ms. Brennan-Jobs is that voice in the wilderness that sets the record straight about her father.
1
He was a genius. And he was a jerk. The two are completely compatible.
11
Steve Jobs presided over the designing and delivering of good products, and successfully marketed the hell out of them. Maybe he was a genius (although, in the end, so what?). He was also an arrogant, manipulative, autocratic bully whose actions were abusive and reprehensible, at times. He championed clarity, simplicity, user-friendliness. Those are the very things we should value, in looking at him. Does he cut it? In other words, did he actually embody the very things he demanded? If not, we should be no more willing to mince words than he was. Forgiving him is for those who were directly harmed by him. It makes no sense for the vast majority of the rest of us to even think about it. All we should concern ourselves is learning from his example -- and that includes his short-comings. If we take his successes to "excuse" his failures, we sell him and ourselves out; for he was a perfectionist, and if we are to follow his lead we must surpass him in that regard.
5
There are deep consequences to letting a child know she is unwanted. I know the need from which Ms. Brennan-Jobs writes. She deserves to tell her story, as difficult as it may be for other members of Jobs' family who profit from the lionized version of his legacy to hear. He is her father, it is her story. Rather than focus on defending Jobs, or dismissing Lisa, as many men are doing in the comments, the important issue here is to recognize that even being intelligent and gifted in business does not give you the right to be cruel, or deny someone's existence. Jobs was cruel to many-- here is one brave voice.
25
The medical world now recognizes numerous "illnesses" involving personality defects, some which arise from genetic aberrations and not from conscious decisions. Those possessing these "afflictions" may act narcissistic and so forth but because of their genetic composition and not because they are actually narcissistic or whatever.
Those condemning a persons without understanding the roots that may control these persons are making an unjustified conclusion. Unfortunate actions may result in bad consequences, and it may be true that some persons deserve condemnation. But I suspect many of the comments posted here result from unverified assumptions.
And just because others, including many politicians, make these types of judgments (sometimes not only factually inaccurate but promoted by falsehoods) doesn't make the parctice correct or justifiable.
I neither condemn Jobs for, nor absolve him of his actions. I need more information before I can do that. But I do recognize reality, and am sorry for the harm his actions cuased.
2
Ms. Brennan-Jobs is very beautiful. Just sayin’.
4
Huh? Just sayin: the ultimate non sequitur.
2
It is a nice article. But I was annoyed by the title.
We are all imperfect. And as the bible says we should forgive other people for being imperfect too.
Sure, sometimes the emotional impact of what someone has done to us may make it hard or impossible for us to forgive someone. But to suggest that we - as unaffected outsiders - should not forgive Jobs his imperfections sounds to me very wrong.
1
Awful on awful, with a side of awful sauce. Reading these comments demonstrates why reconciliation with these memories may best be done with close friends, family and loved ones.
The publisher may be the only “winner” here. I can’t imagine that this will give her peace— it appears to have stirred only negativity. In the end he is her father and I worry that she’s inviting further damage into her life.
1
Apparently her perception is accurate. It's her ability to analyze the data that's deficient. It's called denial, and it's understandable, if not laudable or credible. She just can't face the fact that as a father, Steve Jobs was a jerk, an uncaring jerk. That is a tough thing to face, and she wouldn't be the first to find it impossible to face the fact that one or both parents were jerks.
Just because a person can father (or give birth to) a child doesn't mean they're a good person, or a good parent. If the ability to reproduce were limited to those who would make good parents, this world would not have an overpopulation problem. It would be dramatically underpopulated.
I wish her well, and I don't plan to buy her book. Anyone who's spent any time in the valley knows what Steve Jobs was like. A brilliant man, and also a jerk at times.
Glad he wasn't my dad.
12
Even animals show more concern for their offspring than that failure of a human being, Steve Jobs.
6
Forgiveness in this situation is not ours to give.
Presumptuous (arrogant?) to suggest that it is.
1
It feels like it’s the author’s way of protecting herself from the lashback from her father’s fans. She shares the truths we knew, but detailed them. With the current climate of social media going beyond just a difference of opinion in many online disagreements it’s completely understandable to dish-the-dirt in a sanctified manner to create that invisible blanket of “love” over your own revelations. She’s a good writer, and she knows a segment of her audience will knee-jerk. Smart move on her part.
2
It is odd so many believe Jobs invented anything. He didn't. Everything was invented by other people starting with Woz, then later others. Nobody at Next, even less at Pixar can remember anything Jobs ever contributed to the technology beyond yelling and screaming like a banshee. His return to Apple was heralded but he rode a talented design engineering team who created irresistible devices while Jobs conducted shouting matches. Steve Ballmer over at Microsoft was like Jobs -- a loud, bullying, uncivilized animal. One of Ballmer's first acts was to bully Allen into leaving Microsoft. Allen and Gates brought Ballmer into the company to do something they couldn't do....but what? The board brought Jobs back to Apple to do something it couldn't do....but what? Neither Ballmer or Jobs ever wrote a single line of code. Neither nutcase contributed a single novel product idea, their own. They yelled a lot and behaved badly. Paul Allen, Bill Gates, and the Apple board couldn't do that.
Are gauche unrefined feral simians riding herd on workers the key factors of success? It really makes you wonder.
16
This is a great summation and truly a piece of the puzzle that is missing from conversations. Yet, you gotta wonder if people want a truth puzzle complete with pieces like this or just another maniac to worship? Just more proof that the meds aren’t working!:)
6
This is one of the saddest reviews I've ever read.
4
Business moguls Do Not need to be nice or pleasant to engage. Stop The Myth !!
A Time magazine article on Jobs just after his death outlined how cruel and rude he was to employees as well as his birth father. Apparently, he visited his birth father's restaurant in N.CA, when his father had no idea he was coming. He was obnoxious to his father. After his departure, when his father realized Steve Jobs had been there, he reached out to him , but to no avail. Hence, this article is in line with his nasty behavior- to most people he came into contact with...
5
Why should I care how Lisa Brennan-Jobs feels about her father? She has found a way to profit from the relationip. I will not be adding to that fund.
1
Steve Jobs does not "come across as a jerk." He WAS a jerk.
That doesn't mean he wasn't gifted, or that I haven't used Apple products non-stop since they first came out.
8
Integrity above all else. In your personal and professional life. Jobs was a tyrant in both. This is not new news. I will not give kudos to a man or woman for changing an industry and knowing that they treated employees, family and friends less than. Too many people look away at bad behavior because they did something “big.” #kindness #integrity #maturity
3
Sadly, as a father of three myself, I have to say that Jobs' actions towards his daughter were cold, mean-spirited, and abusive. The future judges us not not only on our actions when "in good form", but on all our actions. And you don't get a pass for leading a team that developed products that people like. Steve Jobs was many things to different people. Among those things was a set of character flaws commonly labeled as "jerk".
5
I tend to be oblivious to events around me, but I have been told that in the 1980s a car parked on my block belonged to Steve Jobs, who was visiting Lisa and her mother. Later he moved into a house a few blocks away with Lorraine. About a year ago, while walking my basset hound, I struck up a lively conversation with her in front of Job's next door neighbor's house. The neighbor came out a exclaimed I must be the happiest person alive. I guess she is the lady who helped Lisa through college.
Steve seems to have had poor judgement about maintaining good health. A diet recommended to Steve by a member of my wife's book club may have helped to make him emaciated. I've been told that when he was hospitalized, he only wanted to be seen by the head doctor and nurse. This demand tended to reduce the frequency staff checked on him. When he was told that he had an endocrine tumor in his pancreas that would kill him if he let it grow too large, Steve responded by rejecting surgery because it would violate his body. A neighbor had the same medical condition and was cured by surgery. Steve waited too long. He had a liver transplant after the tumor had become fatally large . Nature did not forgive Steve.
I have 30-some patents, and Steve had 300-some. I'll admire his strengths. Nature has dealt with his weaknesses.
7
Reading this story I thought continually of my own daughter (4 years old) and could only think one thing. Fathers: Love. Your. Daughters. They are worth more than all the billions in the world.
6
Steve Jobs is viewed as a heroic 21st-century icon. But like all of us, he was a product of his upbringing. He was abandoned/given up for adoption, never bonded with his adopted parents. He had no role model to rely upon, reacted viscerally/controlling and inappropriately at times, ignored his responsibilty as a father. He was not empathetic supportive but egotistical flawed.
Lisa must have been vulnerable, confused, scarred by his comments and actions. She deserved better. But life is unfair, many have endured worse.
But this is her story truthful, painful to hear. Steve Jobs was not perfect maybe being put a pedestal is not such a good thing especially for his devoted followers.
2
Lisa I’m sorry you’re father abandoned and neglected you. I’m sorry you didn’t have a normal loving father daughter relationship. I’m sorry that your mom couldn’t make up for the missing father relationship you should have had.
You are beautiful and you don’t have beady eyes. I hope your husband and kids give you extra love and care that you missed out in your childhood.
Pamper yourself with yoga, massage, facials, hugs and snuggles with your family and pets.
Best wishes.
8
Lisa Brennan-Jobs, this NYT review prompted me to read the excerpt of your book in Vanity Fair. I believe every word. You are so very honest about yourself and your father. I can't wait to read the entire memoir when it's released. It reminded me of aspects of my relationship with my father. I can relate to how much you loved him, and still do. This book is important. YOU are important. I hope you will find peace knowing you have contributed an honest, beautifully crafted memoir that will enrich other's lives and understanding of themselves. Stand strong in your truth. I'm so glad you shared it with the world.
5
Eh. People are complicated. Parents especially. I don’t doubt everything happened exactly as she describes. But look, she survived and apparently is thriving. Often forgiving and forgetting is the best we all can do for one another. No need to dredge this all up for the masses.
1
Lisa, I'm so sorry for how you were treated. You deserved only unconditional love, respect, and kindness from your father, not so-called "lessons" that appear to be nothing more than degradation/disrespect, abuse, and control. Forgiving him is your right and hopefully very liberating. You have no responsibility for what happened and hopefully will stop blaming yourself/taking responsibility for what you experienced. I hope that writing this book will be the first step towards realizing that you are worthy of so much respect and love.
3
I found Lisa Brennan-Jobs self deprecation sad and most likely a symptom of her fathers relationship with her. Hopefully the publication of this book will be a cleansing event in her life.
4
If he hadn’t eventually accepted her, with all the wealth that entailed, would she still forgive? Probably not. A fortune has a funny way of reshaping memories.
1
These socially-awkward misfits have given us a brave new world. But in the end, we're all just dust--or silica, I should say.
"His Daughter Forgives Him. Should We?". First, you have to believe his daughter's stories and not dismiss them as being made up for the purpose of making her book more sellable (because who would buy a memoir by an individual whose claim to being 'newsworthy[ is that she is the daughter of someone who actually was newsworthy. personally, i don't trust either her 'memories' or her intentions.
Ms. Brennan-Jobs seems heroic in many ways as she struggles to understand, excuse and even normalize emotional violence done to her. And I agonize with her as she also seems to carry on doing to herself what Jobs cruelly did to her. Instead, I'd recommend anger. Not to pursue a rage-filled existence against a mean-spirited man who rationalized his inexcusable behavior against a vulnerable child. No point in that. But to internalize, in the strongest possible ways, the message "I did not deserve to be treated that way."
5
I don't think it is my, or our, place to contemplate forgiving Jobs in matters involving his daughter and his family. It isn't my place, a complete stranger, to intrude into such a dynamic. I leave it alone; if she forgives him then that is enough, and truly is all that matters.
John~
American Net'Zen
1
Picasso was cruel
Roth was cruel
Lennon was cruel
Jobs was cruel
...a lot of times to those they loved. Speaks to the narrative of the myth of the male genius.
2
If your own childhood is "not so great," and that "not so greatness" comes in part from things that your parents did or did not do, maybe because their childhoods were "not so great," you have two choices if you bother to think about it. From what I understand Mr. Jobs had one of those "not so great" childhoods and despite an extraordinary and rare intuitive intelligence when it came to his life's work he did not give, I believe, much consequential thought to how that might affect being a responsible parent. If your childhood is "not so great" those choices are: don't think much about the impact and end up inflicting harm, betraying your role as a parent, and passing harm to your children. I have no problem with Ms. Brennan-Jobs forgiving him. Whether it was that he did not damage that capacity to that her mother preserved it, all that matters is that it's there. The other choice one has is to learn from the mistakes your parents made. Learn what not to do, how not to impact your children harmfully, not betray your responsibility to your children as a parent. I had a "not so great" childhood in many ways. It wasn't dreadful or abusive, just "not so great." With my own daughter I always made the effort to remember that and not betray her. As a result I think that being her parent is the best thing I ever did best. When I ask her,"Are there things your mother and I did or did not do that were 'not so great?' her answer is, "You never let me fail." I can handle that one.
2
Has anyone considered that Mr Jobs may have been on the autism scale; he may, in fact, been truly incapable of interacting appropriately with other people, reading the social cues that the rest of us respond to, but possessed of great intelligence.
2
Maybe here is a measure of how far the apple (heh) falls from the tree.
Ironic that I read this article on my iPhone.
1
We give too much money to a few people and it does not make them better people or better humans. A more equal sharing of the wealth would improve everyone's lives. He held money unnecessarily over his daughter which was in the end bad for both of them.
12
Jobs was a well documented jerk and a brilliant visionary. He doesn't require my forgiveness because he never wronged me.
5
Oh, I lived in San Jose before as it was becoming Silly Valley and Jobs and his company were legendary. I was taken by a woman to look at where he lived. Why would anyone need 17 motorcycles? That's what one could see as one passed. It was of course at the top of a hill also. Really, who cares? He was awful and that would never stop the true believers from buying his stuff... they are blind and so was he. Lemmings are everywhere.
18
Jobs' daughter seems a forgiving lady. Steve, her father, as brilliant as he was, was a despot. She tries to project him as a dignified human being. For whatever reason, he was not. I guess we all have flaws, and we shouldn't be asked to give what we don't have. It's as if we would expect decency from Trump, it just won't happen. Not to try to compare one with the other, given that Trump is so incompetent and corrupt that no comparison can be drawn, and given Jobs ample imagination and creativity. He just was not a nice guy to have around.
7
It is clear Mr. Jobs failed Lisa as a father. But this is for us-the readers- to see. Why is the writer of this article surprised that Lisa sees her father as "good" despite the evidence to the contrary? Children always idolize their parents, especially early on. And especially, the one who is not available. Despite, abuse, neglect, or the lack of healthy affection. It may not be rational but this is how a child is. Lisa Brennan- Jobs had come to terms with her emotional truth. It is what it is. Who are we to second-guess her?
I would be interested to know how Mr. Jobs developed to be the adult he became.
7
We enter adulthood when we forgive our parents.
8
So, so true.
I don't buy the notion that Jobs's cruelty, indifference and indeed perversion as portrayed in this memoir are somehow justified by his genius. Stephen Hawking's life and work show that genius is not incompatible with basic human decency. Moreover, advances in science and technology are driven by collective effort, not individual accomplishments; the smartphone or something like it would have been invented had Steve Jobs never been born. I'll take the Stephen Hawking model of genius over the Steve Jobs model any day.
20
A real genius died recently -- Aretha Franklin.
14
@Sonja
Without a will.
What was she setting up?
1
...even the Pope said, "Who am I to judge." I feel like people do the best they can. Judging Steve Jobs is waaay over my head.
1
So, despite her cold bedroom, Ms Brennan did not learn not to ride on her fathers coattails. Isn't she trying to cash in on daddy's name?
NYT: this article may help me overcome my sleep problems. Yawn.
4
I don't know Steve or Lisa. The closest is Steve's friend, who was was at Apple since the days of soldering boards in a garage. He was also shown the door after inadvertently revealing, to a reporter, that Steve had a daughter.
Throughout our friendship, I had no idea about that part of his life. We talked about things we were working on. So, I was fascinated when, after Steve's death, he talked affectionately about some of Steve's terrible behavior.
What's weird is that, as a tech guy, I saw parts of my own flaws in those stories. Where so much my of my identity is wrapped up in the *thing* that I'm working on. That I start to lose a bit of my Humanity. Where I would treat people as things as well. I would experiment with how to engage with others -- as though they were components in a kind of product. Life as a product.
Of course, there is still that need: to love and be loved. But, what comes naturally to others seems so elusive. It means letting go of what I think is my core identity. That one more thing. But, it really isn't.
So, yeah. I can understand my friend's affection for such bad behavior. It is so pathetic and real. So weirdly Human, these flaws.
113
How many of Jobs' angry detractors are typing their rage into the keypad of an iPhone? After reading this memoir, will they be exchanging their phones for Samsungs?
30
@Ed L.
Is it permissible to praise landlines over a cell phone? Or is it rank hypocrisy?
In any event, I don't own anything made by Apple and do not have a smart phone. In fact, just today, there was more news about the problems with becoming dependent on such devices:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/skim-reading-new-n...
I am not as worried by the fact of galloping reading incomprehension -- as alarming as that is -- as I am by the fact that when you point it out, and prove that you never wrote what you were alleged to have written, the person who misunderstood you becomes belligerent.
Seems that Jobs could not stand being contradicted, either.
Now, back to my book and journal. Thanks.
5
@ Ed L.: I don’t think that’s the point. It’s possible to be a world class genius in one area of your life and still be a world class failure as a parent. The two are not mutually exclusive.
5
@Ed L. I don't see any 'rage' here. And I have never had an iPhone-- I have an Android. It's met my needs just fine.
1
Not a "jerk". An emotionally abusive dominator who decided he could vent his cruelty to his illegitimate daughter while summoning up kindness to his favored, legitimate ones. No wonder the neighbors intervened.
No surprise. Jobs has long been recognized as a tech visionary and an insensitive, cruel, self absorbed horror show of a human being.
Interesting that the devices he created are tools by which we, too, are fast becoming just as self absorbed and insensitive.
37
Based on no more than Jobs' notorious disrespect and mistreatment of Apple employees, no, I don't forgive him.
He was a big time jerk who made too many people miserable. Of course he was "just human," but so was Idi Amin and I don't forgive him either. (No, I am not equating their deeds, only their shared membership in the human race.)
26
Steve Jobs himself suffered from emotional trauma, as much as these mercurial, obsessive traits also helped develop the world's most valuable company. The perpetrator is often also the victim. The best we can do is to help each other bring light to our human suffering and to exercise compassion and forgiveness. His daughter, in writing this book, has done a great contribution towards that.
2
Ms. Brennan Jobs gives her father too much credit when she suggests he was "teaching" her and instilling a value system within her. Her point of view requires an acknowledgement of Mr. Jobs as being aware of the effects of his actions on her internal growth and way of seeing the world. I doubt that he was consciously choosing meanness, abandonment, and intimidation regarding his daughter's well being. If he had actually been aware of his actions maybe he would have corrected himself but maybe not. Having been subjected to similar behavior from the paternal side of my family I can sympathize with Ms. Brennan Jobs however I fall back on the saying I believe comes from the Amish community: "I can forgive you but I cannot pardon you."
5
Jobs was a cruel, tragic genius. Not just with his daughter, though that was the most despicable of his cruelty, but with some of his friends and colleagues. He seemed to enjoy punishing some people, denying them things they deserved, whether it be love, money, stock or recognition. But most painful is the way he treated his daughter. Its amazing to me that she could forgive him.
7
Seems that he mistreated his daughter because he resented her mother and did not plan on being a father. This is not uncommon, unfortunately. Interesting that she interprets it as some carefully crafted, thoughtful life lesson that he bestowed on her; giving to his other children and withholding from her. However, it's her choice to forgive him or not. Seems he was brilliant in one thing, technology, but otherwise a very flawed narcissistic human.
5
I wish Ms. Lisa Brennan-Jobs the best of luck in dealing with her parental issues. Most people don't realize it, but this is a right of passage during mid-life, regardless of how 'good' or 'bad' your parents were.
As an electrical engineer in the computer industry I read many stories about Steve Jobs in a professional journal (the weekly EE Times). My recollection was that he was not well liked by the press and others at Apple. The many 'Steve Jobs' films have shed him in a different light, which I have always regarded as mere corporate propaganda. Perhaps her story will provide a more historically accurate picture of the man.
6
The 'filthy rich' can afford to abandon their children by having nursemaids, private school masters and college professors to parent them. This memoir is yet another confirmation of the "I'm OK, you're not OK" problem that results; George W. Bush and Donald Trump are two others.
6
I am touched by the breadth of a daughter's love for her imperfect genius father, translating his most hurtful words and actions into expressions of love.
Because of that generosity of spirit, despite her recall of these incidents, she has survived, a wife and mother herself.
As for the inherited money, well, I would hope that she herself would set up a foundation to help untold millions of desperate children suffering as she had. I can't envision how much that much money can buy, but a legacy of bettering the lives of children in this wealthy country so none goes homeless, hungry or lives wasted, would shed new light on her father and what he has left her. What a joy that would be.
Or not. Only if it feeds her own balanced beautiful life now, for heaven knows, at long last, she has earned that wonderful time and space and love and happiness.
You know, I admired her father since the beginning when my late husband brought home the first mac. From then on, our family bought all things Apple and loved how easy it made our lives. Years later, I wanted to buy Apple stock when it was down to 25. Regretfully, I couldn't raise even enough for one share, and couldn't convince anyone else to believe in his genius! So my son and I missed out on that windfall, but nevertheless we enjoy the great tech legacy from a dedicated genius! And now a successful ending to his story, himself abandoned. Nice going! I look forward to reading a happy daughter's book!
2
Nobody has a perfect parent. The author happens to have had an imperfect one who also happened to be a rich and famous genius. Unfortunately he was a perfectionist in his own way who disliked the idea of having sired an illegitimate child. Perhaps deep inside he was a moralist who had made the mistake of ending up doing an immoral thing and whenever he saw her she was the reminder of the mistake.
To be fair I don't think the author wrote the book for money, but as a way of freeing herself and in a way forgiving her father by sharing with the world that he was just one of many like him. The thing is that people read books like this not to forgive or not forgive. It is not for them to and they are not interested. They read for schadenfreude just as they may read National Enquirer. In any case, if writing the book has served some purpose for her, good for her. After all she still has a life to live, while her father hasn't.
6
@J. Mo She was emotionally abused as a child, and she still doesn't get it. For Steve Jobs, there should be no forgiveness. Steve, as someone who was also born out of wedlock, and hated his biological parents (who ultimately married and had a second child), he's astonishingly insensitive.
9
@midnight Probably THAT was the very reason he was so unjustly moralistic. He saw reflection of himself as an unwanted child in her and hated it. When he was so cold and unforgiving towards her he was actually being cold and unforgiving to himself. It was quite unjust, and I am saying this not as condonement but as an explanation.
2
Steve Job's life left behind an enormous pile of money ---- money that can compel the world to remake a part of itself for better or for worse, or could be frittered away towards no particular end at all. I wish Ms Jobs wisdom in that undertaking.
The cost of implementing the Paris Climate Agreement for the entire world up to the year 2030 is estimated at $16 Trillion. The wealth accumulated by the world's 1% is estimated at $127 Trillion, with $26 Trillion of that held in offshore havens. The world careens towards a climate catastrophe for the entire planet while the 1% will not relinquish even 12% of their holdings towards a solution. It is in this context that the impersonal meanness of Steve and the intimate circle of hurt around him, and the transformative nature of the devices he influenced, are juxtaposed with the all-but-certain-now trajectory of the world towards what was a preventable tragedy.
We distract ourselves from what is important.
5
As we know, people disclose themselves differently to different people.
6
He never donated to charity and moved company assets to Ireland to avoid paying taxes, effectively robbing the general public too. Why does it surprise anyone that he was immoral and greedy? He was openly so. Also, the author writes about him as if he's a tech genius. He wasn't. He was a marketing genius. That is a game of deception and manipulation. Nothing here is surprising to anyone who can see through the "reality distortion field" surrounding his own life.
12
The poor girl is in denial. She says he was "teaching her a lesson." If the "lesson" he was teaching her was so important - so meaningful to him - why would he teach this one child that lesson, while not teaching it to the other three?
She is trying to heal her heart, but if she really believes what she's saying, she's painfully deluded.
8
It took 30 minutes in the same room with Mr. Jobs in the 1990s to convince me the man was an pathological abuser and narcissistic predator. His complete lack of empathy and deep seated need to hurt others publicly is common among the technically obsessed 'savant' class, but more than the typical Asperger's Syndrome, SJ was propelled not by unawareness, but a malignant insecure soul. I can only imagine the humiliation, fear, hatred and malevolence he showered on his 'unofficial' daughter, Perhaps Ms. Brennan-Jobs became inculcated to the years of chronic abuse and rejection by developing a "Stockholm Syndrome" response to her father's brutality. Thousands of Steve Jobs victims cheered the day he died, no matter how dependent they were on Apple's clean lines and architecture. Too bad Jobs brain was not harvested for study because the behavior of many Silicon Valley titans suggests there may be a link between technical vision and sadism or psychopathology. At least she can afford the years of intensive therapy needed to mitigate the damage of Mr. Jobs scorn. To this day I have nothing to do with Apple products because of that 30 minute meeting. Jobs contempt for fellow humans was palpable, active and menacing - he would have gladly incinerated the human race if it brough him the same profit as Apple did. What does it say about our society that we worship monsters when they are useful to us?
28
I don't know why we should ever expect famous and talented people to be lovely, thoughtful, caring human beings, or perhaps match the front-stage persona they may try to present.
Great talent and/or amazing success, wealth, and fame too many times seems to be balanced out by severe human flaws, such as cold-hearted, totally clueless and uncaring how other people feel, and highly controlling, manipulative, and cagey at self-promotion.
Steve Jobs' cruel put-downs of adults and especially children and adolescents indicate a highly controlling person playing a zero-sum game where he can only "win" if he can make other people feel as insecure and humiliated, as he himself likely fears deep inside.
This reminds me of the cold, controlling, neurotically self-absorbed Donald Trump--although, unlike Jobs, Trump has no real gifts or talents, other than being able to successfully and unfortunately con others.
It appears writing this memoir was cathartic for the author. To an outsider, her excuses and "forgiveness" of her father may seem unrealistic, given the unnecessarily difficult circumstances. But how else is anyone to move forward emotionally in their lives. This is pretty much what much of therapy and healing is all about.
I also hope Lisa Brennan-Jobs' book might help readers who, thought no fault of their own, also were born to deeply flawed and seemingly uncaring parent(s), whether rich or poor-- although maybe being rich makes it somewhat easier.
13
Everything I've read about Steve Jobs underlines the fact that he was inhuman, a tyrant. He had a superior eye for design, but he never invented anything on his own. Instead, he ruled over some very smart people as a petty dictator. If "success" is making a lot of money, then I guess he won. But he was a big loser as a human being. He should be vilified, not celebrated.
25
I rather read the memoir of a woman who has achieved the success and change-of-world attributes of Steve Jobs than the memoir of a woman who berates the memory of such a man.
@Eternal Tech And I patiently await the autobiography of Laureen Powell Jobs. (After her children are adults, of course). I'd bet she has even better stories to tell of Steve's emotional abuse.
I think Steve Jobs is too dead to care.
6
I'm flabbergasted. Forgive Steve Jobs? How many of us had personal relationships with him? He was a visionary businessman who made a lot of money mostly through his phones.
He may have been a creep, but he had nothing to do with me and I'm not going to pretend that he did. When the Times does these narcissistic pieces (especially how rich friends of the editors spend their Sundays), I turn off completely.
This kind of headline is bad journalism but it sure gets a lot of eyeballs.
7
@KatheM: I find the title here silly and agree with you on that point, but found the article really excellent.
As to the "how I spend my Sundays" articles, I couldn't agree more. But they're not meant for us - they're meant for people aspiring to a higher social class and curious about the signifiers they need to incorporate in their lives -- just like the wedding announcements!
2
@KatheM
Exactly. Why should I forgive him? Or not? He never did anything to me personally.
He finished his life with cancer... now a lot of people will end their lives with cancer from his i Pone.
6
Steve Jobs was a bad person, and definitely wouldn't care about a strangers opinion nor want forgiveness. He was a ruthless businessman, that's why he was successful.
5
Great accomplishments will certainly require sacrifices from one's family, but there is a difference between that and being outright cruel.
On a related note, Steve Jobs didn't change the world, but he rather accelerated certain technical developments that were bound to happen eventually. Without Jobs we would still be using a smartphone today. Maybe it wouldn't look as nice and work as well, but that's about it.
4
It’s refreshing to hear something less than the fawning praise for Steve Jobs that we’re accustomed to hearing. The legacy of Jobs and the digital age will be that the generation raised on these insidious devices will not be capable of reading the lettres, diaries, written in longhand, much less the Declaration of Independence. Nor will they care to read them. Instead they are likely to peck at icons on the screen like so many chickens programmed to earn a pellet.
The Trojan horse program of donating computers to schools was the first (and oh so effective) salvo in the war on civilization as we knew it. Thank you Steve Jobs for transforming our culture. Thank you Lisa for a peek behind the curtain.
11
@John Wiesenthal
When books became popular hundreds of years ago, many thought at the time that the printed word would lead to loss of tradition, subversion of culture, and isolation of human beings, as reading is generally a solitary activity. Before the printed word, most knowledge was passed down orally and via words written by a scribe using a pen.
However, printed works, including books, magazines, pamphlets, and newspapers did not destroy our civilization, but made it better and stronger. The same can be expected of electronic media, which you used to post your comment and expand your voice.
@Eternal Tech
Except that there is scientific evidence of the effects of technology on brain development already accumulating.
What happened before need not be the template that the future follows. Impressionistic claims in the past were proved wrong, but does not mean the scientific ones made today will turn out to be wrong, too. They could turn out to be wrong, but I would be less sanguine.
We never had the environmental crisis we face now. We never had high-speed trading in arcane financial instruments that in some ways become indistinguishable from counterfeiting. We never had mass urbanization or thermonuclear arsenals before.
A lot has changed.
1
I am not going to defend either parent in this article. However, in many situations where a child is conceived people always ask where is the absent parent? Many people often ask this question when there is a celebrity involved or a person who is wealthy.
Many people often ask this question if a mother has to raise a child without child support. For years steve jobs refused (even after a DNA match)to support his child. So the mother had to use government assistance for her daughter. Many people often use the line" where is the father when the child or children are minorities". I am not trying to make this a racial argument.
Also, many assistants and people that worked for steve jobs said he would yell at them for the smallest mistake; i.e. bringing mr. jobs the wrong sports drink or wrong coffee. Those incidents have been shown as being accurate. Granted, steve jobs may have influenced our tech culture but he didn't sound like he had much empathy for anyone.
What type of parent doesn't turn on heat in their childs' room? Sounds like mr. jobs had some control issues all through his life; not just in his personal life but his life as an employer as well. It is great that his daughter forgave him and sounds like she has moved on with her life.
4
Steve was on the spectrum. He was a paranoid narcissist and an obsessive control freak. He was cruel and thoughtless. He routinely parked in handicap spaces and paid the fine just to have his car closer to his destination. He was nearly impossible to work for and he was an absolute genius when it came to charting Apple’s future. It was a privilege to work for him.
3
Don’t bash people with autism, please. That’s irresponsible and just plain wrong. Dr. Temple Grandin has autism and she’s a model of human empathy, spectrum or not. And her empathy is for the majority of life on this planet that most so-called “empathetic” humans disregard—the animal world.
Perhaps Jobs had obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (not OCD—people always get that wrong). Look it up. His behavior, including the emotional abuse he heaped on his daughter and his employees—fits the profile.
3
@Being Human Thank you. Thank you.
The man had the soul of a barracuda. That was the necessary quality he needed to have in order to turn his talents/genius into a fortune. If he hadn't had that quality, everyone would have loved him and he would have been working for Bill Gates.
And how perfect that his daughter wants to give her money to the Gates Foundation!
4
Should we forgive Steve Jobs the author asks? Did Steve Jobs need to harm us directly or indirectly for us to forgive him I would ask. Forgiveness frees those who forgive from the burning desire for revenge. That is both the challenge and the reward of forgiveness. To truly forgive, one has to let go of, or transmute, the pain and the hurt. So, if Steve Jobs hurt us, individually, or the corporate body of humanity, we should work towards forgiveness.
That being said, the more I have learned about Steve Jobs over the years reveals him to be a deeply troubled, disturbed and disturbing person. Brilliant and awful. Emotionally abusive at work and at home.
I haven't yet read Lisa Brennan-Jobs' book, but the excerpts and the interview reveal a deeply conflicted person; hungry for her father's love and attention and rationalizing his aberrant, marginalizing, destructive behaviors as somehow good for her. I think of the rather simplistic example of being switched as a child and told that it was for my own good and because they loved me. Really?
Powerful people need to be held accountable. Who is to do that? I only wish that Lisa had told her father that of course she was going to write a book about him and she wasn't going to leave out the "good" parts.
People need to learn to act as if someone is watching. In good people that is their conscience. Steve Jobs may have thought long and hard about consciousness, but not enough about his own conscience.
Forgive, learn and move on.
5
Mr. Jobs: Not worthy of our forgiveness
Mrs. Laurene Jobs: Not worthy of our forgiveness
Mona Simpson:Not worthy of our forgiveness. Mrs Simpson was close enough to her brother and niece to write a novel "exploring the strained relationship of a Silicon Valley tycoon with a daughter born out of wedlock, whom he did not acknowledge" without Ms. Jobs persimmon but apparently not close enough to step in and pull this girl out of the abusive situation or pay for her college ( so not as close as Mr. Jobs neighbors)
6
Just because Lisa has forgiven her father doesn't mean we should. Her conflicts and guilt are probably the result of his treatment of her. But then, his numerous personality problems can perhaps be blamed on his parents, and so on. I'd like to see a thorough, expert psychological analysis of both of them and their interactions with her mother.
2
Not many human beings can live up to the standards of New York Times commenters, and I'm well aware that I've never even been in the running. In fact, the Times itself receives its share of criticism on a daily basis, as well. I/we were fortunate to have made a lot of money by believing in the abilities of the people at Apple, without ever having met one of them. That's why it's called passive investing. Oh, and for what it's worth, I have had younger and older neighbors that made Steve Jobs look like a saint. Only Jobs has had tell-all books written about him.
4
The only thing that makes Lisa Brennan-Jobs' story of any interest whatsoever is because of the identity of the man doing the abusing in her book. That's it. Because every hour of every day, men (and some women) are dishing out that type of abuse to their children, if not worse. I am glad she wrote her book because it was evidently cathartic for her, but I don't want to read it. I can get the same kind of stories out of the daily news, unfortunately.
11
Every family member has their flaws and some are greater than others. Why do so-called visionaries need to be analyzed so publicly? Why are people so interested in these "tell-all" books?
I do sincerely hope that Ms. Brennan-Jobs has found peace, serenity and meaning in her life. To me, the rest is a private matter to be resolved through therapy.
3
No doubt Jobs was a complicated man with a complicated life. Adopted and yetknew his biological father and sister. He was unable to overcome his troubled childhood. And therein lies his mistake. As a visionary he only looked forward and not back. Mr. Jobs changed superficial things about himself but not deeper. He tried every diet, every vegetarian variation. He pulled himself together an image with black turtlenecks. But when presented with a daughter, was not prepared to cope with how to become a father.
That Jobs was socially awkward is an understatement.He was most likely uncomfortable in his own skin. Many adoptees struggle with such feelings. But his behavior is almost pathological. He is unable to stop himself from putting distance between himself and his daughter. He's unable to be close. Nearly unreachable. Perhaps he was somewhere on the autism spectrum or Aspergers-like with a genuine inability to connect, to make eye-contact and make sexually inappropriate remarks without knowing just how creepy he was.
It's sad that Lisa can't see just how flawed he was. She's still his victim.She's self effacing to distraction. Still beating up on herself the way he emotionally beat her up. She's caught in the same dynamic as her dad.
I hope she gets therapy she needs. Not a vegan diet or elixir but a therapist who can help her deal with her pain. Jobs systematically attacked her over the course of her life. He picked her apart piece by piece - she has yet to recover.
4
How can an adult speak about childhood abuse by parents and siblings without being criticized in POSSIBLE rationalizations of that abuse as being the fault of the self-identified victim?
More so, what if the parents themselves had been traumatized, say by war, poverty, depression, social rank, oppression?
The worst problem, though, is when an adult is 50, 60, 70 years old and another sibling is sadistic, using the distorted framework of the past to continue such torture for personal benefit.
Is it likely that Steve Jobs' intense drive came from a need to compensate for personal emptiness of one sort or another? Or fear?
That may be bad, but worse is when parents and siblings simply claim that nothing happened, nothing can be "proven" to THEIR criteria and satisfaction, that in continuing these games they are just being "normal", and that complaint is a sign of deviance.
We live in a sick society, and the sickest are those who set standards of so-called probity, liars who use business and career connections to harass others throughout their daily lives.
I pray for Lisa. And, though not Catholic, I respect and pray for Pope Francis for acknowledging the unsolved problems that he confronts. At least he does not pretend the problems do not, have not been real.
But what about the key relations in every person's life, the family, when this is continued so as to maintain dominance?
I pray for Lisa and everyone starting each day confronting such pain. But not for myself.
Why would we need to forgive someone, even if they are jerks? It doesn't matter one way or another. If the leader is someone who damages our society and country or an institution we depend on, we may have to face that decision because we have been harmed. Not Steve Jobs unless we had to work with him. With someone like Donald Trump, yes, he is damaging every citizen, virtually in every country in the world. Or Putin or Kim in Korea, there is a degree of damage to everyone but not so much for Jobs who just ran a billion dollar business and acted abominably to his family.
4
As a father, I have to say that "jerk" doesn't begin to describe the level of emotional abuse directed at this poor girl, his own daughter, by Steve Jobs. As a CEO Jobs was very nearly unique in having a well developed sense of aesthetics, and in insisting on its central importance in his products. It's only too bad he didn't have a well developed awareness of the way he treated others, particularly the child he apparently did not want and resented. His treatment of her was unconscionable, and deserves to be the larger part of his legacy, if he has one.
5
Stockholm Syndrome
10
Though my relationship with my father has never been as extreme as Lisa's, I'm aware of the lasting subconscious effects of emotional neglect or abuse. I sense a lot of cognitive dissonance in Lisa's accounts and excuses for her father's behavior. It saddens me that presently she continues criticize herself for her appearance, intentionally or unintentionally, because I think she's gorgeous. It baffles me that daughters, especially, are willing to tolerate ill treatment from their fathers and people criticize and wonder why these same daughters grow up to have dysfunctional relationships with men. I understand the trope "humans are complicated," but that does not excuse abusive behavior. Steve Jobs's behavior should not be brushed aside as that of "a busy father who forgot soccer practice" this was narcissistic abuse as he clearly played favorites with his children, lacked any kind of empathy or compassion, and used his money to manipulate HIS OWN CHILD!!
13
Jobs was likely a lot worse than portrayed in this book. His tirades, demands, and humiliations of others were legendary. He was both a visionary and a tyrant. I'm glad his daughter found out that who we are and how we love is more up to us than the people who brought us into the world.
21
This made me cry cuz how my father treats me is very similar to how Steve Jobs treated her. I've heard that his personality is not good but I've never knew that it was this bad.
7
If he weren't Steve Jobs but Joe Blogs would he be called dysfunctional or evil? The barometer is different for famous people. The anecdote about her smelling like a toilet is perfectly understandable when taken in context, her perfume had gone off, so it was in fact a joke not a criticism.
If he hadn't been chased by the authorities for alimony would he have forgotten all about her?
Lisa needed to write this, not for the money - clearly she has enough already - but as vindication that the little girl - his firstborn - wasn't responsible for his behaviour. Children are wont to blame themselves for everything but thanks to her journalistic background she's been able to articulate what happened in her words. Having Steve Jobs as your father must be a burden in itself. The book sounds very honest and I look forward to reading it.
9
Makes you wonder what kind of person Laurene jobs is..........
18
@Karen Evil stepmom in the most cruel cartoonish Disney sense. Though even in those stories the step mom wants the daughter sent off to boarding school which would have been far better Ms. Brennan-Jobs
4
Don't worry honey, I'll hate him for you, and for everyone else too.
6
Sorry I don't know if I could forgive him at all. I think I could forget him. I can think of no reason to be cruel to my kids! Even if you think it is a "teaching" thing! It is your life Ms Brennan-Jobs. I only wish you all the happiness!!
9
It is so common to hear mean parents bullying their children! Saying repeatedly OK! to young children following every sentence actually means do what I say or I will kill you.
2
I hope that people will be kind to Lisa now that she has written her memoir. After what she went through, she might be more sensitive, at least sometimes, than most of us are. And this society has gotten exceptionally cruel with its words.
9
He sounds like a real creep.
17
Wore his pants too high. That stupid turtleneck. His facial expressions in pictures. Hate him.
8
Let's take a moment to reflect on the overall good that Steve Jobs brought to the world:
He hasn't. He was another greedy capitalist who enriched himself at the expense of others. I see no reason to forgive for also being a generally awful person simply because he ran a company that makes $1000 phones.
25
Yeah, I love Apple products, but I still have no clue what people mean when they say that Steve Jobs changed the world for the better... How?
15
Any presentation with a strong personal agenda is not an accurate basis for opinion, though it might inspire.
We can read other places about Steve which support the opinion that he was a superficially lucky worthless person.
3
Walter Issacson biography of SJ includes the item that for his last operation he was offered a cure and not a cure. He chose not a cure so that he could pass on. And did.
2
You need to let the hurt come out of your soul. Sometimes telling people what is bothering you can be painful for you and others, but you cant keep it locked up or it will harm you. You have done the right thing by sharing what has hurt you. Now you can begin to heal and recover. Many blessings.
10
Ms. Powell Jobs would seem to have a lot to answer for here, not just for allowing this horrific abuse, but, in seemingly participating it. This is not just some the story of some of a cold absentee uncaring or a parent who was unable to connect dad but of what seems like a lifetime of intentional malicious abuse.
14
I wonder if the author has really forgiven her father. I am not suggesting she should or shouldn’t. The book’s publication is not an act of forgiveness, it may be a punishment, even if it is unconscious on her part.
4
I just had my first child, a girl. Frankly, I can't imagine treating her the way Jobs allegedly treated his first daughter. The stories described in this book review are enough alone to make any loving father shake his head in disbelief.
22
Steve Jobs was one of the greatest geniuses in the history of mankind. At the same time he was a terribly bad human being, probably with some kind of an autism-like mental illness. This is not unusual among geniuses.
5
@PaulN
I disagree with nearly everything you said. Jobs wasn't one of mankind's greatest geniuses, autism is not a type of mental illness, and it is not generally true that mental illnesses,"autism-like" or otherwise, are more common in geniuses than in other people.
21
autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are in fact considered mental illnesses. They don’t normally lead people to fail to acknowledge paternity despite a DNA test. They also don’t lead people to threaten to cut off an inheritance by claiming its for the betterment of the other.
Check the DSM V aka the Bible of Psychiatry. You’ll find ASD’s there.
Jobs to my read with his manipulative & controlling behaviors exhibited extreme narcissism as well as possibly also sociopathic traits.
5
@Jay
Autism spectrum disorders are a developmental disability.
More important, though, I agree that they have nothing to do with causing a person to deny paternity or treat their child with calculated cruelty.
I've never written a comment before, but this moved me. I truely hope this writing was cathartic for the little girl inside who still carrying the pain of her youth. This is only her view, and perhaps she recalls things differently than an Aunt or former partner. As a mother myself there is no handbook on parenting and you have to do your best to juggle it all, but no child should be felt discarded by their mother or father. There is little doubt Jobs was brilliant and changed the world, it's not a secret he was often a jerk, likely a bigger jerk to those close to him. There are many ways to teach your children but you don't need to be awful about it - like to heat in a bedroom. And giving them the best education you can like paying for college should have been an easy task. Basic acceptance, respect and responsibility of bringing them into the world is also a good start. Let's also not forget that Lisa's mother needs to take some responsibility too. All the best in moving forward with your own family.
5
One example of many ways of abusing children. There are millions and millions of them we do not know as they are not related to celebrities.
13
Ms. Brennan-Jobs' approach to loving her deceased father is well beyond brave, righteous and admirable. But it must also have been excruciatingly hard to achieve and maintain!
Needless to say, it’s one of the more poignant examples of the sheer power of forgiveness.
It's also worth noting in passing, that the main beneficiary is not the one who is forgiven, but the one who forgives.
--
"...'And you have to take a lot of time to turn the awful package on its head, and it reveals something kind of glorious, and then you’re set free'...” [op cit (Ms. Brennan-Jobs)]
12
Where did Job’s anger and malice about fathering his child come from? For him to take it out on her and behave so erratically and refuse to even help support her is like some plot of a Dickens novel. It seems he wasn’t like that with his other children. I’m glad she is having her say. So many children love parents who are not worthy of it. Parents don’t have to be warm and fuzzy all the time but kindness and decency go a long way. I suspect he came around in her adolescence because he didn’t want to be shamed and exposed by the press for being a billionaire deadbeat dad.
10
Based on this story and the Vanity Fair piece, I would add a few observations. The fact that Jobs was an adoptee, who ironically had a child he did not want to acknowledge as his to me is worth considering. Adoptees have their own legacy or perspective to build, and it factors into their actions and words more than we would like to admit. Jobs was a brilliant visionary who spurred those around him to greatness. I don't find it surprising that he himself was not adept at relationships. In business, it served him and those around him well. In family life, maybe not so much. What interests me is his daughter's perspective. Reckoning with being an unexpected/unplanned/unwanted child is a lifelong process. It would be interesting to hear her views when she is 50 or 60. I don't find her reactions and reasoning to be surprising at all. I admire her effort to be as honest and fair as she can be. The ultimate truth of the matter is probably beyond the purview of all concerned and all who read it, but that doesn't mean it has nothing to offer us.
3
I don't think anyone who was a chronological contemporary of Steve Jobs, and also involved in Hi-Tech, *ever mistook Jobs for
"Charmer-Of-The-Year". Neither, for that matter, was Bill Gates,
nor was Ludwig Von Beethoven. Geniuses of various ilks and stripes are properly judged *by their area of genius - not by the number of "likes" on their Social Media pages.
It may surprise some people to know that geniuses often have neither the *time nor the temperament to *care what the general masses think of them.
Articles (and books) such as these simply trade upon titillating schadenfreude - offering those who cannot *hope to understand the *output of various geniuses to judge them on the basis of whether or not the masses would have liked to "have a beer" with them.
Non seqitur.
3
@Nominae
Except that in this case, it seems you may be judging "genius" by number of dollars. Why is that?
A person's child is not part of the general mass of mankind, or a drinking buddy, so that part of your comment is baffling.
9
@Nominae Time magazine would disagree with you. In the mid 80's after conducting interviews with jobs, his friends and associates they decided against naming him man of the year
3
@Nominae You haven't read her book yet I presume. I haven't either, but it doesn't sound from this article like it "simply" trades upon titillating schadenfreude, although I'm sure there will be people who will buy it for that reason. If the article is any indication, the book seems to explore much deeper ideas about the parent-child relationship that many people grapple with in their own lives, especially as they get older and have their own children. This comment section alone has garnered hundreds of comments, many of them very thought-provoking.
2
I don’t know what is more heartbreaking. That this even happened to a child or that she thinks it was ok
30
Gosh. She sure makes herself out as an opportunistic victim. The whole thing seems like more grist for the Steve Jobs voyeurism mill. I don't feel enlightened at all, just sort of sad and a little grubby.
3
Pot meet kettle. Jobs may be graceless but his daughter seems no better.
3
Well, whatever we end up thinking about Steve Jobs, one thing is clear: Nellie Bowles knows how to write. First class job.
7
This comment is for Lisa: when I opened this article and saw your picture, my first reaction was “pretty.”
10
Only a child can really forgive a parent who has abused them so deeply. Mr. Jobs' behavior was awesome in its cruelty. And it's similar to many stories from the past - in eras where the 'inner life of the child' was a novel idea. Those who amass great power and wealth - who end up hearing 'yes' almost uniformly, still frequently develop toxic fears that even their children will ruin them in some way. Some children are over-indulged as a way to enslave them. Those who are rejected suffer compounded hurts in a way that few can understand.
I applaud Ms. Brennan-Jobs for writing the book and working on forgiveness. She is owed the right to claim the story and tell it, and owed the right to find a way to love the memory of her severely flawed and brilliant father.
I also commend Nellie Bowles for her compassionate story. The straight-forward telling of it, the acceptance of Ms. Brennan-Jobs' statements, without the need to psycho-analyze shows great maturity. So often, there seems to be a need for writers to point out that THEY certainly don't see their subjects as normal - especially those who make unpopular decisions. And for some reason, forgiving a terrible parent is unpopular in this modern world.
6
It is no secret that Steve Jobs has aspberger’s syndrome, which is a form of autism. This is so central to the story, I don’t know why it is not mentioned. His lack of social and communication skills, resulting obnoxious to cruel behavior is hurtful to read.
9
Does Trump have Asperger’s too?
It’s an insult to individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD’s) to equate their illnesses with the behavior of people like Jobs.
Have you ever met anyone with Asperger’s outside the tech industry?
I have & they don’t resemble Jobs in the least.
Asperger’s/Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) do not typically lead people act abusively, especially not routinely & with clear malice. Narcissistic personality disorder/sociopathic traits do.
It has become all the rage for tech jerks & their fans to claim they have ASD.
Sadly, It’s a diagnosis anyone with the right doctor, who says the right things & acts the right way can obtain.
That is no different that the vast majority of mental illnesses which are generally diagnosed on the basis of subjective complaints with a dose of observed behavior thrown in.
This is not to say that many people that carry a diagnosis of mental illness have faked it or purchased it.
However, I can guarantee you that individuals that wish to obtain performance-enhancing & addicting stimulant drugs for Attention Deficit Disorder can easily obtain a diagnosis of ADD from certain docs that are happy to give the diagnosis out without much scrutiny
They & their biggest fans now have a “mental illness” excuse for their horrific behavior.
Please educate yourself on ASDs. Try reading about Temple Grandin, an amazing human being.
8
It is not unusual that when a person is so brilliant in one area, they are lacking in another. You see it throughout history. Einstein, Churchill, etc.
3
Mr. Jobs is not entitled to be forgiven, and Ms. Brennan-Jobs doesn't have to forgive him if she doesn't want to. For those of you who are complaining that her claim of forgiveness isn't exactly truthful, perhaps you should attempt to understand that trauma victims will claim to forgive their abusers in order to heal themselves. She is trying to rationalize her trauma, and I completely understand.
9
I know several men who have achieved fame due to their achievements in technology and other industries. They are all intelligent, funny and sentimental, mercurial, selfish and socially dysfunctional, in degrees that vary by the day and the vagaries of being human. They are all also fathers, with varying degrees of success. The good comes with the bad. This is not an excuse. It just is.
3
Actually, it kinda sounds like an excuse.
4
I hope this book was cathartic for Lisa, and she can finally find peace in putting all her childhood pain and traumas related to their relationship to rest. Clearly at a personal level he was deeply flawed, and basically a huge jerk on a monumental scale, but that does not diminish his brilliance or commercial success - and vice versa.
6
I realized he was an eccentric, egotistical jerk after reading Walter Isaacson's book, "Steve Jobs". What's amazing is the fact that he couldn't write a line of code, didn't understand the technology that powered his devices, but yet he had a vision and somehow got others to bring that vision to fruition. It's something I've never understood, and I've never seen it fleshed out in the various books and stories that have been written about him.
10
Clearly this book was written out of love and not money #sarcasm
4
Look in the mirror. Who are we to judge another?
1
I'll never forgive Steve Jobs for destroying Final Cut Pro 7, a video editing platform depended on for their livelihood by hundreds of thousands of editors and video producers.
12
Very true. Final Cut Pro X was an unmitigated disaster.
2
Ms Brennan-Jobs .
Take the money and run. Do NOT look back any longer. There is nothing of value there for you. You are still young enough to make a life for YOURSELF. Good luck !
18
As much as I am sure this will be on the bestseller list, I won't read it. I am terribly tired of hearing and reading about monied narcissistic men. But I wish her all the best of luck. All she ever wanted was his love. His money, and money from her story, will never replace that sorrow.
8
On the one hand, I never much cared for memoirs, most of which have always struck me as whiny. But I read the excerpt of this one in Vanity Fair and I didn't come away with that impression at all; rather, I was sad that Lisa Brennan-Jobs had to go through what she did and stunned to learn the extent to which the late Steve Jobs was apparently a manipulative jerk. (I recall reading somewhere that, as a young child, Jobs was so very difficult that his mother actually wondered if she had made a mistake in adopting him.) Given the fact that Jobs contributed so much to our modern culture, I'm glad his daughter wrote this. He sounded like an insensitive, disconnected, terrible parent and, while a lot of people have those, not everyone has a terrible parent whose creations have reshaped the world. There is no reason to lionize this man as perfect when he clearly wasn't. Was he intelligent? Yes, absolutely, but apparently not intelligent enough or empathetic enough when it mattered, or simply with it enough to understand that when you don't have something nice to say, you don't say anything at all. Reading Ms. Brennan-Jobs' story made me even more grateful than I already am for my parents. I won a lottery in a cosmic game I didn't even know I was playing.
I'm sorry if her version of her father doesn't square up with what her stepmother, siblings, and aunt experienced, but it's her version and that doesn't mean it's incorrect. Truth is, at the end of the day, always truth.
19
It may be that Lisa Brennan-Jobs needs to absolve Steve Jobs for his wanton irresponsibility and cruelty in order to, as the story says, "reclaim her own story." Forgiveness is nearly always as much about the grantor as the forgiven, and we should her admire her for doing so.
The rest of us have nothing to forgive in this scenario, but we should not hesitate to bear witness - where we actually know something - to the jerks and psychopaths among us who perpetrate these kind of outrages on their children, spouses, employees and others. Jobs was, as those of us who crossed paths with his organizational wake well know, jerks or psychopaths. He's dead, so there is nothing to do now with that fact, other than call out the one's who remain with us.
3
"Mr. Jobs left his daughter an inheritance in the millions — the same amount as his other children". Not really, as the other children will benefit from the billions left to their mother.
29
Even the small amount of the History of Jobs that I've read makes me sick. He may have been a business genius, but he was a failure as a man and a father.
22
I have placed my order for a Kindle edition. The Jobs family who are denying the accuracy of the book inadvertently confirms Ms. Brennan-Jobs account of the horrendous, degrading, abuse by Jobs. If the surviving family had a morsel of decency it would collectively refuse to comment or else suggest that the author's experiences are her own to tell without reinterpretation by them, all of whom who have a vested interest in whitewashing Jobs tainted reputation.
It is clear that Jobs had a serious psychological disorder that rendered him toxic to his daughter. But we knew that before she wrote her book.
I do not believe that she loves him. And I also doubt that she has come to terms with, healed, and matured beyond the damage inflicted upon her by that ugly, ugly, man
17
An idol. Unfortunately a false one.
7
A rejected child was looking for acknowledgment, acceptance, love and guidance and Steve the Superior gives a lecture about the existence of God. Sorry, but that’s just cruel
5
The issue of whether or not to forgive Steve Jobs for his behavior as a parent is none of my business.
4
It took me my entire life to forgive my own father. But I never felt required to love him or to expect that anyone else should.
I simply forgave him.
No one knows what really goes on in the most intimate relationships. People have an obligation to try to be happy.
I hope that Ms. Brennan Jobs has accomplished what she wanted but it feels a bit too much to expect that the rest of us ought to accede or even that we were asked along on the trip.
4
Unfortunately, sometimes hugely public figures and people we otherwise admire are lousy fathers to some of their children. E.g., John Lennon with Julian, Steve Jobs with Lisa. Often their behavior can seem inexplicable to most of us. I hope Jobs' widow and children can accept what happened to Lisa and her writing about it. It's just as true as all of the "good times" they prefer to remember.
7
Sheesh. If she doesn't want to associate with him, then don't use his name.
I don't see anything that I and many of my friends who grew up with 1950s parents heard. Many of us were beaten with belts or wooden spoons. Many of us were put down. Many of us were told to lie to others about "family secrets" - sometimes as innocuous as whether we had our carpets cleaned or had a cleaning person.
I just don't see any crime that he committed. I suppose kudos for her being a victim of circumstance and cashing in on it.
My one son has hygiene issues, and his family does tell him "you smell" and he does not believe us. The best thing your family can do for you is to be honest to you.
3
@RH Just because your childhood experiences normalized cruelty doesn't mean emotional crimes weren't committed. If you grew up in a family where your father demanded you witness his sexual arousal, or a family where neighbors paid for your college, or a family where regardless of DNA proof, your father denied paternity, or a family where your father insisted you don't see or speak to your mother for six months to encourage other loyalties, I guarantee that you're a victim of intimate violence. Even with "standards" being different in the 1950s, you would have stood out. If you want to one-up me and claim things could've been worse for you or Lisa, I'll have to admit you're right … but so what? How far low does one have to sink?
3
I feel both compassion and joy for Lisa as her memoir is released. Beyond making her truth known and emphasizing the importance of her narrative, my sincere hope is that Lisa’s memoir humanizes Steve Jobs and moves his more zealous admirers from worshipers to objective students of his leadership style.
3
"There is no limit to suffering human beings have been willing to inflict on others, no matter how innocent, no matter how young, and no matter how old. This fact must lead all reasonable human beings, that is, all human beings who take evidence seriously, to draw only one possible conclusion: Human nature is not basically good."
Dennis Prager
6
Gonna buy it today!
"We're cold people...", said the wife. And those were the torch bearers of the company that brings loving, caring, nurturing, harmony and joy. The great Lao Tzu probably rolled his eyes on that one.
No one is perfect, that’s for sure, and no one gets to bring the money with them when they die.
7
the mother is neglectful and Steve jobs is truthful?
it is clear from this that he committed child abuse.
17
Jobs was a jerk and he created a cult, much like Hubbard did.
19
Ms. Brennan-Jobs: an injured child.
'She said she now sees it was about teaching her that money can corrupt.' - So Mr. Jobs had no qualms corrupting his other children by giving them money? A bad father.
He must really have loved Lisa and hated the others.
10
The relationship among these family members is not something that I should know about. It's too personal.
The writing of it must have been cathartic for the author, and useful for therapy discussion if more clarification/understanding were needed. I fear this exposé will affect the future relationship of Lisa Brennan-Jobs to living members of her father's family. There might not be a Thanksgiving invitation.
1
I’m sorry that “personal” stories are something you feel you should not know about.
In the end, that’s really what it’s all about. People, struggling to get by, coming to terms with their failures & successes by telling & owning their stories.
Learning about the true, humanely written/told stories of others makes our lives all the richer.
2
I hope immersion in technology is not going to denude the humanity in the rest of us.
8
Beyond liking Apple products, I have little interest in Steve Jobs. I was interested in reading Mrs. Brennan-Jobs account, since seeing Aaron Sorkin's biopic on Mr. Jobs. It is about time we let go of the excuse that someone is brilliant to condone abuse. Saying this book is timely because this is time of hearing story from the marginalized misses the point. Abuse marginalizes talented people that can be brilliant in their own right. Empowering goes beyond given them a voice to express grievances, it should be accompany by ACTUAL job opportunities. Stop promoting narcissists, create a better work dynamic which promotes effective managers. It is complex, I know, but it is possible. Newspapers can do their part by promoting a better debate on management styles, presenting research that shows how non-toxic work places are more efficient in the long run. The people that have the money set the rules, and those people have been traditionally white men with narcissistic traits that get all sorts of tax benefits. We need a better culture.
26
Forgiveness is a constant effort. Just as some years ago. Mrs. Brennan-Jobs did not think she would write a book, in a few years she may uncover new ways she was damaged by her abusive father and see why readers have such a hard time "forgiving" her father. Ultimately it is not about forgiveness. Forgiveness does not absolve the infractor from justice. While no one is called to judge Mr. Jobs, we can and must condemn his behavior. We must also call a spade by its name. In this case, the behavior is cruel and detached, close to being sociopathic. I have sympathy for Mrs. Brennan-Jobs. I care much more to read about her story than about Steve Jobs. However, I will not read the book. It is too painful to read how she makes excuses for her father.
9
As a society, we identify people who have extraordinary talents and expect them to be our heroes, and then are disappointed when they don't live up to our overblown expectations. Athletes, performing artists, politicians, tech geniuses demonstrate their talents in a particular domain, but it should not surprise us that they are less than perfect people in their private lives. Steve Jobs was an extraordinary man whose inventions and vision reshaped our world. That he was an imperfect father and his character did not meet our mold of "hero" are beside the point.
1
Denial is a wonderful form of psychological self-protection. But Ms. Brennan-Jobs does an injustice to herself and potential readers in asking us to accept abuse as love. I won't be reading the book because I had enough abuse as a child; I don't need to read about more in another family.
8
"Forgive" Steve Jobs? What an odd word to use. Has he wounded any of those -- aside from his daughter -- who will read this article? I expect not. "If Steve Jobs' Daughter Forgives Him, Must We Approve of His Behaviour?", perhaps.
4
Part of a creators soul is in their work. It’s evident that the electronic age, driven by and modled after Steve Jobs expresses the deep flaws and fractured values of its creators. The ghost is so obviously in the machine.
5
It sounds like she needs, for herself, to feel like there was enough good about him and his treatment of her to offset the bad. But frankly, in the excerpts, he still comes across as a selfish, egotistical, callous person, probably not because of any failure of her writing, but because people with distance can add up the evidence without their mental arithmetic being skewed by a self-definitional need to insist that it sums up to a positive result. Perhaps, years from now, she'll allow herself to admit that he wasn't trying to convey or instill any consistent set of philosophical values. Perhaps she'll be able admit he was just generally being cruddy to her (and others), except when it served his whim.
As for people without true personal connections to him, already, with passed time, the defenses made for him by fans seem to be fading a bit, as people move on with their celebrity worship to living idols. There's a tendency to over-analyze the misbehavior of the famous, as if they exist on some other plane. People often try to connect every quirk/negative to genius,neglecting to reflect on the fact that there are many decent, well-adjusted geniuses. (Note: Being on the spectrum—as at least one other comment submitter suggested—would not be an adequate explanation for his conduct.) One can be successful and still be a jerk. Unsuccessful jerks just tend to inspire fewer people to mentally contort themselves to provide rationalizations for their selfish and cruel behavior.
8
The description of Steve Jobs here makes me wonder why a legendary humanist like Joan Baez was willing to date him in the 1980s.
3
I'm not saying Ms. Brennan-Jobs isn't telling the truth, but the whole, "She hates to write about celebrities" (yet she does), and "She hates to use her father's name to get into college" (yet she does), and she hates to recount her father's bizarre, spiteful treatment of her (yet she does) a bit tiresome.
Just say it. Just write it without telling me how much you hate to vilify a man while you vilify him. It detracts from the honesty of it.
5
Recounting real experiences isn't vilification. Let the chips fall where they may.
The sexual abuse (and it was) is particularly disturbing.
Many sociopaths are successful. If he were poor, would that make a difference?
6
Many great people are also terrible people. As they journey forth, they leave a wake of despair.
3
Steve Jobs was a genius. He was an extraordinary innovator (not inventor), entrepreneur, technologist (with no technical education) and leader. He was a hyper detail-oriented perfectionist; ruthless mean-spirited hyper driven dictator; he copied ideas from other companies but became enraged when others copied from him; he rarely admitted his faults publicly; he was a marketing spin machine. He had failures: Apple III, Lisa (named for daughter?), Pixar as hardware company, NeXT, G4 Cube. He got fired from Apple, the company he co-founded. But when the returned to Apple, he transformed desktops & laptops - iMac, MacBook, MacOS; the music industry & consumer electronics - iPod, iTunes; tablets - iPad; phone & mobile computing & software - iPhone, iOS, Apps; helped lead Pixar to animation greatness. Any one of those successes is extraordinary. He transformed the world (for better/worse). He deserves to be admired.
Yet many of the same traits that made him a genius and so extraordinarily successful, also made him a horrible human being. The hyper drive, ambition, focus/vision, ego, self-confidence, lack of accountability, ruthlessness - that made leader of the most valuable company on the planet also made him, in many ways (but not all), a horrible father to his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs. Her perspective of Steve Jobs is an important one. Jobs became a Silicon Valley icon and god, but he should not be worshipped. He was an extraordinary person, but also very much a flawed human.
5
Um, yeah, many sociopaths become leaders.
Look around.
14
What she describes, quite simply, is abuse. Sexual behavior/simulation/groaning, he ordered her to stay and watch, is more than "disturbing", it is abuse. Those of us who care for children know you do not order them to sit down and watch their parents be intimate. Control, belittling, - showing her she has no worth or right to protection and comfort.
Terrible and cruel.
24
@Maria--Yes, and apparently the widow of Steve Jobs was okay with all this. At the very least, her response that she saw things differently, and that her husband's reputation is harmed by this book, is disingenuous and frankly nauseating.
8
A brief history of a non-family. And, Ms Lisa, please never again cover your mirrors with paper because you look beautiful.
6
Why do we care about how to evaluate Steve Jobs morally? Cult of the rich and famous much?
Steve Jobs, knowingly dying from kidney disease puts himself on multiple donor site. He selfishly takes a kidney from someone who could have lived for decades more so he could live a couple nore.
If it was your relative who lost that chance due to his selfishness, you would not be praising the man.
14
You've just given me yet another reason to despise him.
3
Mr. Jobs was a narcissist who developed products that fueled narcissism and isolation. It is on that account he should not be forgiven.
22
Great profile.
2
Isn't this really about our -- yes, our -- compulsion to keep building celebrities up into godliness and then to tear them down? Isn't it possible that a person in the limelight was never as great or as terrible as we make him seem?
What’s to forgive? I didn’t know the guy. Did you?
6
This guy was a cosmic sized creep and yet people continue to lionize him. I never did get it. It is like the old fascination with Mafia goons. They are criminals and murderers. That's it.
16
This was incredibly well written but it made me sad for Lisa Brennan-Jobs. I couldn't help but wonder when I read through some of the accounts described here whether she really got over the need to have her father's approval and that's why she thinks him telling her she stinks like a toilet is ok.
In my eyes, it doesn't matter if you want to call it "honesty" or "to instill a value system" or any of the ways she tries to make her father's words seem better (to herself or to us?) but at the end of the day, they're mean words spoken with the explicit intent to hurt. They're not evidence that he was a socially awkward person--as she says himself, he was a very detailed, precise individual and everything he did was calculated. He was mean spirited--as evidenced in both and other memoirs--and that's all there is to it.
13
Reading this reminded me of Ezra Pound: a fascist, a traitor, and rabid anti-semite during the Second World War. Also a great poet.
He wound up in the psychiatric ward at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C.,
4
Et tu, Lisa?
2
I never thought much of Jobs - seemed like such a fake in all regards. Trying so hard and not nearly hard enough. Now I know I was right. And she, pathetically licking up his crumbs and always laboring to interpret his horrendous behavior in the most generous way. At least he gave her an equal inheritance after shortchanging her her entire life - it really makes up for nothing - and neither did his weak apology. No, not even human.
6
This might source a somewhat interesting sidebar for the Steve Wozniak story.
3
The ultimate computer nerd, who didn't know how to be a human being.
8
I was part of the tech world throughout my career. Steves Jobs was well known as a thief of other’s ideas. In the creative world, this is the greatest sin. Meanwhile, he was also brutal bully. Lisa‘s story is a tragedy that rings true.
16
Ms. Brennan-Jobs, like other children, is trying to come to terms with her difficult father. That's her business, and if she's reached some kind of peace and acceptance of him, that's her business, too. Meanwhile, what do I have to forgive him for? I didn't know him, or have anything to do with him. He's just a guy whose name I recognized when I saw it in the paper, and he did something with Apple computers, which I have never used. I find the ego and arrogance of people like Ms. Brennan-Jobs odd and a little disturbing. Why she assumes that her relationship with her father interests anyone but her and possibly her family is baffling.
3
We (the public) don't have to forgive Steve Jobs. But, we can judge him. As a man: repulsive. As an entrepreneur: genius.
8
There are plenty of examples of successful people who treated people around them horribly. In my own experience abused family members often want to make excuses for an abusive spouse or parent because they want the money or want to rewrite their history to better come to terms with it. There is no excuse for Jobs’ behavior toward Lisa. It is not for us to forgive. I use Apple products because they are reliable and make my life easier, not because I think Jobs was a nice guy. He was charitably a jerk. His employees invented his products. As the Woz told Jobs in the Sorkin movie, he didn’t invent anything. He just took credit for others work and didn’t recognize them for their accomplishments. Just another example of his jerkiness. He will over time become another grain of sand on the beach. 100 years from now, no one will remember his name and Apple probably won’t even exist.
6
I read this a few days ago and I am still saddened by her family's statement of denial. It's as if Lisa Brennan-Jobs can never be legitimate. Her experiences still have to pass her families' muster to be real. She is a small fry; she is allowed only to be partial person, not a whole. What a complicated fate...
8
@H. G. Ms. Brennan-Jobs can only feel like a partial person if she gives others permission to make her feel that way, if she allows others to make her feel like a small fry. She is as legitimate as she allows herself to be. Her sense of wholeness must come from within. No one, no matter the life he or she has been born into or walked-difficult, tragic, or triumphant-can rely on others for their sense of wholeness, their happiness, or their legitimacy. It is up to Ms. Brennan-Jobs to make her own fate.
1
This is a memoir -- not a court document, an Apple shareholder report, a scorecard for Steve, or a wikipedia post.
4
The title of the article is absurd. He did nothing to cause me or hundreds of millions of others any offense. How does one forgive or not forgive another of a non-existent offense? And, why does it even matter?
5
All Steve Jobs really did was making computers and cell phones prettier and convince people to pay a lot of money for them. Nothing really visionary or original about that. Also, he was an awful human being.
19
How many uber successful people ignore/mistreat family and friends to get to the top? I would suspect a large majority. I would imagine most of these individuals are selfish to the core - their time, focus and attention has to be on themselves and what they are trying to accomplish, without interference. I feel sorry for Lisa Brennan-Jobs but not interested in reading her story.
1
Now I have to read the book.
1
Having observed the Berkeley-Palo Alto-SF hippie counterculture lifestyle at the time there’s really nothing unusual about this memoir other than Lisa’s famous dad. You would witness these scenes hundreds of times among friends, families and neighbors. It was contextual with a melting of classes and cultures. This was the time of the infamous “fire in the valley” when every sort of artistic and engineering creativity was in bloom racing along with breaking social mores, familial failures and outright craziness. Seems to happen every few generations.
50
@macbloom this hippy freak culture is what has given us Silicon Valley today.. the communal living... what is clear from this is how off this guy was..,. and he reference the NYT makes to wealth creation is a little unclear
the law on child support at this time non existent... so he had to be sued to pay child support ... and this hyper tech guy couldn't wear a condom and insisted the kid was not his... complete freak show,deservs to be called out.. these people are dangerous .. if Steve Jobs were a different color or a woman he would have been arrested for child abuse .
7
@interesting
...arrested for child abuse? Perhaps you’re referring to the controversies that swirled around the plethora of child sex divorce allegations and recovered memories witchcraft of the 1980s. Yep. There was all kinds of hysteria loose on the land.
Anyone who was raised by deeply flawed parents understands what Ms. Brennan-Jobs is communicating through her memoir. She had a choice to make, and she chose to let go of the pain and hurt her father (and mother, stepmother, etc.) caused, and to hold onto the love. Ms. Brennan-Jobs is a shining example of how to approach our childhood scars -- do not hide them, dismiss them, or minimize them, but do not let them define you. Bravo to this wonderful, brave woman.
7
Steve Jobs, as described in this article was afraid of the wealth and yet consumed by it. Not like Trump who relishes every penny.
1
It is incredible. A man who innately knew what others need and want and will design products to meet those needs, but did not think it worth his time to give the same effort to his offspring. In his last days, he must know he is leaving a financial behemoth run by outsiders, giving livelihoods to millions of outsiders, making products that are enjoyed by millions of outsiders, and all the while his firstborn struggled to see love in his deliberate indifference. I had thought he must be a good father at home, where his children feel a great sense of security, loved and guided by a father of wisdom.
5
Words can make cuts that never heal. We want to respond eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but that still provides no healing.
Only when we can return good for evil do we rise above, free at last.
2
I admire Lisa for her honesty and the attempt to reconcile the hideous actions of her father and I am glad she feels better about it now. I have never been a Steve Jobs fan. Yes, he was a visionary but in the process, did he really enhance the lives of other people?I submit that the technology we have is as detrimental to our lives as anything during my 81 years. When all pluses and minuses are totaled at some future time, we will truly find what the toll was.
Even if he turns out to be he was as great as he has been projected,he is still a cold uncaring parent . That said, this is the most telling story of Steve Jobs.
2
Ironically perhaps the traumas served to fuel the writing and development of a talented, sensitive woman and writer. We women don't have to make it "okay" though for those adults inflicting traumatic experiences. Surely Steve Jobs had many issues as an adopted child and immature young father, no matter his eventual professional success, and clearly there was a split within himself. Glad he at least apologized before he died.
It seems individuals that have been wildly successful at technological innovations are abysmal failures at basic human interaction, and don't give a wit about the working conditions or corporate cultures of their enterprises, be it Jobs, Mark Zuckerburg, Jeff Bezos, Google, etc.
Imagine if these "geniuses" had devoted as much energy to designing a corporate culture and cultivating values of respect, dignity, compensation reflective of hard work and dedication, safe and healthy work environments, basic benefits, etc. as they did to maximizing stockholder value. Then they would be worthy of the public's admiration. No, instead they have returned us to the horrific exploitation of the Robber Barons.
Or if these same individuals honored their costumers, seeking to provide them with products of excellence that did not compromise their privacy, their values, and did not require the extreme exploitation of domestic and global work forces. ushering in the delayed apparition of Big Brother.
Yes. a much, much greater but nobler challenge than traveling to Mars.
And so much of all of this "innovation" is dedicated to non stop consumerism and information gathering at the behest of global corporate and government interests.
The absence of American social consciousness and the protest that have accompanied past collective civil dissent is disturbing. The social cost is incalculable. Trump is the inevitable result.
It is amazing that Lisa has survived and thrived.
4
@Arizona
Most corporate cultures arise by default. There is almost never enough time and money to consider the long term. So many of our post-war civilian institutions were a reflection of the military during World War 2. For most young men serving as teenagers, it was the only instance of an institution they had ever known, so it was all they could emulate. For many now, it is high school (think "Heathers") that is the imprinting institution, and we are seeing the abysmal results in our social relations.
3
@TJM What a thought provoking post! It is indeed a high school mentality that seems to set so many people's social skills-- or lack of them--that they carry into the workplace and adult communities.
Love the public persona of Steve Jobs and have enormous respect for him. That said, it sounds like he was an absolutely horrible father. And I agree with her about the family’s $21 billion fortune. Even on a epic scale it’s at least $20 billion more than any family needs. What exactly is being done with that money to help others? Anything?
2
For what exactly would any reader be forgiving Steve Jobs? What, in raising his daughter, did he do to us? The question reflects badly on the culture from which it arises because it shows us to be a nation of busy bodies minding everyone else's business and not our own. Anyone asking or answering this question believes in the right of strangers to regulate the lives of others. Think abortion.
2
Having been poorly raised by a mother with borderline personality disorder, (her multiple psychiatrists conclusions, not just mine), I have a particular perspective. My view is that it is impossible to judge a child’s forgiving or not forgiving awful parenting or the depredations that result.
Personally, I express understanding of my Mother’s behavior, (“she came by it honestly”, “she didn’t have the tools or understanding to control herself”, etc.) and condemnation, (“she was smart enough to know what she was doing”, “we were all just objects in her world”, “since she could be warm and nice at times, why didn’t she choose to be that person even just more often”). I can claim no objective viewpoint and my reporting for others to examine and judge is totally skewed by my being a reactant in the process, rather than any kind of independent observer.
Kids do what they feel they need to do to survive. In both my childhood and my adulthood, my responses and perceptions were and are what I feel and felt at the time I needed to do. Characterizing those things as the demands of survival is not an over dramatization, even though I shake my head at myself and chuckle for saying so.
We all need to recognize the deep truth of physics and life that Einstein pointed out, i.e. “there are no privileged frames of reference.”
120
@Ralph Hirsch It is weird though to call out he mother as neglectful in the context of Jobs behavior.. the article mentions countless examples of Jobs abuse.. what its he proof the mother was neglectful? only in the u.s. at this time can a man read this and be like wow Steve jobs first wife was xyz. it is a book about the trueSteve Jobs and what a freak this culture and legacy he is part of - how off it is for a successful society.
3
@Ralph Hirsch
Truly awesome contribution, Ralph. It appears you didn’t simply survive. You have grown into your own person.
Is it possible that the skill set and actions involved in making
billions of dollars runs counter to being and behaving like a sensitive, considerate, loving human being?
5
I know Jobs was the son of an immigrant from the middle east, but was adopted out to a middle class family...and he absorbed their culture. It continues to be a mystery to me why Anglo-Saxon-White-Culture in America (yes Virginia, there is a Euro-American culture-- we are cold people) remains such a mystery, even as we plumb the depths of every other culture that is present that we can think of. While we steadfastly maintain that white people in America don't have a culture. This is not meant to be racist. It's just fact.
1
@Michele Underhill I don't know why you're blaming his step-parents. Have you read Walter Isaacson's biography or anything about the adoptive family? In fact, they seemed warm and supportive people: the stepdad worked hard to afford a house right on the border of a better school district so that Jobs could go to a better school. If I recall, Steve as close to his stepmom.
Please, I am not white but I would not presume any family is warm or cold dependent just on their culture. It really depends on the family.
5
Unfortunately the story of Lisa’s abuse is not over because she is about to be verbally savaged again, this time by dozens (hundreds?) of Apple fanatics trolling on Twitter. I guess we have another tech luminary to thank for that.
13
@Kevin P.
My suspicion is that there a lot of people posting here who have stock in Apple and are running interference for the brand. After all, why have sympathy for a mere human when there's so much 401k money at stake?
5
It appears to me that Steve Jobs was on the autism spectrum and never got treatment. I think it would help his daughter to know this.
14
Sounds like a typical tech billionaire to me.
4
As a 40-year-old, Lisa is still taking the blame for her parents' inept and cruel behavior; she still criticizes herself in the way they probably would; tries to reframe their abuse as some personality difference. I hope she has gotten a lot of help, and is able to come to the conclusion that none of this was her fault, and that she lives a contented life. What a terrible legacy to live down. No matter how famous or talented her father was in business, he was a monster as a parent, and she has that imprinted on her for life.
458
@Mary Cosgrove
Thanks for the recommendation! Our family admired Harold Ramos and his wonderful works and I look forward to reading of his kindness as a dad!
1
Are all extremely wealthy people awful or is it just the ones I happen to read about? Did we mistakenly create a system that obscenely rewards people who behave this way, or does our tendency toward elevating people like this run as deeply as our DNA? It feels like there is a pattern here.
257
@X Many creative geniuses who are not particularly rich also have a reputation as not-nice people. Take Mozart, for example.
@X When wealthy people perform acts of unbelievable kindness and things it's 'just what they're supposed to do' but when they mess up, the whole world lines up to watch.
My experience is that for people with tremendous amounts of success, we tend to lock in on their shortcomings and leave out plenty of the good, because of their status in the world. Just my thoughts.
@X Wealth has nothing to do with it and Steve Jobs did not take on a different personality because he became wealthy. His insane focus on what he wanted to accomplish and build was part of his personality.
Should we judge Steve differently because he invented Apple? Had he been a "normal" person and acted like any other human that the rest of us think - Apple would never have existed.
This makes me glad I stopped using Apple products a long time ago. What a total jerk! He was able to 'gain the whole world,' but apparently never had much of a soul to lose.
6
I am glad that Lisa has come out the other side and has a loving family of her own. She was brave to share her story and I regret that she feels responsible for how people will now view her father. She is not alone. Each family is a fiefdom, and too many have too many elements of abuse. We have to speak our truth and let the chips fall where they may. I hope Lisa feels unburdened and wish her a lifetime of peace, contentment, and self-love.
6
Sounds like her mother was the glue that held things together through thick and thin. Dichotomous dads are a topic that is worthy of a book. The IPhone was his last offspring he craved credit for.
3
There is this peculiar relationship between the image of the successful but cruel Capitalist and the mess it creates for the family of such individuals. It goes something like this: he or she built and raging empire but barrel bombed the home front.
The difficulty with assuming correlation is causation is difficult to avoid when the data seems so consistent. Success in business can carry a heavy family toll. We rarely hear of instances where is doesn't.
2
"Ms. Brennan-Jobs said she was nervous about how she would be described physically in a profile, and so I asked her to use her own words. “'My face is uneven,” she said. “I have small eyes. I wish I had dimples, but I don’t. I think right now I look jowly.'”
This self evaluation astounded me. The first thing one sees in the article is her picture. My first thought was "she's so beautiful." Her eyes are not "small" but beautiful and compelling, as is the rest of her. If she doesn't know how beautiful she is, I would hope that she comes to recognize it.
I'm a woman, by the way, raised in a household of emotional abuse and neglect. I was 45 before I began to recognize that I had spent a lifetime undervaluing myself physically and intellectually as a result of constant parental put downs. But that can change with a few good friends and good therapy.
10
I found the title of this article bizarre. Who are we to "forgive him"? This is between Steve Jobs, his daughter, and anyone else that had a direct personal relationship with him. We, as a society, love to put people on pedestals so we can then spend time knocking them off. Having worked in a technical field for over four decades, I have found that many people that have high levels of technical skill lack social grace. They either spent too much time as children honing their technical skills to the detriment of developing social skills, or had no social skills so they retreated to technology to hide. Either way, they are brilliant technologists and socially awkward. From all reports, Edison, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, among others, also fall into this category. They advance society through their intellect and achievements, but that doesn't make them nice people that you would want to socialize with or have as a parent. While we are using the fruits of their labors, it is extremely hypocritical to stand as judge and jury over personal lives and character flaws that never touched us.
8
@Rich "While we are using the fruits of their labors, it is extremely hypocritical to stand as judge and jury over personal lives and character flaws that never touched us." .... I see your point ... but I always think of something I read that Jackie Kennedy said - if you fail with your children, you haven't really succeeded at anything. (words to that effect)
1
@AG Did he truly fail with his child? She seems to be a highly functioning member of society with an altruistic streak. Those are certainly positive attributes. While he is certainly not a poster child for "Father of the Year" and she may have achieved that in spite of him, he did not leave her in a position where she failed which is more than can be said for many parents. Being a parent is one of the hardest jobs in the world and no one is perfect at it, especially when it is unplanned, the parents are young, and the financial resources aren't available. If he weren't Steve Jobs, no one would look at his successful daughter and criticize his parenting. It makes people feel better to knock the powerful off of the pedestal that they shouldn't have been placed on initially.
Reads like a very fair review,well done, and i will buy this book!
3
Steve Jobs seems to display many of the same lack of empathy, tyrannical, mercurial, and narcissism that many genius’s of fame appear to display. No surprise here.
However, what she describes resonates, as many parents treat their children in ways that are abhorrent. Her story did not phase me at all, it’s the plot we see in popular film and TV movies over and over again. I am glad she seems reconciled.
4
I have no right to argue with how a man's daughter thinks about him whom I've never met. But it is fascinating to find (again) how a human being can be so multifaceted--kind, mean, loving, and neglectful--and his/her family learn to cope and navigate.
In a world of Twitter where celebrities like to show off whatever they do and get judged on the spot, this is a refreshing look at what real humans can be, bad or good.
5
Parents, please stop telling your children they are geniuses. For even if they happen to be of high intelligence, there are more important aspects to being a good human - developing compassion and kindness towards others (our children, most of all), chief among them.
9
Readers are in no position to forgive Mr. Jobs. If even a few of the incidents are true, it’s hard to understand how his daughter can but that is her choice. As to those of us who “knew” him as the CEO of Apple, I for one had no illusions. No one ever said no to him once he was obscenely wealthy. As a result, he seems to have behaved as he wanted to toward everyone one. His late night contrition, if it happened, would be too little to late but that is between Mr. jobs and god or the universe. As for me, I’m glad he wasnt my father!
6
Reading about how she bends over backwards to defend her father's unnecessary and abnormal cruelty and coldness helped me see how I was doing the same thing in a romantic relationship with a malignant narcissist.
And yes, I did actually learn things from that person but I could never make sense of the mean spirited intent behind the criticism.
It almost destroyed me and I'm a pretty confident woman in my 40's.
Being the target of such a person as a child must have been unimaginably hard.
I compliment the author on her strength and wish her all the best in her journey.
A beautiful soul is worth so much more than a bag of gadgets!
I'm happy to live at a time where not only the bullies of this world have a voice!
8
Steve Jobs was an incredibly gifted and talented man — a true genius — who contributed so much to the world and forever changed the trajectory of human history. He was, however, sometimes intolerably difficult to work for and with. He could be downright abusive in his dealings with others, and as we have seen from this review of his daughter’s book, destructive to the psychological development of a young child and teenager.
Ms. Brennan-Jobs, to my way of thinking, is too easily willing to explain away his wholly inexcusable, gratuitous, demeaning verbal behaviour. One wonders if the rejection by his own birth parents in being immediately put up for adoption by his unwed mother contributed to his inability to be even financially, much less emotionally supportive of his first-born child. Steve Jobs was an unquestionably brilliant but complicated man who deserves both praise and condemnation.
8
I have not read the book. But if it is as described in the review, there was a lot going on beneath the surface of Ms. Brennan-Jobs' relationship with her father. She is no doubt still grappling with persistent and painful issues. She describes some of her father's harsh and abusive treatment, then concludes that they were acts of love. This makes for a profound conflict. I hope she has gained some relief from writing the book, but I hope she works hard in therapy to exorcise the demons that have tormented her for so many years.
5
In August of 1997, Bill Gates stepped in and saved Apple, which, at the time, was on the brink of bankruptcy. It was shocking that Gates would prop up his competitor. Apple went on to become the world's most valuable company, while Gates went on to become the most generous philanthropist in history. Yet, Jobs has always been worshiped by his followers and the media, while Gates has been vilified. It has never made any sense.
15
It would seem that Steve Jobs so damaged his daughter that she could never even considered filing a lawsuit for the fully justified financial support to which she is entitled. Any number of prominent lawyers/law firms would have taken this case on a pro bono basis.
2
They all have clay feet. And it's usually an underdog that has the strength to expose that. Lisa Brennan-Jobs has been able to forge a life for herself despite the extreme challenges of being the daughter a genius. Brava! It will all be okay.
3
I haven't read the book but some of the quotes that have been pulled out seem obviously sensational. Take the 'we are cold people' quote referring to bedtime rituals. My mother would have said that too, half-joking, half-serious, if I was whining about something. It seems likely that the Jobs were work-obsessed. But many families experience unbalanced eco-systems that nonetheless function. How often do wildly-ambitious uber-talented people make great traditional parents? You simply can't have it both ways. A child may not have the hugs they needed but never had to worry for one second about any material needs where another may have a close relationship with their father but not know if the rent will be paid this month. I don't think perfect families exist. We all take our knocks, and those knocks form us as adults. Do we really need another book about it?
7
What sort of upbringing was responsible for Jobs' cruelty? What a miserable man!
15
Mr. Jobs fought Neuroendocrine cancer of the pancreas not pancreatic cancer.
7
I can overlook many character flaws in Jobs and I separate those from the inventions of that flawed inventor. I don’t hold Henry Ford’s virulent antisemitism against Ford, the company, or Volkswagen’s association with Hitler. However, VW’s faking of emission tests effects my view of the company.
2
When I was reading Walter Isaacson's 'Steve Jobs', I could already sense that Steve Jobs had a selfish and somewhat nasty personality.
7
I don't want to know the private life of people I don't know personally. And only people involved can forgive, not 'we'. Or should we act as a mob?
3
Every child of an abusive parent will recognize the lasting damage on display here -- the helpless longing for love and approval, the suffering and shame of the cruel treatment, the struggle to gain perspective, self-respect and the freedom of an unencumbered adult life. But the existential wounds never truly heal. The best we can do is know them for what they are.
33
“Would it be too perverse? she asked. “I feel like the Gates Foundation is really doing good stuff...”
Brennan-Jobs knows exactly what she is saying here: that Ms. Powell Jobs is not using the $21 billion to its greatest effect for the common good and that the money would be better used by the Gates Foundation (and, she’s most certainly correct!) But, more important, this statement is a subtle yet powerful jab at her incredibly rich step-mother.
There are several such calculated statements in this interview. I believe after reading this that Lisa Brennan-Jobs wants the world to know that she is no longer a victim of her father’s cruelty.
33
heartbreaking...utterly heartbreaking
6
Ms. Brennan-Jobs' story again demonstrates that American society continues to conflate wealth with morality. Despite the marketing, IPhones, IPads and watches do not make someone hipper, smarter or nicer.
18
Nellie Bowles writes about Lisa Brennan-Jobs with great sensitivity. I felt after reading this piece that I have much insight into Lisa's self-effacing, truth telling, kind and insightful prose. She is the survivor of an abusive childhood- the part about her father's sexualized conversation with her at age 9 made me cringe. Lauren Powell Jobs' denial of the truth is simply enabling her late husband's horrific behavior. Steve Jobs was a visionary, a genius, and a tormented soul whose own damaged ego caused much suffering for his family and employees.
17
It seems to me that everything is open to different interpretation. Steve Jobs' legacy is daily in the hands of millions who use the iphone, which like most things, is a mixed blessing. ( Yet few of us would give it up easily) Jobs' daughter is blessed to have her life, and Life is The Blessing.
As her memoir in the form of a book hits the market, thus becoming a Thing, that too, inevitably becomes a mixed blessing. All of us have come into this form of life, for better or worse.
3
I find it bizarre that NYT should ask this question and that so many of the readers should choose to denounce someone they didn’t even know as ‘evil’. There are two sides to every story and Jobs is not here to defend himself. It is possible he was less than ideal father but then who amongst us is perfect. What do we know about the circumstances in which her parents split up? Is it possible Jobs had a different story but he is not around to tell his story anymore.
It is strange that it takes 2 people to conceive (and bring up) a child and yet, it is Steve Jobs alone who gets all the blame for her messed up childhood. That despite the fact that her mother was by all accounts a careless and abusive individual as well as an addict who did a horrible job of raising her kid.
Ms Bowles appears quick to pass judgement on Jobs. And yet, she gives a complete pass to what comes across as Ms Brennan-Jobs’ spitefulness at Jobs and her stepmother. Why bring up trivial (and perhaps, biased) incidents into the story unless you want to portray the other side in bad light. Why try to sully Ms Powell’s reputation in the process when by all accounts, Ms Powell is a very private person and hardly the one to blame for Ms Brennan-Jobs’ miserable childhood.
Perhaps, Ms Brennan-Jobs needed to write the book for her own closure. Perhaps, she has valid reasons for her resentment. But who amongst us is a saint that we should cast stones at Mr Jobs for his imperfections.
73
@coolheadhk There is no "other side" of the story that Jobs' treatment of his daughter goes way beyond "less than ideal". I don't think he would even deny it. The fact that Lisa's mother had her own issues only magnified the responsibility of Steve Jobs to make sure that Lisa was taken care of. A responsibility at which he totally failed. I don't think he was evil, he was just a narcissist who inadvertently affected his daughter's psyche negatively and permanently.
12
@coolheadhk, it says pretty clearly in the article that her mother was a problem as well and that's why she went to live with Jobs in her teens. Also, the fact that Jobs denied paternity in the face of DNA evidence and had to be legally forced to pay child support has been well-documented elsewhere.
8
Mr. Jobs denied he was the father, even after a DNA test proved he was. That’s pretty damning.
10
I’ve always been an apple fan, almost all the technology that’s a part of my life is an apple product. And it is through my great dedication towards the great Apple company that I have come garner appreciation for Steve Jobs. I’ve watched movies and documentaries as well as read a variety of articles dedicated to the fascinating life of Jobs. In everything that I’ve learned about Jobs there is always great emphasis on his success as the creator of one of the greatest companies ever and of how he was a neglectful and harsh father. So Jobs’ Likeability is often affected by clashing opinions about his success and fatherly ability, I however have to much respect and brand loyalty that I refuse to see Jobs in a negative light so my opinion on him will be very biasedz
Like it or not, Steve Jobs was a jerk. Perhaps underneath the curmudgeon exterior, he was attempting to teach Lisa Brennan-Jobs life instead of money as she theorizes. That is in a way quite oriental in thinking as Chinese and Japanese parents would do, except that he singled Lisa out for mistreatment.
True, perhaps Lisa has become a better person out of the ordeal. But at what price? Even this memoir is a therapeutic session for her. And indeed, her inherited millions means little. But at what price!
16
It's sometimes said that you should not say things about the dead unless they are good..If I were Lisa, I'd say proudly "My monster father is dead. Good!!"
21
She was an emotionally abused child and Jobs was a brilliant but sadistic “ father”.
20
it's not my job (pun intended) to forgive him.
7
Steve Jobs may have been a marketing genius, but he was a miserable excuse for a human being.
62
Wasn't he abandoned as a baby and put up for adoption? That would explain a lot. You learn how to be a parent from your parents. Regardless of how well his adoptive family treated him he would always have carried that sense of abandonment.
17
Well, maybe it's time to drop the "-Jobs" in the surname. He really doesn't deserve you as his daughter. Plus I think it might help. Just a thought.
19
Not sure that Lisa’s pen is really a dagger. It’s a bit patronizing for the reviewer to imply that the daughter is getting back at her father with the unseemly anecdotes. It sounds to me that the author is simply looking at her situation squarely. Her father had a mean streak, and she still loved him. The world is full of sons and daughters who have mothers or fathers with mean streaks who are loved anyway. O
21
Steve Jobs was a monstrous creep. He was sexually irresponsible in fathering an unintended and unwanted child, and then he treated this child monstrously.
Too bad that his daughter in her revisionist history is incapable of seeing what an ugly, monstrous and disgusting man her father was. She absolves him for telling her that she smelled like a toilet, instead of recognizing that cancer patients often have an acute but twisted sense of smell. She dismisses his extreme penury as some sort of teaching. Like most abused and neglected children, she wants to believe her parents loved her and so she revises the reality.
In his arrogance, hubris and distorted sense of his superiority, Steve Jobs condemned himself to his own early death. When diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, it was operable and he would have lived, but thinking he was some superior genius, he ignored the doctors and claimed he would cure himself. When nine months later, the cancer was no better and he turned to the medical professionals, it was too late and Jobs died at 56. All his billions could not save him from his own ugliness.
53
So, I’m supposed to care about Steve Jobs’s personal life and now his daughter’s life. Spare me this.
4
My sincere hope is that Lisa can create happiness with Bill in their own family. Look to each other and create true friends for your family's healthy future.
She's had quite an unpleasant adventure for many years, much of which would make me feel feel guilty if I had exposed my children such insults. May the rest of her adventure bring joy. I hope she never feels a need to write about her father, but can instead write to inspire herself.
I met Steve Jobs at the First West Coast Computer Faire in April 1977. He behaved like a jerk then and every other time we came into contact for decades. Jobs was a jerk when he was poor, and a jerk when he was worth billions. Don't be a jerk.
I bumped into several more people that day who stood out as memorable and show up in the biographies. One was delightfully humorous, one was beautiful and many were brilliant with irrepressible enthusiasm for their new inventions. Their enthusiasm was contagious and I soon embarked on my first tech startup enabled by the Apple][. That is when I discovered the hacker ethic.
Many people arrive here in the hopes of becoming rich. I tell them they've come to the wrong place. You come here for a grand adventure.
You're more likely to get rich on Wall Street but you'll have the opportunity to literally create many more memorable adventures here.
22
Strange headline. It’s not up to us to do anything but decide whether to enrich Jobs’ daughter by buying her memoir. If she’s at peace with his abuse, I don’t know why she’d bother sharing that with strangers. I think she wants it both ways: He was a monster, but I have the grace to rise above it and see that he was doing the best he could. That’s big of her. I just don’t know why we’d care. He was a monster, but I dropped his name to get into Harvard. I mean, I’m not stupid.
So at the end of the day, she inherited millions, is happily married, is a new mother, and will have a probably well-reviewed memoir in the N.Y. Times. Nothing beats a happy ending.
9
While I appreciate the utility of my iPhone6, I abhor both the hero worship of the founders and cult-like devotion of the products by Apple fanatics. Apple is fantastically wealthy and flush in cash because they charge too much for everything they make. Their greed and ethos of avoiding taxation and rent are sickening and part of the bigger problem of our country and its malignant form of capitalism that leaves our people poor and without basic rights. That said, may the author find happiness and may her father rest in peace.
25
Very brave writing, and another leap of understanding.
Thank you.
8
I'm super disappointed to learn about this side of Steve. Also, it's ironic that she is married to a long time Microsoft employee.
3
Perhaps it helps Lisa to come to terms with the relationship that was shaped by her father who, clearly, was a narcissist, but from what I have learned through reading this article it cannot change the fact that Steve Jobs was treating Lisa in ways that no child should ever be treated: making her feel insecure, not loved, awkward, frightened, bad - to name a few. This is shameful and I hope he felt "good" when in what Lisa describes as her "movie ending" Steve Jobs apologized to Lisa. As some other individuals have written in their comments, Lisa's childhood was sad. This is in my opinion not a funny memoir.
Lisa praises the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. One unanswered question I have is what is Lisa, now a billionaire, planning on doing with the profits from this book? Perhaps they should be donated to abused children.
3
She's not a “billionaire”! She inherited several million, but the rest is in control of his widow!
15
Mixed up my Jobs women, but they are nevertheless all wealthy!
I know several men who've achieved fame in technology and other industries for their accomplishments. They are all brilliant, funny and sentimental, mercurial, childish and socially dysfunctional, to a greater or lesser extent, depending upon the situation and the vagaries of being human. This isn't an excuse. It just is.
3
There is no doubt in my mind that Steve Jobs was unusual and had a different thought pattern than I would have had. His refusal to take medical advice on his own medical problems showed a blind spot that eventually killed him. He must have had many blind spots with his relationship with others including his daughter.
May he rest in peace and my his daughter lead a long and fruitful life.
5
I've read most of the Steve Jobs biographies out there, but the one that struck closest to home was written by Lisa's mother, Chrisann Brennan, called The Bite in the Apple. On page 15 of the book, she describes how Steve's adoptive mother, Clara Jobs, confessed: "I was too frightened to love him the first six months of his life. I was scared they were going to take him away from me. Even after we had won the case, Steve was so difficult a child that by the time he was two, I felt we had made a mistake. I wanted to return him." Unbonded babies can grow up with many personality and character disorders. When I read this — something I had never seen in any accounts of his life before — many of his cold hearted actions and revolting personality traits started to make more sense. If you're interested in Steve Jobs, also read Chrisann's book. It's much better than Walter Isaacson's bio.
26
When Lisa Brennan-Jobs discusses keeping one's value system, I was reminded of a quote I heard once. "Thinking one could become rich and not act like the rich do is like thinking one could drink heavily and not act like an alcoholic."
11
Your review of the book and the interview leave one in awe over her survival.
To later have a family and a child show that she is a victor.
7
Why should I forgive, or not forgive, a person who had nothing to do with me or my life? Seems to me an incredibly hubristic idea.
2
Why is it so controversial to say that it should be very rare for us to either deify or villify most individuals, even after their deaths?
When we do celebrate someone, we learn more from history when their hypocrises and misdeeds are in full view.
As for the products of their minds, industrial or artistic, we already go too far in boycotts that serve no useful purpose.
2
Yikes.
Reading this article is similar, I suppose, to what reading the book will be like: like watching a tape of a train wreck and not being able to avert your eyes, though you KNOW it's going to be ugly.
I couldn't stand Steve Jobs, before. This would just reinforce that feeling. I won't be reading any more.
I bet it will sell millions.
.
4
I am not sure I will read this book, but it just reaffirms my long held very negative image of Steve Jobs as an awful person who never had any interest in leaving a positive social legacy. He was only interested in making 30% profit for everything Apple sells.
I never ever bought anything made by Apple and I can attest that you can live very well without any Apple product.
8
I have never bought an Apple product, unless you count Beatles records. Awfully easy to live without them.
2
Since I am not Steve’s son and never met him, it’s not really my business nor my place to offer any judgment at all. The very notion that I or the public in general are in a position to “forgive” him for anything is absurd.
5
Have you ever judged anyone else you’ve never met?
There seems to be a proclaimed attitude among certain readers that they should not judge others that they don’t know, especially with respect to their personal lives.
I think that’s a reasonable attitude if one is truly consistent about it. However I’ve met few people that actually achieve such a goal.
Who here has not judged a politician, public figure etc. for their personal behavior, let alone their public behavior?
I wonder if some are simply struggling with the idea of judging Jobs & his private life, especially given how lionized he is.
Another example of a person who does great, life altering things professionally, but is personally reprehensible. That’s the danger in fetishizing people for their professional accolades. It ends validating that individual as a honorable human being, when that’s the last thing that should be done.
6
Thank you, Ms. Brennan Jobs. I was snowed by the media blitz and my love of all things Apple. I didn’t realize that your father was really like the rest of us, fallible, deluded, and a little too full of ourselves.
2
Even in this article it's impossible for a vegan to go 15 minutes without ensuring that everybody in earshot know they are,indeed, a vegan.
7
As many commentators state outright or hint at, Jobs stands as one sort of an American archetype.
But not the sort we should choose to continue to promote or celebrate.
12
I had a very dear friend and colleague who has sadly passed away and who worked for awhile with Steve Jobs before he became a mega celebrity.My friend, one of the earlier females working in tech, told me very quietly and undramatically that he created a working environment that was a nightmare. Sexual harassment and bullying of female employees, insulting and degrading remarks, dismissive negation of their work and achievements were de rigeur at the job. Cloaked as setting a high standard for the production and creating a competitive environment, the hazing and abuse became unbearable. My friend left. I do not know how many women like my friend departed, bruised and derided. His loss was our gain, but her mental and physical health were affected, and the more Jobs is revealed as a mean-spirited manipulator, I wonder if his treatment of her and many other employees contributed to her too early death. He is not missed.
30
Like so many ‘celebrities,’ Steve Jobs was a deeply flawed person. We should stop lionizing, or worse, apologizing for, such people, just because they were good at business, sports or making movies.
7
My lower-income single mother was a drunk but she absolutely adored me. Despite her issues she instilled in me a strong sense of self and high self esteem. Thank you lord for giving me her as a mother and not Mr. Jobs as a father! His cruelty is breathtaking. My heart goes out to Lisa.
12
From this profile, I only see the classic cycle of abuse: rejected, abandoned and/or mood-unstable young man Jobs becomes an abusive, unstable grown man and father - before the new dawn of truth to power (when abusers and tyrants are just starting to be recognized as sick or unethical, instead of excused as somehow just a typical inventor, genius, director, star, boss, artiste, etc.)
Then, his abused daughter writes a book about the abuse without seeming to yet understand what abuse actually is, so instead just rationalizes it all away.
I hope this is the first step, of what could be many, for her to heal.
5
His daughter forgives him. What earthly business is it of ours to think we have to decide whether to forgive him or not? She is not a child, and her memories are her memories to interpret. Back off.
1
It is so curious that someone feels so entitled in life that they can go through it with such unkind and hateful
Things to say and actually say them out loud and directly to people, regularly, and this is acceptable because he is “visionary” or he “thinks out of the box” and because he is vegan or charitable or wealthy that excuses such bad behavior.
I have made a decision: when my next cell phone upgrade is available, it will be a Samsung.
7
As a graphic designer, I've used Mac for decades. But the company has always had an attitude of narcissistic disdain for customers, evidenced by their online "support forums" where, if customer complaints aren't outright ignored, they're responded to with a variation of: "you don't get that that isn't a bug, it's a feature." From introducing a system UI font that is a poor choice for accessibility and a low contrast UI on Macs, to constant changes in hardware that force people to cough up money for accessories, Apple reflects the narcissism of its founder through and through. "We'll tell you what you want." Style is more important than substance.
13
I never read his biography, and I doubt I will. I know a lot of people love the Apple brand (I do like itunes and the ipod) and I wish I jumped on the stock bandwagon before it took off (thought about it and didn't pull the trigger). But, I've read enough articles to feel pretty secure in my estimation that he was no genius and the positive results from his problems didn't make up for the negative ones. He's on my all-time over-rated list along with Pres. Grant's Memoirs, mac and cheese and Oprah. His daughter's book is not the usual type of book for me, but I'm fairly sure I'd dislike him even more than I already do if I read it. I suppose a lot of people just want to love their parents and justify all kinds of abusive and crazy behavior. A lot probably shouldn't.
5
Maybe the real lesson here is that visionaries can and are flawed. Let's not make them into flawless gods or condemn them when they don't live up to our expectations. Let us also not wear our puritarian hats and accept ideas of people who live up to the current definition of the perfect human.
Also, we need to address the real taboo here. He didn't want this child. He had asked Lisa's mother to abort her. People often say it is not the Childs fault. True. But that doesn't mean a parent who didn't want to have a child with a woman, made his opinion on the matter clear, yet the woman went ahead and made her choice, should be expected to offer emotional support.
It seemed he hated Lisa's mother and maybe couldn't stand the fact that he had a daughter with her. Children in such situations are not viewed as a separate entity who deserve love but a by-product and reminder of a toxic relationship.
The most prominent taboo subject in this day and age is talking about the parent-child relationship. Parents even in "normal" families can love one child and despise the other. It is common but unacknowledged.
So Lisa here apparently has a simple idea of parent-child dynamic and is lamenting the fact that even though she shared DNA with Steve, he did not treat or love her as the family he chose to build.
Unfortunately, parent unconditional love for their children is a modern construct and sharing DNA doesn't automatically guarantee selfless love.
9
Though out history, heroes are often much more blemished than how history varnishes them to shine brilliantly. We want to believe in the perfect hero, getting disappointed and angry usually at the messengers who reveal otherwise. Reality is that the greats of this world are just as much a mix of good and bad as you and me. Steve Jobs was a technological hero who was far from a perfect father. That makes his life even more fascinating.
1
One can have horrible experiences with their parents and yet love them. I understand that. What’s being described is not a demanding father, it’s abuse.
29
Being a Christian, I am an adherent, and I hope, a practitioner, of forgiveness. But her willingness to rationalize his horrid behavior - practiced even on his deathbed - and to speculate on what manner of man "he would have liked to be", bespeaks a fractured personality and a shattered self-worth. Steve Jobs did that to her, and she abides to excuse the inexcusable. God bless her, and help her to find a fuller healing.
13
I can not imagine doing a book like this about my father, my family. No matter the pain. No, when a man was such a public figure and is already dead, to what end? I guess gaining that final word, which makes her seem very much like the man she describes.
2
The ghost of Steve Jobs may yet return from the grave to haunt us as it steals our very souls and replaces them with artificial intelligence.
If we do in fact lose our free will to the latest and perhaps last form of high technology, that would be the opportunity for an outlier to seize control of whatever semblance of government we still retain.
Now is the time to prepare for this eventuality and develop a technological structure to maintain a democratic forof government!m
Has Lisa forgiven her father or has she not entirely processed the betrayal, neglect and loss of love from her father?
It seems as though she is defending his hurtful words and actions, and she is overly concerned with her readers not forgiving Jobs.
My heart goes out to her withstanding this kind of abuse, as a child and as an adult. The things she writes about would be devastating to a child's sense of self.
9
I use Apple products professionally and personally and this article makes me glad that Steve Jobs is no longer part of the company. It makes you wonder if being a narcissist is a prerequisite for being in the .001%. Perhaps when we judge billionaires’ contributions to society, we should weigh the success of their product(s) against the suffering of those who whose lives were irreparably damaged in their quest for fame and money.
6
I don’t know if Jobs would really fit the narcissist profile. It seems to me that like a lot of people in that industry, he was somewhere on the autism spectrum. Not enough to be called “autistic” or even what they used to call Asperger’s syndrome, but somewhere between Asperger’s and normal.
4
I’m not convinced the Steve Jobs we’ve learned about over the years would have cared at all about us forgiving him. He seemed consistently unapologetic about his own behavior in many different situations.
7
I've never been that interested in Steve Jobs's life, and probably won't read the book. But it does seem unfair, of many commentators, to treat him as if he weren't socially-challenged and unfiltered. He was born at a time when less was known about autism spectrum disorders and his brilliance and success probably insulated him against being helped. His daughter, it would seem, in some way understood this.
7
There is more than whiff of the eccentric-genius cliche here, yet not a word is said about Steve Wozinak the real Apple genius who actually designed and built the first Apple computers. After Jobs became rich and famous he was of course able to hire other designers and programmers, ones who would work more or less anonymously, but whatever talent Jobs ever had was essentially confined to marketing, and a talent for marketing is not a talent that impresses me the slightest bit. In any case, it sounds as if he was somewhere on the autistic spectrum.
11
This book is about Steve Jobs not Steve Wozniak.
2
I was impressed by how incredibly well-written and honest the excerpt published earlier here was. I have never been interested in Steve Jobs, but I think I might want to read this book. It draws you in. I do not think throwing around terms like Stockholm syndrome is appropriate. The writer's memoir seems to have too much psychological sophistication.
1
It never ceases to amaze me that so many movers and shakers, inventors, teachers, leaders, and other great figures throughout history have so many reports of truly awful behavior toward members of their own families. At the same time, it doesn't surprise me, since the human psyche is complex and complicated and, in many ways, beyond our grasp. It is also important to note that many of the traits that made him (and others) successful at creating landscape-altering devices likely correlate with unpleasant personality traits when it comes to relating to other people. It seems Mr. Jobs' primary relationship was with the devices he dreamed up -- modeling what has become a blueprint for Apple device owners everywhere, who can't take our eyes or fingers or thumbs away from an Apple screen.
3
I read Steve Jobs official biography, even there you can realize who he really was.
What really surprise me is the attitude of the family towards LBJ, they knew and saw what happened, so no need to protect him or his memories.
I am glad she found a way to deal with it.
4
It strikes me that Lisa is trying so hard to paint the man as the good dad she so desperately wanted him to be. But that the facts have prevented her from doing so. 0
23
Amazing who people admire. There's even a museum somewhere in Georgia dedicated to Stalin.
8
It appears clear from the stories recounted in this article that Ms. Brennan-Jobs was abused by her father. I hope writing the book is helping her to process this; however, it sounds more like she is trying to minimize, normalize, and gloss over what happened in her life, rather than acknowledge it an accept it for what it is.
The sequelae of child abuse can be impaired reality-testing. What happened to her was not about "lessons" Mr. Jobs was trying to teach her. His actions were not designed to help her. They were examples of inappropriate behavior indulged in by a cruel man, targeting a vulnerable person who was under his control.
75
Lisa - Thanks for sharing your story. Mr. Jobs was incredibly successful with his professional career but it seems he came up seriously lacking as a parent. Kudos to you for writing this book and I am sure it was not easy.
21
As a Syrian-Ameican, I've always been intrigued by Jobs, another Syrian-American. As someone who also has tendencies towards introversion and, possibly, Aspergers, I've paid attention to the stories about Jobs that illustrate his similar pathology. He was a brilliant man, obviously, but also an unkind one; equally obviously. I applaud his daughter's trying to make sense of her childhood and legacy, because, I, too, often write out what is bothering me to help me understand how the roads have led me to where I am. I have been wronged by people in the past, but I choose to forgive, rather than hold on to anger or remorse. That does not mean that the incidents are forgotten, and others who learn about the transgressions might not forgive them as easily as I have, but that is what we have to do to move forward: forgive. That doesn't mean we forget or recognize that other's actions affected us greatly, but what other option is there than to forgive someone, when all they did was the best they could do? People are flawed, and they hurt people. I choose to forgive and carry on. I hope Lisa will continue to do the same,
13
We all had someone less than swell in our family. Mine was my mother who was an incarnation of the movie Scarlett O'Hara.
Did some things that were a bit mean, but not because she was mean. She simply thought in the Miss Scarlett fashion. It was all about her; good, bad, or indiffent whatever happened to her was the reason it didn’t always translate in the best fashion for me. Nothing was as outrageous as some of the famous Steve's peccadillos, but as I said we've all had one in our lives.
3
My dad is a millionaire and he refused to help pay for my medical school tuition. I was 32 and he told me I was too old to go to medical school. He chastised me for going into an Ivy League school. I ended up with $500,000 in student loans and am struggling to pay it off to this day. My mom knows how cold my dad is but she won't renounce him because she gets alimony from him - and has been doing now for over 30 years. Finally there is someone else in the world with an experience as bizarre as mine. I hope to read this book.
65
There is a really good, and little-watched, documentary from 1996 called "Triumph of the Nerds" about the rise of the personal computing industry. It was made when Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were still in their 40's and the memories of their contemporaries were still fresh and raw. The theme that emerges in the movie is that Gates and Jobs did not succeed because they were more brilliant than their contemporaries, but because they were, by orders of magnitude, more ruthless. The archetypal nerd was Steve Wozniak, brilliant and sweet. Jobs was nothing like Woz.
59
"The portrayal of Steve is not the husband and father we knew."
I don't know any of them. But that line is familiar. Denial, with rationalization as accomplice, is common and powerful -- whether in families or nationally in politics. Rising above it can be an insurmountable challenge for many people; they will never be free of the gravitational pull -- so they will never understand its source.
To my mind, Mr Jobs had a personality disorder. And Ms Brennan-Jobs has not come to terms with that. She has the gravitational pull too. But it is good that she has written.
30
@Dominic Holland I am also disturbed and surprised by the family statement, especially from Job's sister Mona Simpson. She wrote a novel about Steve (A Regular Guy), in which his treatment of his daughter Lisa (fictionalized) is borderline cruel. Having used Lisa's story for her own purposes, it's bizarre for Simpson not to support her now.
13
I don't own anything made by Apple. I don't carry a smart phone.
Today, there were several of us on the subway reading books. I see that more and more.
19
@Sonja
How did you make your comment? Did you mail your comment or did you do this on a computer? If it is the latter, then such is an admission that you use electronics for communication. Whether you use IBM, Microsoft, Dell, or any of the other electronic machines -- you do more than read books. If you don't like Apple products, I would be more interested in your reasoning than whether you don't carry a smart phone (do you have a cell phone?) and do choose to read physical books. Personally, I prefer the tactile pleasure of turning crisp pages and occasionally jotting a note in the margin or underlining a particularly well-crafted phrase. But I also prefer the Apple computers and have preferred them since the first Macintosh came out in 1986. Drag a file into a folder or into an application and what happens is logical and easy. I am a visually-oriented person, and the visual logic of Apple computers is both pleasing and sensical. Some say elegant, but personally, I don't wear a tuxedo when I sit down to the keyboard of my MacBookPro.
2
@Bill Barr
I have to say, I don't understand your questions.
Apple is a corporation/brand, and I don't own anything from that corporation or bearing that brand. No special reason, except that I've never felt the need. I tend to decide what I need, rather than allowing someone else to decide.
I've had a simple flip phone for 20 years, and the sight of people captivated by smart phones and unable to put them down is something that does not attract me.
I did not say that I only read books and do nothing else -- although nothing brought to me via the new consumer technology is nearly as satisfying as a real book. In short, I'm not sure what "admission" has been gleaned.
I suspect the light emitted by these devices, among other things, is not good for our brains. There is more and more research showing subtle harm to people after many years of use, and the waste from planned obsolescence is harming the environment.
7The editorial choice, "can we forgive him?" denies the reader the opportunity to accept this memoir on its on terms. The memoir's author, unlike the article's, displays that a harsh alienating world may still produce beauty.
like as jobs, the world is brutal, teaching harsh and questionable lessons through often chaotic means. As parents, despite all of our best intentions, we will terribly fail our children. maybe we won't act disturbingly crude as Jobs, but under the best circumstances we may only hope to meet a modicum of a child's needs.
not only does the book's author say that she forgives us for this failure but she shows us how we assisted, however limited, in her beauty and her beautiful creation.
5
Steve Job's daughter had a challenging upbringing and wrote a memoir. In which, contrary to the trend, she chooses to see herself as neither a victim nor a survivor.
Does anyone out there wish to protest that she does not have the right to choose this? It is a courageous choice. And a model for us all, because all of us have suffered unjust treatment in our lives. No one grows up without that. She has suffered more than some of us did, and in some different ways. And we have all suffered.
She seeks to cast her experiences into a positive outcome. And that is her choice to make. And your choice, as well, with your own experiences. And i hope you can. And I honor the light within you, whatever you choose.
15
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/books/steve-jobs-lisa-brennan-jobs-sm...
Growing up with Apple technology, I found it very disappointing to learn that the creator of the biggest company around was not a good father - and apparently, not even a nice guy. While that's not so unique among the wealthy and famous, it seems that Steve Jobs was something of a jerk even before he struck it big. The fact that his adult daughter is willing to justify his past behaviors and forgive him speaks to her character, and is probably also a good way for her to heal from all the pain of her childhood. But since this is really the first time the world is hearing about a different side of Steve Jobs - a hero to many in the technology industry - it is more difficult for us to forgive him. I found it ironic that his daughter is married to someone who works for Microsoft. Perhaps this was her way of getting back at him (in addition to telling him on his death bed that she would not write about him!)
6
@Samantha Swenson This isn't the first time the world has heard about Jobs. He has always had a reputation for being cruel at work and a bad father to Lisa. There's even a movie about it.
5
I’ve read about his jerkiness for decades. Can’t hide that amount of it. Where have you been?
4
Ms. Brennan-Jobs's attitude towards her father seems like a textbook case of traumatic bonding. Their relationship appears to have been underpinned by rejection, neglect, cruelty, emotional abuse and control on his part, and relieved intermittently by a few crumbs of reasonable behaviour (behaviour that seemed superlative to her by comparison). Intermittent reinforcement always makes for a much stronger bond.
And the rejection she's receiving now from her "family"--the discounting of her story and the renewed lionization of Jobs--is also entirely predictable. I feel for her and wish her some kind of peace in the future, and an identity not based on her father or her family.
62
@MC I suffer from the same thing.
3
@MC You list an individual's pattern of behaviour as 'rejection, neglect, cruelty, emotional abuse and control on his part, and relieved intermittently by a few crumbs of reasonable behaviour'. My mother's name for this confusing pattern of abusive behaviour was 'the Pricks and the Pats'.
4
Steve Jobs was a marketing genius right out of 1950 Madison Avenue.
All he did was take new products, which were mostly someone else's ideas, and package them on his own personality as an iconic selling device.
Eventually it was no longer possible to tell the difference between the product and Steve.
Even after his death, we are still buying Steve himself as the cult leader instead of the product alone in its box.
The good news is that , for the most part, Apple products perform as expected and do not disappoint.
The tragically bad news is that, more than anything else, Steve's products are used to support social media which may prove themselves to be the most destructive force of the twenty first century!
22
It's a challenge, having psychologically abuses/damaging parents. All the excuses in world, death bed or not, do not take away the pain. Trying to normalize it might provide a psychological buffer, but in the end, harm is harm done.
9
Life is complicated. Parents are complicated. My mother is deceased and my father is still looking for the perfect wife and perfect family. With my many accomplishments and my father's perpetual disappointment in me, I no longer seek his pride or approval.
Ms Brennan-Jobs, I get it.
My father is unconventional and brilliant and cruel. My father festers hurt to his core and for whatever reason he's chosen to use me as his repository for pain. Luckily I'm better than ok and I am glad that he loves my (half) siblings.
I know that I possess elements and characteristics of my father. Brilliance comes with a price. I hope that my kids know and feel how much I love them and I hope they forgive my imperfect proclivities.
I won't be waiting for my father to be anything more than the tortured soul that he is. But I will love him, pray for his good, and claim only my version of my experience with him.
16
He's gone, and so are so many others who were not kind people. It's up to his child to forgive him. If he were my dad, I don't know that I could. But should WE forgive him, and the many other long-gone men, some, like him, genius at what they did, whose work we are almost all using, making money off of, enjoying, spending time with? Should we punish them by punishing ourselves? Should I stop using Apple products? Reading Rilke? Enjoying Picssso, Rodin, Degas? Should I not watch the new series based on Assimov's Foundation Trilogy because he was sometimes a nasty jerk around young women? Have I stopped watching movies Harvey Weinstein produced, movies Kevin Spacey starred in? No, I haven't. I'm not going to deny myself the pleasure of their work because decades ago they (allegedly, mind you) did some very bad things.
2
She was deprived. Good luck with her trauma and abuse treatment.
I hope she’s in good therapy. Beyond that this is an unimportant story.
Bye Felicia
3
Ah, yes, the insidious effects of parental abuse...........I, who know so well. Having 5 sibs (no, we weren't Catholic) physical and/or mental abuse effects each individually depending upon their sex, birth order, genetic inheritances, luck in adult life, etc. -- so much variability but.......
...... as with PTSD; abuse is abuse; plain and simple.
Peer-reviewed, medical research shows that abused children have a heightened tendency to join cults, to become religious converts; whatever it takes to forgive and, in my book, say, "It was my fault. I was bad. I deserved the abuse I suffered at the hands of an adult."
As my father (a true psychopath) who would quote Alexander Pope, "To err is human; to forgive divine" as he caused permanent physical damage to half of his 'children'.
Me? Wrong is wrong - no matter what the wrapping paper. or philosophical overlay.
My baby sister heads a cult. Same mother; same father. Different 'takes' on the abuse.
Different strokes for different folks.
7
There should be no forgiveness for men that abandon or abuse their children. There is no greater transgression.
15
Nah. We need to stop being a sick child centric society. Parents love is not all absolute and without caveats.
2
His most successful product always was his own shallow self-serving myth.
24
My heart goes out to Lisa for the psychological hurt she endured from the words and behavior of her father. Steve Jobs didn’t understand how important a father’s unconditional love is to a daughter. He played with her head like it was a yo-yo.
12
Eau de toilette is what Rose Water is called. Or "toilet water". So, maybe Steve was on to something and not being quite as offensive as this article or his daughter imply.
2
@Katharine Talamantez This is the kind of minimizing that is so harmful when people speak out about abuse. He told his own daughter she smelled like a toilet. That is terrible.
7
It appears that Steven P. Jobs was a sociopath. That description explains every relationship he had; from his family, the employees at Apple and his competitors.
21
Oh no but his relationship with his 2nd family & sister were wonderful! Don’t you recall their rebuttal?
2
Lisa, if you read this, please know that you deserved a loving father who treasured you every day of your life, unconditionally and without reservation. I hope you know now that you have a heavenly Father who loves you that way, and He sent His son, Jesus the Christ, to atone for your sins and bring you into a direct loving relationship with Himself.
7
Steve Jobs was a marketing and technological genius who truly changed the world. He was also a complete dirtbag as a human being. Any man who denies, neglects and demeans his child is lower than dirt. Period. Children are put here for us to be our best selves so they can be even better. God bless her for her forgiving nature.
19
The best line: " We are just cold people," says it all. Good for Ms. Brennan-Jobs to have survived that, wit and heart intact. I cannot imagine having family like that. It makes me eternally grateful for my warm and affectionate parents. They're not perfect, but boy were they ever better than Steve Jobs. Yes, I know he was brilliant. But what a jerk.
18
Lisa Brennan-Jobs is like an abused wife of an alcoholic. If I am just a better person, then maybe he'll stop drinking. If I am a better person, then maybe he won't hit me anymore. And so on and on.
She needs to stop martyring herself to this man's memory. He was no more her father than he was a sperm donor. He was abusive to her from the beginning of her life to the end of his. And he, apparently, encouraged Laurene to behave in the same way towards Lisa.
As far as forgiveness, it's not for us to forgive Steve Jobs for his actions towards Lisa. That she forgives him will have to be enough. He didn't do anything to the rest of us. Although how she can forgive him for what he did to her, escapes me.
20
One of the greatest flaws I see in American Christianity is the emphasis on forgiving members of the faith.
Not outsiders, mind you - only the “faithful”
At the fringes of the National Accepted Religion, are horrors like “the Church of Christ, Christian,” preaching Jesus was not a Jew, and Jews are inhuman spawn of Satan - darker-skinned people children of Noah’s evil son Ham. Go ahead and kill outsiders. God forgives all white US Christians and every Christian should forgive every other Christian, no question.
A friend in Florida tells me he hears its Trumpaniks constantly crying “it doesn’t matter what Donald did, he’s one of us Christians, and we forgive him” this man who “keeps the Sabbath holy” by praying on his golf course.
Church-going Barack Obama was a Ham-son, if not Muslim. Church-going Bill Clinton wasn’t a “real Christian” they say.
This week saw fellow Times Forum folks defending a Polish Nazi death camp guard, attacking the US for deporting him because he was now in his 90s - he was in his 70s when he was caught, and fought the Rule of Law - isn’t forgiveness grand?
I have no idea of Jobs’ faith, but, based on the article - no chance to read the book - we have another example of a victim blindly forgiving her unapologetic child abuser father - not heating your kid’s room is abuse.
Apology is a start of forgiveness. Trying to make right, better.
Blind forgiveness is madness.
I truly feel sorry for Lisa, and fear for my nation and its shadow theocracy.
4
From all accounts I've heard (I know some of his associates) it was Steve Jobs who smelled bad - disgustingly so - because he had some weird mental issues with soap and water. He was also a tyrant and took credit for the work of others across his entire career. Good riddance.
29
My father was also a toxic narcissist who delighted in 'telling a few home truths,' i.e., engaging in quite cruel remarks. His self-satisfaction at his own 'honesty' was overweening. Also took zero responsibilty for any of his children, and yet saw himself as a grand patriarch to be admired and catered to by all. The sad thing is that daughters starved for a father's love will easily get sucked into this. Having spent the least time with him, I perhaps saw it more clearly, and for the most part stayed away.
18
Even after Jobs died, his "family" had some traits like Jobs.
One example was about a yacht that Jobs had commissioned to be built. It cost about
$ 150,000,000.00, and the designer had signed with Jobs for a fee of $ 9,000,000.00. After Jobs death, the family refused to pay a balance of $ 3,000,000.00 after having paid the designer $ 6,000.000.00. The designer put a seizure on the yacht, and the "family" eventually was forced to pay the remaining $ 3,000,000.00 before the yacht was released. Such a nice family!
51
Your parent is R and F (rich and famous) and reaching to the stars, you are left behind. Or, the parent loves everyone, and shows no interest in your company. The years ago go by, eventually he dies, only to leave you wondering if you are capable of writing an objective profile in his memory.
Ms. Lisa Brennan-Jobs might enjoy reading 'The Moon and The Sixpence' by Somerset Maugham, loosely based on Gauguin who takes off to Tahiti and becomes a passionate artist. He abandons his family in Paris.
Jane Fonda did not have an easy time apparently with her father. We all react differently to our parents and we are not their property.
My father was great fun, bigger than life, and the great love of his life was my mother, who eventfully left him for another man. He had seven girlfriends on the side, never paid bills and I enjoy thinking he is running in heaven, having a wonderful time while haunting his first-born here to write with passion about what is happening to our country.
A moment in time was when I visited him in London at thirty, and he tried to bring us closer, but I no longer took him seriously.
My parents gave me the gift of life. True there are days when I ask why do I have to be here. Ten years for some of us feels like ten thousand, and disappearing into obscurity is of no matter.
Only Ms. Brennan-Jobs can write as a daughter to her father, and the rest of us can hope that it helps her to come to terms with her parent without malice on our part.
24
The proof that this memoir is a genuine account of Steve Jobs' cruelty is how merciless his daughter's perception of herself is, especially her comments on her appearance. Every child internalized the voice of their parents. Steve Jobs' legacy to his daughter is her own voice telling herself that she's unattractive.
84
So, in other alternate universes I can express what a despicable human he was and really not mean it because...well, I can't think of any reason not to really mean it.
Woman, it's your life so make whatever excuses, denials or just plain delusions that are needed for you to carry on.
For the rest of us, not so much.
9
In denial. Jobs so traumitized her I don't think she can ever take full scope of it. I almost stopped reading after the whole "he told her sexualized things" part. If her mother is so adamant that Jobs wasn't a would-be pedophile why did she feel the need to chaperone Lisa after that creepy moment? The man was no "genuis" just a white man with a few quirky smarts, privilege and luck.
28
So Steve Jobs was sometimes abusive and manipulative, other times charming. Sounds to me like slightly psychopathic behavior.
37
@kornel
Psychopathy and/or possible Asperger's, some suggest
1
Has it ever been suggested that Steve Jobs had Asperger's ? Just wondering...
17
@Lisa Having Asperger's wouldn't account for his cruelty.
6
I’m sure it has. See my comment. I’ve never met the guy & know nothing much else about him beyond this.
Someone mentioned in this thread that contemporaries described him as “ruthless” in business. In addition to what I’ve read about him in this article most of this seems to me to be more consistent with narcissistic, manipulative behavior with sociopathic traits. Apparently sociopathic traits are more common in CEO’s. Someone here described him as a marketing genius- knowing what buyers want & how to sell to them doesn’t sound like difficulty “understanding” the emotions/cues, psychology of others which is not apparently uncommon in individuals with ASD.
I really have no idea about the sexualized comments to the child, I some men may “get off” on speculating even with young daughters about future potential sexual behaviors & I’ve seen “atypical” sexually self-gratification behaviors in some narcissists. It’s only about them- they don’t care about the effects on others. As for the episode when she was more mature (Im not sure if it was an isolated event, I’d have to re-read the article)... it actually sounded kind of over-dramatized by Jobs (I believe he was still “undulating & moaning” even when she had pulled away). I think it could be another sick form of manipulation & control as obviously it would make her uncomfortable, Then when she pulled away, he toted out the same old line about basically being a “team player” to remain in the family.
I’m just speculating.
2
My understanding of ASD’s is that these are more about difficulty interpreting/understanding emotions/emotional cues of others. From what I’ve seen, these folks are often kind but can be somewhat socially awkward. E.g., they may sometimes keep talking because they fail to read to social cues indicating others are ready to move on.
I’m sure Jobs could be socially very challenging & that situations involving him were often awkward, as when he insulted the author’s cousin after she ordered meat. Thats not the same type of “awkwardness” I’m talking about when I use the same term to describe some individuals with autism spectrum disorders.
Abject cruelty, manipulation, extremely controlling behavior, coming up with clever little justifications/excuses for things like failing to provide heat, etc. do not sound like typical ASD behaviors to me.
Denial of paternity on his website, threatening to disinherit, insulting his daughter’s cousin when she inadvertently “offended” him by ordering meat at a restaurant, holding a grudge over failing to be invited to Harvard (?which the neighbors initially paid for), buying for himself & his new wife the house that his ex-wife suggested for her & his daughter seems more like a kick in the teeth though I can see how one might just think that he was just “clueless” about how rude that was.
I suspect Job’s understood quite well the effect he had on others.
He sounds like a malignant narcissist with sociopathic traits.
5
maybe he was bipolar sad how he ignored her denied paternity
7
Steve Jobs may have been a genius - but apparently, he was kind of a nut job as well.
18
@Cazanueva What was "genius" about him? He didn't build the iPhone, or the ipod, or the ipad. He didn't understand the engineering behind the products. All he did was package them well. He had a marketer's nose and a salesman's mouth. That's hardly genius. Shakespeare can rest easy, and so can any other real genius, because nobody reasonable would lump them together with the lumpen Jobs. And that assessment has nothing to do with his personality, just his professional life.
2
No offense to the author of the article, but I wish first names could have been used ("Lisa"). It was VERY frustrating to read with "Ms. Brennan-Jobs" and "Ms. Powell Jobs."
47
Are you serious?
I had no difficulty with this whatsoever.
The contexts were so well defined; it seems strange so many apparently couldn’t handle it well.
I fear our attention spans are dropping with the excessive use of electronic media & acronyms like LOL. When one is accustomed reading shorthand email and/or text messages, tolerating a little bit of complexity that requires even just a bit more attention than usual
Or perhaps you are all “skimmers;” in that case in probably would be confusing.
If this was challenging I advise against reading some of the old school literature which can contain huge numbers of characters in a far less easy to parse manner.
2
Dear Lisa i fully support you of your book. As a neglected first born I understand what you are going through (I am about the same age as you). My father also left me at a young age, he too had another family and he passed away when I was 34. You can forgive but you can not forget of those bad memories. Worst yet, you will always question the unequal treatment between you and your father's other family. I know I did. My stepmother was young, immature and frankly did not grow up till she had her own child (sounds like your step mom was the same).
However my father was not a wealthy man and in fact died penniless and a drunk, so I had no fear from his money or power, except the fear of him sucking up my resources. Since his passing I have felt lighter, and empowered to be my own person, because from here onward I am solely responsible for my own destiny. I hope this book enables you to step out of your father's shadow, to be your own person.
26
I read this all the way thru the article before realizing I had read it on an iPhone. And I’m posting this comment thru an app designed for iOS. These tools have changed my life, mostly for the better. It stinks Jobs couldn’t be both a fully decent man and a transformative industrial titan. I think there is plenty of evidence that he is not alone in that regard.
56
NY TIMES October 23, 2012
Karen Sternheimer, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Southern California, is the author of "Celebrity Culture and the American Dream: Stardom and Social Mobility."
"Part of the pleasure of fame for us onlookers is that we feel a certain kinship with people of great renown; we have an idea about what drives them and makes them tick. But when their deeds suggest that their identities are somehow fraudulent, we often feel cheated.
President Bill Clinton famously weathered sex scandals because we knew from his first campaign that this was part of his past. But if his campaign identity had been one of a faithful family man — like that of John Edwards — the public’s reaction would have been far less forgiving. Edwards’s reputation was severely damaged because his deviant personal life conflicted so dramatically with his fresh-faced public persona."
Moving forward to Jobs
No-one who ever worked with Jobs ever had a misleading impression: He was both a genius and a jerk
To Lisa: Congratulations that with all your hurt you can see both
45
Glad he wasn't my dad.
28
Ugly and sad, but not surprising given what is known about Jobs personally.
12
I struck up a conversation with Steve Jobs in the check out line at Whole Foods in Palo Alto in 2001. I told him of an observation Inhad recently made during a trip to Homg Kong and suggested a product idea.
I told him that Apple should make an Apple branded multi media cell phone.
Evidently, he listened to me.
12
Coincidentally I picked up the Isaacson biography last week. I remember when everyone was reading it and talking about Jobs, but never got around to reading it myself. Of course, Job's story is fascinating. And, I must admit I've experienced a minor jealously realizing my life has been nowhere near as interesting as was Job's.
So, this review caught my eye. But, no report of behavior in the Isaacson biography is as stark and ugly as this story appears to be. (Of course, I haven't read the book yet) Isaacson's message seems to be, 'Steve is complicated and often rude to the point of cruelty, but he changed the world...for the better'.
I have exchanged several e-mails with a friend on that note over the past week. We agree that brilliant men often have many sides and are far from perfect up close. But neither of us considered that Jobs was such a terrible parent.
So, Lisa's book is a revelation.
My own son's are now in their 30's, and doing well. Ten and fifteen years ago when people asked how they were doing I responded, "They are both sane. I am grateful." I continue to be, although I don't state that anymore.
And, I must say I have no longer carry any jealously of Jobs. If I were he, I'd feel terribly ashamed. This appears to be a very very sad book Lisa has written. I won't read it. I won't finish Isaacson's book either.
13
sorry, I never idolized Jobs as a person as so much our culture idolizes the the rich and famous and uber-successful. He was a genius--clearly--whom I admired. I didn't know the person, and, as a result, it is not my place to "forgive" him. As for labeling Brennan-Jobs marginalized--you must be kidding. Has the media lost all touch with what marginalized means. Further, most people are flawed, to some degree, regardless of gender, race, or sexual orientation, so the powerful white man versus the poor disenfranchised female narrative feels more sensational than honest.
5
Of course, if she didn't forgive him, she'd be duty-bound to give up his name...
4
Why’s that?
2
@C
Because one would not normally want to identify with an unforgivably horrible person... even while living high on his inheritance.
I greatly admire Ms. Brennan-Jobs; to have such a cold, self-centered and unfeeling father, and still being able to compliment him with her deep understanding of who he was. Her mother must have done something very right, even with all her faults. No one is perfect, after all.
25
"But details as lethal as these — they sink into Mr. Jobs’s legend like daggers to the hilt — are more proof than any DNA test that she is her father’s daughter."
Many details here strike me as human, and no real surprise given what we already knew about Steve Jobs. With lines like this she accentuates the salacious, for it draws more eyeballs. It seems to me that Nellie Bowles is the one yielding the dagger.
13
Human?
Thank goodness I didn’t know much of anything about Jobs beforehand.
I’d call him inhumane.
I thought that line was odd as I didn’t think that the daughter’s story suggested commonalities in their personalities & thus their DNA.
1
Women have a tough row. If she had gone to the clinic, oh my goodness the criticism. She didn’t. Then the father denied, withheld and was not supportive.
Love your offspring no matter what. Regardless of your partner.
I love Apple. SJ could have had it all. But he missed out.
12
Jobs was was an incredibly narcissistic man. After one reads the Isaacson biography, that narcissism touched every part of his life in every way. One thing that blew me away was the utter lack of security for his family. (That Powell Jobs did nothing to secure the safety of his family was amazing to me.) This young woman it seems tried to get blood out of a rock. When your childhood relationship begins by denial of paternity, followed up by humiliation, and his business, the second richest in tech which lives on doing relatively nothing for humanity (unless paying no taxes is the “win”) I’m wondering why he’s worthy of another book, especially if this is a “dad was really a good guy.”
19
This is extremely sad. Steve Jobs has been nearly idolized for his inventions - and truly, the iPhone has changed the world - even more than the Mac. However, it was well known that Steve Jobs was not a nice person - he was a genius, but like many other geniuses, he came up way short in basic humanity and decency.
25
This article reminds me of a hard-earned lesson, I believe to be true: we want people to be good or bad, but we struggle with the notion that they can be complex in a way that makes all-or-nothing value judgments difficult. As a marketer and perfecter of other innovations, he was peerless. As a dad, it sounds as though he was less than he would have hoped to be.
9
I’ve thought Ms. Brennan-Jobs’ story to be an important one to tell and I am very pleased to hear that she has authored it. Had to have been quite a journey. I must thank Walter Isaacson for his expressed thoughts about Ms. Brennon-Jobs; an extraordinary woman. Looking forward to September.
17
It's a bumper-sticker maxim (I saw it on the old beat-up station wagon of a college professor who could have afforded much more), but it has stuck with me for 40 years: "There is no success in life that can compensate for failure in the home."
127
This seems a very personal matter. And why is there any question about 'us' forgiving Mr. Jobs ? What did he ever do to us but provide cutting edge communicating technology ?
11
I guess your definition of “us” is very narrow.
Given the zillions of people that idolize/d him, I think learning what a monster he was might be challenging to many of them.
Isn’t there a line in the Bible about “those who harm to the least amongst them do so to me as well” or something like that? Maybe we should incorporate that a little more into our own lives instead of thinking so much about our great new devices...
A simple summation:
1) Steve Jobs had a significant character disorder
2) Daughter would not be forgiving if he'd stiffed her on the inheritance
3) Daughter has done remarkably well forming her own family considering her own development (lucky she had her mother); and, once again, being hugely wealthy by inheritance does much to enhance one's adjustment.
41
It is easier to forgive someone who is no longer with us.
4
Fascinating story, the narrative held me in all its grim particulars. Until this:
"But details as lethal as these — they sink into Mr. Jobs’s legend like daggers to the hilt — are more proof than any DNA test that she is her father’s daughter."
What? A daughter's memories of her father's abuse are equivalent to his actual abuse? It is grotesquely unfair, especially absent any other evidence in the article. It is gratuitous and cruel.
120
I agree completely. I thought it was totally off the mark. I suspect she thought it was a stylish literary tool or some such
3
As an ignored middle son, I can relate to the author's pain.
I disowned my family.
Finally free.
24
Condemning Steve Jobs, you are missing his point, which his daughter hasn't
his guiding principles were getting things right, getting them great, getting them aesthetic
& to do that he couldn't be distracted by by normal human sensitivity or customs of politeness -- they get in the way
of course he fell short of perfection, but he killed himself trying, & he was never harder on anybody than he was on himself -- and the stuff he created was closer to the mark than anybody else's.
that's a great legacy.
And another thing, as somebody who has been around Bill Gates since he was at Lakeside HS, wake up sycophants, the Gates Foundation is just a pr exercise that has successfully flipped Gates from devil to angel -- but If Steve Jobs were in charge of it, it probably would have better priorities and do them better.
Maybe we should be more wary about trying to judge people who are not our peers and recognize that Jobs, Gates, Allen, Bezos, and Musk are freaks who can't be accurately judged on human scales.
9
@frankly 32
No, no, no, he didn't kill himself trying for perfection. He simply denied the realities of neuroendocrine cancer and the disease killed him.
22
@sep
having survived two bouts of cancer, I have strong opinions about this and believe cancer is a result of that point where internal weaknesses meet external environmental insults. What is obvious to the expert is obvious to the amateur. In pushing himself to perfection Jobs wore down his immunity. He was constantly overstressed and underslept... racing from Apple to Pixair in his Porsche, as depicted by Isaacson -- and being one of the billionaire masters of a universe and fighting world mediocrity to boot was more than any body could bear. And unless you are a doctor/Bernie Siegel or Michael Lerner at Commonweal, I would ask you to keep your overconfident NO, NO, NOs to yourself. In 25 years of dealing with cancer I haven't found anybody who was absolutely sure about anything, including myself.
@frankly 32. thank you moderator for your forebearance in letting this argument run
That sounds like Borderline personality disorder and malignant narcissism. I am glad she wrote it, I am certain she has sought therapy and I hope she continues to do so. I hope his other children do too.
27
Reading this makes me want to thank the many spontaneous, creative, and brilliant individuals from whom I have learned - who managed to combine their incredible intellects with unfailing kindness.
In my opinion, their remarkable lives should point to the ridiculous belief that holds a genius blameless for terrible deeds, offensive conduct, and inexcusable rudeness.
19
Perhaps Steve Jobs inherited his tyrannical personality from his biological grandfather, who didn’t want his daughter (Steve’s biological mother) to marry a Muslim. Has Mona Simpson, his biological sister who became very close to him, ever written about their relationship? It would be interesting to see why that relationship thrived (in spite of the convoluted relationships surrounding it) while the one with his own daughter didn’t. I never really know what to think of Steve Jobs but clearly he had some undiagnosed personality disorder having to do with a lack of social filtering.
8
@Frau Greta Yes, Mona Simpson has written a novel about Steve and his terrible parenting of Lisa. "A Regular Guy. " Which is why it's hypocritical of her to now sign the family letter that pretends he wasn't an awful father. I also find it hard to believe that he was a great dad to his other three children. it doesn't work that way.
5
Glad that Tim Cook has increased Apple value far above where Jobs left it! Maybe nice guys can finish first.
14
Jobs may have had all the money in the world, but he seemed to be a miserable human being, and cruel to those around him.
23
What a monster.
Steve Jobs wasn't just narcissistic, he could be quite sadistic. (This was apparent in the Isaacson biography.) Maybe Ms. Brennan-Powell had to forgive him to move on with her life, but the depths of his meanness come through loud and clear in the quotes here.
It's probably not unusual for creative geniuses to lack normal human emotions, but let's not idolize people like Steve Jobs. It's remarkable the author turned out as well as she did, given her parents.
Maybe it's no surprise she married a Microsoft engineer and would have given her father's billions to the Gates foundation.
17
Small Fry? Rotten To The Core would have been a more appropriate title.
8
For anyone who followed Jobs' career, and who who didn't swallow the Silicon Valley Kool-Aid, Jobs who obviously a jerk. He was a narcissist who cared for nobody, a greedy monopolist, a crybaby who threw tantrums to get his way (well into middle age), a liar, a braggart, a con man. The list is long.
Yes I have an iPhone. Is it better than a Samsung phone? Yes but that doesn't mean we have to worship, or even admire, the man who ran the company that produced it.
What is the the value of a man's life? Is it creating a good and successful product? If asking the question that way makes it sound trivial, I think it is. I would say the value lies in who he loved. And how he showed it. From the account in this book, it looks like there was no real value.
23
Sadly, her account of her "father" just confirms how much of a uncaring, self-obsessed, know-it-all jerk Jobs was. What did he contribute to society anyway? The affordable desktop computer? My understanding is that Woz was the brains behind that, not Jobs. The IPhone? There were smart phones before the IPhone, he just stole someone's idea and patented it to make obscene amounts of money from someone else's idea. I'm glad she's worked through her trauma and has found forgiveness, that is the most important part of this book.
27
@Sheila
Exactly! Finally, someone said it! And, yes, I owned a smartphone before it was cool, years before the launch of the iPhone and found iPhone overrated. I own both Apple products and Android and I find Android has plenty more customizable features that iPhone and iPad lack. Jobs just used his conning methods to dupe his worshipers into believing he and his 'creation' was the one.
3
He’s now part of a not so exclusive club. The crappy dads club.
20
My God, what an awful man. There is something sadly reminiscent of Stockholm Syndrome in Lisa's attempts to forgive him.
How hard it can be to see our parents as they really are! They give us everything, and so we seek to justify them even when they have done us harm.
40
@Josh Hill
People all cling to the smallest things the worst parents do "right." because if they can;t find any, no matter that cognitively we grasp that it wasn't because of us, our instinctive emotions tell us a different story. Emotionally maltreated children often hold for dear life to parents - as if the whole story of their childhood could be rewritten if only they try hard enough. Parents like Jobs who were intermittently 'good' are the hardest to give up on. It is like Stockholm Syndrome. writ large, setting a pattern for life which requires that the person constantly monitor their own reactions to break out of.
1
I love it. Dead beat dad becomes tech mogul, transcending the morality of being a dead beat dad.
His daughter, normalizing his abuse, writes a memoir and makes money off of the fact that shes the daughter of a tech mogul while telling us she doesnt want to be famous off his coat tails.
She asks us to understand a guy who, if he wasn't a billionaire mogul, would have been just another run of the mill narcissist and child abuser whose daughter Penguin Publishing wouldnt have given a second thought to.
It's a twisted world. I think if this lady wanted to transcend her father she would have done something besides writing a memoir that the only reason we even care about is because Steve Jobs is her father.
At least she will make a ton of money and not have to do anything else besides being Steve Jobs daughter to stay rich. My Dad ignores me and pretends I dont exist, if I could get rich off him I'd be happy to but he isnt a tech mogul, he is a real estate developer. All well.
18
It's all good and well that Jobs apologised to Lisa later in life, but nothing can undo the emotional damage he did to her throughout her life, particularly her formative years. I love Steve Jobs as a tech visionary, but as a father to Lisa, he was undoubtedly a complete failure.
19
As far as I know from previous readings, etc Steve Jobs was not a very nice or balanced human being. I also think the daughter protests too much about her forgiveness. She need not forgive him. He was what he was. She is what she is.
12
Having observed the Berkeley-Palo Alto-SF hippy counterculture lifestyle at the time there’s really nothing unusual about this memoir other than Lisa’s famous dad. You would witness these scenes hundreds of times among friends, families and neighbors. It was contextual with a melting of classes and cultures. This was the time of the infamous “fire in the valley” when every sort of artistic creativity was in bloom racing along with breaking social mores, familial failures and crazy disappointments. Seems to happen every few generations.
7
It’s sad to see a young person living in the shadow of a parent
I’d advise Mr. Job’s daughter to make her own path, live her own life
The sun is far nicer than the shade
10
@Paul
And what causes you to think that she hasn't done this?
3
This, to me, is nonsensical. Why would the writer use the word "forgive"? The vast majority of us never met or interacted with Jobs. We have nothing to forgive. Had the writer used the word "admire", it may have made sense. I never admired Jobs and likely never will, but I definitely have nothing to "forgive" him for.
12
Steve Jobs was a technology visionary and historically great business leader. That’s what makes him interesting.
His family life? Couldn’t. Care. Less.
10
Did Ms. Bennet-Jobs just end that epic “PC or MAC” battle?
But do we have a new battle, now -- Team Brennan vs Team Powell?
You know what I most detest about abusive (and often widely adored) people? They roll on, undamaged at least in their view of life, but the abuse stays put, and it becomes the epic battle that abused must win. Congratulations to Ms. Brennan-Jobs on overcoming that terrible hardship.
There is quite a psychological dilemma in that she apparently earnestly forgives Jobs far more publicly than he abused her, but I don’t have the skill set for that puzzle. She does seem like a good writer, and compelled, so, forgive this, the apple might not fall that far...
No. I’m Team Brennan.
13
Steve Jobs mentioned how LSD helped him open his mind to the possibilities of the universe. We call hippies "flower-children" because the drug helps people develop empathy and a capacity for love. Read the testimonials by those taking psychedelics to help them cure depression and addiction issues, as well as those dealing with an incurable fatal medical diagnosis.
Sounds like he needed a lot more acid trips, starting at a much younger age.
9
@drdeanster
One way ticket.
1
For all of you with children, grandchildren, whatever— tell them often, daily if possible, “I love you”, and act like it!
That’s the message we want them to carry into adulthood, they are worthy of love, deserve love, and can pay it forward with love to others!
For whatever reasons, Steve Jobs and his wife did not understand the concept of love.
10
I was blessed to have an extraordinarily loving and attentive father. I failed to grasp, for far too long, that not everyone is so blessed. I am reminded of this every time I read, or read of, such a memoir. My dad has been gone for 20 years now, but my heart still hurts when I think of how I took him for granted.
39
Steve Jobs, in all likelihood, had high functioning autism, IMO. As a father of a daughter with HFA (a.k.a., Aspergers), he drips with the symptoms. I don't honestly know if he was ever diagnosed with this or something else, but if you look at all of these strange and unexplainable behaviors through this HFA filter, he and his life make sense. Probably Einstein had it too, and so many other so-called "geniuses."
10
"unparalleled mind" because he talked about consciousness and God...?
4
May we expect Ms. Brennan-Jobs memoir about her mother in the near future? A few widely scattered references to Ms. Brennan are intriguing. Her temper. Her neglectfulness. Her boy-friends. Stories about Dad will land Small Fry on the Times Best Seller List, but there were two tangoing in this tale of dysfunction. The Harvard aside and the mention of inherited millions might also benefit from a little flesh on the bones.
4
Disproving the idea that ‘only the good die young.’
15
No one cares. Mr Jobs, an evil individual, turned into a god by myriad sycophants.
12
Sadly' great men are usually self absorbed jerks.
7
The cult like worship of this man in much of our society reminds me of William James comment "I don't worship at the altar of the bitch-goddess success." For my money James was far more successful and much better person than this incredibly selfish man who resembles Trump in manifold ways. Jobs never impressed me, he still doesn't, and I hardly miss his absence.
5
So just to be clear....
Steve Jobs has completely ruined his daughter's life and through his company Apple and their products has now completely ruined mine via invasion of privacy, and by making it possible for major internationals to know my every move?
Damn away Lisa, damn away.
I never had a high opinion of this man and his greed and avarice when he was living and this article, though confirmatory of my initial hunches, really changes nothing. The truth should be told about this man - not about his success in business and technology but as his abject failure as a human being.
18
Forgive him for what? Not building all Apple products in the US? His personal life is his business, not really mine.
12
So he's part J. Paul Getty, part Joan Rivers, part idea-poaching Zuckerburg, and part apple-pie.
His daughter appears to be a fine writer....part deservedly passive-aggressive, part scathing, part self-magnified, part cathartic, and pointed at working day-by-day towards forgiving the shadows and facing the sunshine.
7
NO.
5
Truth be told, harsh as it might sound, if she is not the daughter of Steve Jobs, nobody would be interested in her story. I fully appreciate her attempt to claim her own narrative, but even years after his passing, the story still belongs to her father. Yes, she has absolved him and his cruel treatment of her (and her mother), though it's not out of "nuanced" perspective on Jobs' deeds, but rather, it's out of a daughter's desperate needs for love and kindness from a father she so desperately wants to gain love from.
No one is without flaws, some men (like Jobs) have more, far more, than others. Given the vast cult-like following of Jobs, even as he had been dead for some years now, it's quite likely that those Jobs-aficionado would simply treat her as "small fry" (as her memoir so aptly titled), one small blemish of a giant whose star has yet to dimmed. Perhaps in the annals of human history, Jobs will be judged more harshly as he should be, but not yet, not now, not even with first-hand account from his own flesh-and-blood.
7
I am shocked and yet not surprised that the shortcomings of Steve Jobs extending to being a parent and leave their mark indelibly on the life of at least one of his children. He is well known for being mercurial and spiteful. This account reveals that he was also petty and cruel in a role as a father. He was a deadbeat dad, forced by the law to paying child support. He failed to acknowledge Lisa’s existence in referring to having three children and denied paternity. The demands of being a parent should make anyone a better person; the experience for most people summons previously unknown qualities brought out by the role. It is a hard yet joyous evolution. Steve jobs for all his capitalist wealth never understood that profound yet simple worth. It makes me want to put my iPhone down. For good.
18
Do we have a right to play any role or be the judge of a blood relationship?
I don’t think so. It is between Steve and his daughter. If anything I would say, being abandoned by his birth parents may somewhat distort his attitude toward his daughter?
I am a staunch fan of Steve.
At personal level, his brilliant inventions have transformed my life. I am born a disorganized person—very forgetful and sloppy. But ever since I have had my iPhone, my life has become very organized. I don’t miss appointment and manage my time well. This is just one example of what Steve has contributed to my life.
I always blame the author of Steve’s biographer who detailed everything of Steve’s life but blurred the big picture——the big picture is for what Steve did for humanity, for him as a creative genius, and for his vision that defined his era, he should be celebrated not criticized for minor human errors, such as being not “kind enough” to others. To me, this is misrepresentation of Steve’s life. If we use a magnifying glass to study any person, we can always find faults or even some dark shades. Steve’s brilliant life doesn’t deserve to be slanted by a magnifying glass.
It is not only a personal but a collective loss for Steve to pass away in his prime. Imagine how much more he would achieve and contribute to humanity. Also, his premature passing deprived him of a chance to grow into a mellower person.
6
I never liked Steve Jobs. Never. Yet I couldn't quite figure out why I didn't. Early on, I think it was Woz' accounts that told me who he really was. I certainly didn't like Apple, or their single minded hording of cash.
Now I know why. Yeah, universe has a way of taking back it's due.
I might now even buy this book. At least it's honest.
20
@Pillai
What people who love Apple products never seem to comprehend is that Steve is not the one who created them. Woz was the original genius. Others after that did the creation. Never Steve.
Thanks for mentioning Woz, however indirectly!
5
I never met Steve Jobs. however, if the accounts that are portrayed in this book are accurate, I am glad I never did meet him. Jobs seems to have been a selfish bully who intentioned emotionally damaged many people. What a sad legacy to leave behind.
18
Time to nationalize the tech industry; disordered personalities like Bezos, Musk and Jobs (at least his inheritors) should be pushed out and replaced by a nonprofit dedicated to the public good, not obscene profit.
These guys never had the public good in mind. The disgusting behavior of the tech firms in Seattle, string-arming the local government when it tried to introduce to tiny tax to help the homeless, drug addicted on the streets of Seattle.
Shame.
22
I worry about how defensive the author is of her father, even as she reveals his cruelty to her. Seems like a good starting point for her to begin psychotherapy.
21
Lisa, I wish you peace and healing.
25
I wonder about the step-mommy, too. What was her problem? Has she no decency?
26
She’s just a cold person.
12
He was a monster--or, if you prefer more precision, a sociopath. Too bad his daughter still needs some posthumous approval from him. We owe wretched parents nothing. I hope the family she's built for herself will be loving and happy.
25
Steve Jobs was both a brilliant innovator and a narcissistic jerk. He abused his employees; demanded reverence, not respect; overvalued his opinions; and neglected and abused his daughter.
When Lisa seemed to be developing her own life and identity by running for class president, her father shamed and guilted her into giving up those pursuits. Narcissists don’t want to share the limelight; their biggest fear is that, if not the center of attention and pulling everyone’s strings, they will be abandoned.
It’s too bad that Steve Jobs’ biological sister, Mona Simpson, has decided to once again shame Lisa. Apparently, in the Jobs family, if you suggest that Steve was not a god - i.e., tell the truth - you are cut loose. Lisa needed be seen and, despite her ambivalence, had the courage to ask us to see her. What she fears now is that, as in every other time she dared to raise her head, she will be cut down.
But she won’t, because the Jobs family is not the whole world. Lisa, you deserved to be loved. The shame is on the Jobs family that, even now, they can’t see that.
60
For those like Ms. Brennan-Jones forgiveness is essential for psychological healing. It freed her from from a man who severely abused her and allowed her to escape being confined to hate, remorse, and revenge. Her actions are reminiscent of an Auschwitz survivor who produced a very moving and controversial documentary on "Forgiving Dr. Mengele" who was a notorious Nazi doctor who tortured twins often causing their death. This psychological journey was a primer on how one can heal from severe abuse. We may not like Steve Jobs, but we can understand the necessity for his daughter finally to free herself from his psychological prison.
10
Steve Jobs was a jerk, and a world-class one at that. His thoughtless narcissism was harmful to any other human being he came across. He stole all the computing secrets he used to start Apple and abused everyone who worked for him. He parked in the nearest handicapped parking spot and didn't bathe. Even though he was orphaned and hugely effected by the rejection of his bological parents, went on to perpetuate that pain by treating his biological daughter the same way. If there is a better definition of a jerk, outside of Washington,DC, I don't know who it would be.
25
@Jeff M By all accounts, Steve Jobs' adoptive parents were very loving.
1
I fail to understand why Lisa Brennan-Jobs is apologetic about her cruel, insufferable father - Steve Jobs. He was a jerk. Period. Was it Lisa's fault that she borne by a woman, her father did not love? Why all that angst against a little girl who happens to be his daughter? He was cruel just because he could. Always disdainful, he studiously, deliberately undermined her confidence, created insecurity and humiliated her very existence. In 'Small Fry', is an unsure Lisa explaining away her dad's viciousness and forgiving him? Or is she having the last laugh bringing down a cyber god to his inner demons, a really pathetic human being. I have not read the book but I hope it is the latter. Because she 'did' write the book after all.
12
Life is complicated.
1
Jobs sounds like a real jerk, in a lot of ways. However, he did a lot of magical wonderful things in his work and creations. So, is Jobs the first 'creative genius' ever to be difficult, hard to get along with, and obnoxious to other people? Hardly! Perhaps the same characteristics that make these rare people so creative and driven become a real detriment to their ability to relate to those people around them, and close to them. I worked with a woman who was on the original Macintosh development team... and she did not think highly of Jobs' interpersonal skills, to put it politely. However, while those directly impacted can judge him by how he treated them, I have to judge him mostly by what he created - and there I judge him very highly and well. It is sad that he died so young - I have to believe that he had some more "insanely great" ideas inside him. I'm pleased that Lisa (and I always thought it was named for her, he didn't fool anyone IMO) can forgive him.
I do not intend to read her memoir. It is heartbreaking just reading the excerpts. Steve Jobs was most certainly a brilliant man, but severely lacking in love, understanding or empathy. I hope writing her memoir was cathartic for her.
7
I was a young engineer in the late 70's when the manager of our division traveled to Silicon Valley as part of a team pitching our microprocessor to Apple and Mr. Jobs for what eventually became the Macintosh.
Apparently the pitch went well and they went out to dinner afterwards, but Jobs said our manager (who was a great guy) wasn't welcomed to dine with them because he wasn't "at least a VP". So he dined alone at the hotel.
So nothing in this review of his neglected daughter surprises me.
56
Very simply, if one kept the name of this parent anonymous but still described the behavior as clearly as she does, it would be impossible not to feel both sad and angry for the confusing parenting she endured, vacillating between abusiveness, neglect, and inappropriate affection and sometimes true affection. I'm so sorry for Lisa. I hope one day she does not need to apologize for her father's bad behavior and simply let's it stand so that the responsibility for these damages falls in the right place--on him.
13
Sadly, the world is full of crummy fathers - I had one too. Why do so many children of awful fathers choose to focus more on them than the strong, loving, supportive mothers who were actually there for them? I'd like to see Lisa write a book about her heroic mother who raised her against the odds. Let's start focusing on those unsung heroes and supporting their efforts.
18
Still another glaring example of the fact that being skilled, even a genius, in one area, the skill or talent does not extend to other areas. Get over the myth that a successful business can run a country. Indeed, the opposite may be true: the brilliance in one area is often offset by totally incompetence in others...perhaps, the most important as regards a human being. Take Einstein and his relations to his wife, for example.
20
I don't want to weigh in on the question of what allowances we make for the character flaws of innovators and leaders and transformative cultural figures. But hidden among the cruelties and gross neglect is that detail about money.
I'm not unsympathetic to the notion that children of the rich should be challenged to make their own way instead of being give everything that money can buy. However, "a childhood on welfare"? This is passing responsibilities that you can well afford to bear onto others. I'm sure Jobs paid enough in taxes to more than cover what taxpayers spent to care for his family. Still, it's such a reminder of what differences can exist between the rich and the rest of us. Most of us would be embarrassed to have money for ourselves and to leave our children to public support. It just shows how immense success and wealth feed off pathologies.
49
The answer to your question is, It's none of our business. And for some one who has written a book but is now concerned about how it might reflect on her father, Ms. Brennan Jobs did sit for an interview that ends up with all the juiciest bits.
4
Pure and simple child abuse. For his daughter to in any way try to blame herself is proof of that.
64
My heart goes out to Ms. Brennan-Jobs and I truly hope she is able to live happily and fulfilled.
In addition to the effects of her father’s behavior on her, it has rippled in ways large and small to thousands of employees and their families as company management often emulated Jobs’ style with disastrous results. And continues to. Insanely great for the consumer though.
6
My two sister as I were raised by middle class parents.
We never were without but we didn't have extras, either.
We never witnessed our parents arguing nor fighting.
We had parents who were kind to each other and encouraging to their daughters.
We are now 3 very happy, well adjusted women in our 60's.
We attribute our success in life to a loving childhood.~The size of your house, the make of your car, the clothes you wear are not what matter in one's lifetime. It is the love & kindness you give to your children.. It's really rather simple.
54
A failing parent can be forgiven under the most trying circumstances.
Once one realizes that "they did the best they could" regardless of riches, poverty, absenteeism, neglect, or the parent's status in the world- "they did the best they could".
Not everyone who bears or fathers a child is able to manage parenthood. A child - or adult can bear the burden of anger or realize this fact and move on. Of course this is often not easily done...but well worth the effort.
2
@Jill (gojill) Stop making excuses for cruel parents. In the US, in this day and age, with his mind, Jobs would have known how to find out information about parenting. He owed it to his kid to be better than being "the best they could."
16
Though I gave birth to and raised four children, each can describe a different mother. To some I was fun and loving, to others I was cold and distant. Each is an accurate description I'm ashamed to say. Living under one roof does not guarantee equality. There's a chemistry between parent and child making relationships vary. Apologies can not erase the harm caused.
12
My father grew up during the depression and his father died (Spanish influenza)when he was less than 2 years old leaving his widowed mother with 4 young children to raise. This was in 1918 before there was any government help for the poor forcing him to drop out of high school to work to help put food on the table.
Needless to say, this level of childhood poverty had a tremendous negative effect on my father which affected his entire life.
In spite of that, my father never uttered an unkind word to me and I always knew he loved me although many would never have thought he was a so called success.
If I had to choose between having my father who never made a high salary and Steve Jobs with his billions and cruelty, I would choose my father every time.
96
@marian
I would, too.
Two thoughts: (1) The neighbors who took Lisa in were a godsend and hopefully, are given their just due in the book, and.
(2) While it is an armchair analysis, I think that Jobs was on the autism spectrum since many of the incidents described in the article fit the spectrum including the lack of empathy and the awkwardness in his relationships.
24
Careful with the diagnoses & stereotypes, especially ASD. I’m not an expert but I see it get tossed around a lot with cruel, callous, apparently unfeeling people. It’s not the 1st disorder that comes to my mind when I think of verbally abusive & imperious people.
Many people on the autism spectrum have considerable empathy.
Try reading about the work of Temple Grandin. She helped design more humane mechanisms for killing cattle that some of us love to eat in great quantity.
There was an article in the NYT in the last couple of years about a young actor with ASD that was playing the role of an autistic young man. He was very young, married, think he already had a kid while in his early 20’s. No clear problems with empathy as far as one would think.
Complete Lack of empathy I believe is most characteristic of SOCIOPATHS. For sure, not all of them are murderers, but they are they are the prototypical “cold blooded killers” that just murder for the heck of it & feel no remorse, nothing. Ever heard of the TV show “Dexter?” A friend of mine watched it & told me that it was about a sociopath who targets other sociopaths. Don’t know if it’s true....,
Narcissists can definitely lack empathy too. Jobs sounds like a serious narcissist. He may have also have had sociopathic traits. Apparently sociopathic traits aren’t uncommon in CEO’s, etc.
1
I didn't work for Mr Jobs, but I had meetings with him when he was CEO of NEXT. In the words of Laurene Powell Jobs, he was a "cold" cold person. Incredibly so. Even by the standards of Tech industry titans: Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Larry Ellison; all people that I've had 1-1 meetings with, Mr Jobs exhibited zero empathy and zero humanity. To be in a room with him made you question whether there are standards for human behavior.
I read Walter Isaacson's bio of Jobs, and regardless of it's length, and his unique access to Jobs, his friends, and family
I still have no understanding of the man.
93
Ms. Brennan-Jobs story is an enigma we can all project upon. That doesn't mean we should.
I do look forward to reading the book just to enjoy her writing.
In this article Steve Jobs first born child tells us her story. The story of her childhood isn't laughs and giggles. It is actually pretty sad. Her father Steve Jobs is not what the world perceived him to be. He focused more on his wealth and company than his first born. In a way it seems like he really wasn't ready to be a father to Lisa and she suffered for his immaturity. There is a possibility that he resented Lisa because she was made with a woman he didn't love. Also it made him harder to get away from home and achieve his dreams. Lisa had a pretty hard life with a man who played a big part in advancing the world. Steve put more effort into his work than his relationship with Lisa.
166
@bengal11Megan12182001
True. Perhaps highly creative & highly driven men, more so than women, may behave close to being callous or really callous.
This lengthy account on Lisa Brennan-Jobs's account of her father reveals that she went through so much unnecessarily. Sad. Her mother also endured far too much.
This essay also gives a peak into the eccentricities of Jobs, which caused him to die prematurely, for not getting the right treatment for his treatable pancreatic cancer. His obstinacy may have led Apple to near bankruptcy but then rejuvenated to be the most valuable corporation of today.
2
@bengal11Megan12182001-Jobs was rejected by his own father and it appears he internalized that horror and did the same to his daughter.
3
Compare all we know about Steve Jobs to Bill Gates. Bill Gates has children and does not even have to admit they are his. He is behind the most successful charitable organization ever. He has convinced multiple billionaires to give away their estates. Yet we idolize Steve Job and not even Trump would do what Jobs did to his child.
32
She has a bigger heart that her father could never had. He attempted to inflict the same pain he suffered from his biological parents. He lived a painful life cocooned by his products, company and people he can inflict insults, suffering and pain.
4
It really is not our business to forgive Steve Jobs unless he somehow also wronged us. His daughter has forgiven him and this memoir seems to have helped her do so which is lovely.
4
A lot of red flags.
The guy rejected his daughter until he was compelled by the government to accept his responsibilities. Wow.
It’s pretty predictable that he would behave in a spiteful, vengeful way toward the child once he was forced to accept her.
He should not have been granted any access to this young person, at least not in an unsupervised visit situation.
16
No.
At this moment my Iphone is overheating and draining the battery.
So, no. I don't forgive him.
Oh - and Lisa should not forgive him, either.
12
She sounds delightful. Just the kind of person I'd like as a friend. Funny. Thoughtful. Sensitive. Kind......
.....and strong, as it takes strength to own both your voice and your experiences.
5
Is the a poor little rich girl trying to wash the family laundry in public, remembering only what her mind set allows her to remember under the influence of an indifferent mother who in this story is all good. We all can remember events in our childhood that were monumentally injuring but that is the way of life, full of good and bad. I doubt that her life was all bad. It always take two dance and I wonder if she honestly remembers the dance she performed that may have not been so innocent and good.
4
@WYB: You're blaming her, as a kid, for the abuse? It's not normal for a father to grind against his new wife and tell the daughter to watch. It's not her fault. None of this is her fault.
22
I am very relieved that Jobs left an equal share of inheritance for
Lisa. I can only hope she finds an intelligent therapist and goes twice a week for the rest of her life.
Emotional abuse is never love.
30
Going public with your personal story is a major decision. Why would anyone want to do it, other than make money? Since Lisa has been left well-off, why? A lawyer once told me no one ever finds vindication in a court of law. I would say no one finds resolution and release in publishing. I just can’t see how writing about a famous parent will not be about the famous parent.
Everyone knows Jobs was a cruel piece of work. Maybe we all need to be reminded every now and then that an obsessive lout was a significant creator of the world we now live in. The apple does not fall far from the tree. Now we’re all obsessives.
7
@joymars: People heal by telling their stories.
10
To a shrink, or a recovery group. But to the entire world is an entirely different matter.
2
@joymars Perhaps if we hear enough of these stories, of successful men who were horrible to the people around them, we will stop putting them up on pedestals. Treating them like Gods for what - business acumen? - feeds the problem. The culture of impunity needs to stop. If her memoir helps put a dent in that, it's doing a great service.
14
How is it the slightest bit relevant to anything or anyone if I "forgive" Steve Jobs for anything he may have done or not done? He was not beholden to me for anything except the ability of his products to live up to his claims.
2
Steve Jobs' behavior towards Lisa was despicable, based on undisputed, objective facts. But there was contrition and reconciliation.
He was also famously mercurial and unsympathetic as a human. But these traits are not uncommon among the most effective geniuses.
The details brought out in this book which go beyond this, making him out to be a psychopathic monster, are however not undisputed nor objective. Maybe they're true, but maybe the protest from his other family members are more honest. How do we know? Some of the alleged behavior and particularly the alleged words don't ring true based on the copious accounts of Jobs' behavior at his worst, and it's difficult to understand the defense from his other children and his wife if he truly had been such a monster.
It strikes me, as it has others, that Lisa's claimed forgiveness is not genuine, and so skepticism of other parts of her account is immediately present. Forgiveness is inconsistent with publishing such a memoir.
It's possible that she claims to forgive her father to avoid the accusation that this memoir is her vengeance. It has mostly worked.
6
How unfortunate. Many times, we forgive for ourselves, not the person who transgresses. This seems to be the case here.
2
There's no substitute for emotional intelligence. We can all be evolved, so intelligent in many other ways, but still be emotional midgets. Just because someone has a genius in one way doesn't mean they are clueless in other realms of being. What's tragic here is the way the Jobs family responded to Lisa's book: "He's not the man we knew!" Of course not, first, he wasn't YOUR father, second, the people we know, we see through our own eyes and experience, not someone else's. She's liberated now that she can write from where she stands and not anyone else's. No one else has her experience. Nor does she have theirs.
9
Hm. I had managed to not know anything about Steve Jobs the person until this article came along. Read it because as the daughter of an abusive father, I wanted to compare notes, so to speak.
Of course, whether us readers 'forgive' Jobs is neither here nor there and that a wealthy businessman happens to be a jerk, or worse, is not news.
But I'm not sure what it says about us readers that Jobs's business success and his uselessness as a father are played off against each other as they are in these comments. Was there ever a chance that Jobs was a great guy because he knew how to build and sell computers? What reputation exactly do his daughter's recollections tarnish? Surely the mistake was to ever assume that the products' success says anything positive about the man.
Hats off to Lisa Brennan-Jobs. She is a lot more forgiving than I would be.
19
The Chinese writer Jianan Qian reflects a different side of family in her op-ed The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter.
Her father was a janitor, not a silicon icon who bequeathed $21 billion to his family. Her anguish is her inability to help her stricken mother in China for lack of money or connections. Like Ms. Lisa Brennan-Jobs, she's driven to write but out of her own passion as a writer and not as the recovering scion of a notorious and revered tech visionary.
With 1.6 billion people (without a census China's population is an educated guess) a Chinese daughter is at the bottom of a Mariana Trench of Chinese anonymity with only her single child family as the basis of self-worth. But as a daughter in China she has no value other than husband-bait or as her parents' caretaker.
Between the fog of an ancient culture and the glare of a fast-emerging modern one Ms. Qian is despondent over her absence of agency as her mother is stricken. She knows her identity stems from not being a Chinese son and thus irrelevant as an economic engine for her family. She is free because in China she's nothing.
Steve Jobs as a child thought being adopted meant his birth parents didn't want him. In fact it was because his Catholic mother's parents objected to her relationship with Job's Muslim father, an Arab nationalist from Syria then a Ph.D student at Wisconsin.
Perpetrator and victim, chicken and egg.
Children become their family if they don't come first.
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No, we should not. It is her right to forgive him. She is trying to free herself, something Steve Jobs would never have understood. Open, free heart.
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Steve Jobs was a salesman, period.
He created nothing.
He stole ideas from others.
He never acknowledged the people who actually made the Apple computer a reality.
Even with all his money, he never thought of using his wealth to help others.
He is simply the Silicon Vally version of Donald Trump.
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What Jobs did to the smart phone market in 2007, to take one example of many, was 99% vision and 1% sales. He was a visionary first, a designer second, and yes a helluva salesman.
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@John Smith
David is spot on. You are not. The achievements you cite are not Steve's. His main achievement was that he didn't understand technical things and he bullied designers and engineers into making things he could understand. Thus the rest of the world (a bit of hyperbole, granted) also liked the products.
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@Sue
What you call bullying, others call inspiring, but whatever it was, it depended on vision, not salesmanship, and that makes me spot on and you and David flat out wrong.
Jobs was a great salesman, orator, strategist and more. But he was really dumb to have asked whether Lisa would write a book on him. Ignore her jolting response for a moment, and the likelihood that Jobs may in fact have planted in her the seed for a tell-all book. In a flashing moment of presumably reckless thought, Jobs conceded the game of power relations to Lisa. Sadly, he was probably too engrossed in Law & Order (and himself) to recognise the sudden tectonic shift.
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The comments here tend to acknowledge he was a nasty man or to excuse his nastiness because he was brilliant. (I tend toward the former assessment.)
I do wonder what Elon Musk's five children while say of him as a father? (He recently acknowledged he works 120 hours a week but has time for young girlfriends.)
And what Baron will say of Trump someday.
Most of us would prefer to be loved than to have a rich powerful absent (or downright abusive) father, no matter how 'brilliant.'
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You just wonder what makes some people (and Steve Jobs is by no means unique) so monstrously cruel to people who are close to them. He was a visionary as a business and technology leader. But as a human being he left much to be desired.
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@Marc
It's a brain wiring that is the causality for psychopathy
I didn't think I could have a lower opinion of Steve Jobs; but, now I do.
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I've always ignored the reports of Steve Jobs, but now it's clear to me he was a true monster. Everyone around him was a machine to be manipulated, even his daughter. I'm thankful he never entered politics.
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One perspective ( influenced by the Mental Health field+Hindu culture ) : Do we have a job on hand for many such Jobs families in this materialistic, information age?
Ok, all of Steve Jobs' children received "only" "millions" of dollars in inheritance while his wife received billions and billions, all of which Steve Jobs himself earned.
I wish the journalist had asked Mrs. Jobs (Steve's widow) what part of her vast fortune she has designated for her children and how much for Lisa ,,, though I expect I know the answer.
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@Frederick Kiel
The article indicates Ms. Brennan-Jobs received the same inheritance (in the millions) as Jobs' other children.
Sure, Steve Jobs was good to his daughter at times, but the times he was bad can be psychologically devastating to a child/teenager, especially when they occur enough times to literally terrorize her. We can look at President Trump and wonder whether his banishment to military school was a slight he took badly, or whether he was already damaged psychological goods.
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@David BinkoYet, strangely enough, Trump has wonderful and empowering with his children. I wonder how that works. I also wonder if Jobs were to become president, would the ruthlessness have come out then.
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@David Binko. He may very well have been banished because he was damaged, born a sociopath. They come that way, born, not shaped. No accounting for it.
There is one in my family-- a sibling who had the same family as mine, but got more attention, just because she caused more problems. This is often the case, because the problem child is just that.
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@A. Grundman
Really? He seems to have turned them into grifters in his image. Suggest you re-evaluate.
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Only thing I was looking for was this:
"Ultimately, Mr. Jobs left his daughter an inheritance in the millions...." but had to wait till the end to see this. Good writing!
After years of working in hospitals around the sick and injured where you see families with the mask off I suspect there is far more dysfunction among a significant part of our families. The joke about Jerry Springer and Maury Povich never running out of people to populate the human carnival that is their stock in trade has more than a little truth in it.
Mr Jobs was an odd bird, that much is more than clear. When I was a kid I read the Bobbs-Merrill Biographies and it seems most of the Fords, Franklins, Edisons and such were odd birds. I am not making excuses and I am not a Psychologist, but maybe they go hand in hand.
As to Ms Brennan-Jobs, what she is still dealing with shows how profoundly stuff from our childhood impacts or can impact our entire adult life. That should be a reminder to be kind to the little ones in our lives- all the time.
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A better idea: read sister Mona Simpson's eulogy https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/mona-simpsons-eulogy-for-stev...
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I was raised in the Santa Clara Valley during these times; Jobs' mug was everywhere and his acolytes were legion. To this day, I do not care one whit about how articulate, how demanding, how forward-thinking and innovative, or how (insert obsequious hyperbole here) he was---even though he is dead, he also was a brutal, mean, unfeeling, vengeful, and narcisisstic human with a heart as black as those bloody turtlenecks. Ms. Brennan-Jobs is, sadly, in such a state of denial that this forgiveness may be her source of healing.
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Brennan Jobs may need to forgive her father, but his putdowns and coldness have obviously affected her if is she is so nervous about her book, and sees only her 'bad' features, even though by any standard she is actually a beautiful woman.
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I am sorry to say this sounds like a biography written by someone with Stockhold Syndrome. I hope Ms. Brennan-Jobs practices self-compassion as well.
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An absolutely ridiculous headline:
In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him. Should We?
Should We.
Wow.
The man has been dead for a few years now.
From all accounts, he was sometimes a nasty, mean-spirited person.
The question of reconciling who this dead man was and whether it warrants forgiveness should be left for his daughter, his family, his friends, and the colleagues that he left behind.
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This has more comments than Aretha’s obit. Bananas.
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He comes across as a creep and one reason I've never wanted to read a bio of the man. It's the same old tired story: male genius, but a jerk … so, all is forgiven. This sort of story is a sample of how male (not necessarily white) privilege works, and seems to follow a narrative of making excuses for bad boy behavior. Someone who is cruel to children is the worst type of person.
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I don't want to write anything too negative about Apple Jobs and Company... I want my Laptop to work tomorrow.
So, Lisa, like you, I had "adults" around me when I was a child. What did I do? Became an Individual very fast, and realized they never changed, and probably wouldn't unless forced to, maybe. They were too uneducated to change. Middle level IQs and School Achievement Grades. Just Middle Class, if not Low Class Manners.
It shocks the mind about you struggling with money while he made so much. Shocking. I suppose someone needed to put him in his place. I know you see billions, but you don't see zillions. He is just a billionaire, didn't quite make-it with his product to zillionaire. Something needs to be edited.
I would have advised you to write about something else other than your "Dad". I suppose Sylvia Plath who wrote Daddy, might be glad she didn't take my advice, since that poem is so famous.
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@Kim Susan Foster although to be fair Sylvia's father was a whole lot less hostile ....
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Daddy Dearest. Seems like Joan Crawford could have taken lessons from Steve Jobs.
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Maybe step-Mommie Dearest, too? Given the comment above
He may be idolized as a man who made a great product, but it seems he was a thoroughly awful person.
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Everybody knows by now, Jobs WAS a jerk, so this is nothing new, but am glad Lisa seems to be moving on.
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Maybe Steve Jobs sounds like a horrible father because he was a horrible father.
You know, you really aren't required to love someone just because he contributed some DNA.
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'In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him. Should We?'
Quick question - what business is it of anyone's who's not a member of the Jobs family?
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Thats life a bunch of skeletons. Por Daughter
"When Mr. Jobs refused to install heat in her bedroom, he was not being callous, she says — he was instilling in her a “value system.”"
Lisa seems to have written this book as a catharsis, but she still cannot come around to say the words: His father was a jerk. Does not matter who you are, what you do, how much you make; if you can install heat in your daughters bedroom, but you don't, you are a jerk. Value system my foot!
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On second thought I won't forgive him. Everyone can chose whether to be evil or not. He chose to be. He should go to H.
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I always knew he was a big phony, but I couldn't put my finger on much other then his arrogance. That and the fact that is greedy wife is keeping billions off shore... Jobs the greedy ones. Gates the givers!
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S Jobs is a rotten apple, an arrogant man ... he is dead though!
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"In ‘Small Fry,’ Steve Jobs Comes Across as a Jerk. His Daughter Forgives Him. Should We?"
No
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In the 1990s, you didn't have to follow technology, or even own a computer, to have heard that Steve Jobs was a jerk. It was truly common knowledge, out there in the universe.
Then the hagiographic approach to all-things-Jobs kicked in full time post-iMac.
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"His Daughter Forgives Him. Should We?"
"Should we" ???? How presumptuous! Ms. Bowles, how do you not see that it's not up to you, to us? He may have wronged some people but has not wronged you or us. You can judge, but why do you presume that it might be your privilege or mandate to forgive?
Steve Jobs may have been a jerk, but seemingly also a pretty original and smart person, for which I have no particular sympathy or enmity. He cut his own track, did things differently (and died of his cancer by resorting to alternative truths... er... medicines).
So there's light and dark in each one of us. What a discovery! Casting him in media hell would be as stupid and puerile as elevating him as he was to the rank of modern-day Savior.
This media / asocial media circus is really getting tiresome. As for the book, it doesn't interest me.
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I just want to hold Lisa and assure her that her hard truth and ensuing forgiveness may help all the other unwanted children. My bio dad never acknowledged me and my beautiful mother NEVER got past bringing a bastard into this world. She's barely alive now, but I learned she disinherited me YEARS ago. For the sin of being born? Who knows.
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Many people who are lionized for their accomplishments in their fields - were definite SOBs to the human beings around them. Others were just average people.
As the unfavored child, who not only had to survive his negligence, selfishness and scorn, one of the next hardest things for Ms Brennan-Jobs must be encountering the denial of her experience - by family and by a portion of the public that turned him into their god.
It sounds as if she has taken hold of her experiences and rewritten them to move forward, this time at the controls. Still very careful with her words, tho. and that will probably always be with her. It is;t just that she doesn't want to offend, I suspect, but because she knows how powerfully they can wound when launched without caring.
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