Steve Jobs was no saint. This will not surprise those who have already heard of his legendary temper tantrums and sometimes cruel treatment of family, friends and employees. Walter Isaacson’s recently released authorised biography “Steve Jobs” is a brutally honest portrayal of a man who was a deeply conflicted and enigmatic character. Jobs deserves all the acclaim he received after his recent death aged 56 because he was undoubtedly a visionary who revolutionised the world with the breath-taking beauty and seamless purpose of his digital products. Yet, at the same time, he bristled with arrogance, selfishness and was filled with contradictions of many different hues.
Isaacson’s in-depth portrayal of Jobs shows this to be true from his earliest days, when realising how much more intelligent he was than his adoptive parents, he would relentlessly force his will upon them. Jobs genuinely loved his parents, but still selfishly pushed them into untenable situations - such as taking a mortgage on a house they could not afford just so he could attend a different school.
Further character contradictions abound. Jobs was a Zen Buddhist who eschewed material possessions yet was worth $256 million by his mid-twenties and produced products that most people don’t realise they cannot live without until they have them. He struggled with the fact he had been given up for adoption, feeling abandoned by his biological parents, but then did exactly the same thing to a daughter born out of wedlock, refusing to admit paternity for years. Jobs also was a fan of fad diets, alternating between vegetarianism, veganism and fruitarism. Early on he believed his diet so expunged unhealthy toxins from his body that he had no need to shower regularly (a conviction friends and colleagues did not share).
In his early years Jobs stiffed his best friend and co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak out of a commission, and later ruthlessly stole ideas, refused to share credit on others, humiliated staff members in public, fired people on whims and would go ballistic in restaurants if he did not like the food. Yet he was also sensitive when criticised and was known to burst into tears in meetings, especially during his first incarnation as head of Apple. Jobs would get his way by sheer force of will, shouting and screaming at people, but at the same time he got them to do the best work of their lives. “I was hard on people sometimes, probably harder than I need to be,” he admitted. “But somebody’s got to do it.”
Jobs quickly became renowned for his ‘reality distortion field’. He never accepted anything was impossible, and those who worked with and alongside him testify how in his presence they also came to believe this to be true. Jobs refused to accept imperfection and would agonise for days over the shape, feel and style of the electronic plugs for his Macs, never mind the actual machines. His perfectionism, vision and ability to know what people wanted before they did meant he transformed two companies - Apple and Pixar - into world leaders in their respective fields. Jobs was behind products like the ‘Toy Story’ franchise, Mac computers, iPods, iPhones, iPads and the iCloud.
Isaacson’s biography of this flawed genius is compelling precisely because it is so honest. Jobs lived with a black-and-white paradigm in which people were either ‘heroes’ or ‘s--ts,’ and work was either ‘insanely good’ or ‘total s--t’. It is fitting then that this extensive look at his life is equally brutal with the truth. While Jobs comes across as a repugnant character at times, there is also something deeply stirring about a man who believed in the possibility that beauty and technology together could change the world. One of his earliest girlfriends described him best when she said he was an enlightened being who could also be cruel. Despite all this, his passing left a huge hole in the lives of those who knew him, with Jobs being described as a mentor, friend and inspiration.
Isaacson’s biography is a fascinating effort - not only for delving into the psychology of a man capable of such remarkable contrasts, but also for its insights into the history-making Information age. It is within this context we see how Jobs - a gifted and supernaturally driven man - actually did change human history, yet at the same time he struggled to carry out normal human relationships. Yes, Steve Jobs was certainly no saint. His character was riven with flaws, but his relentless drive and passion for beauty and technology to find a convergence point saw him become an indispensable part of the digital revolution. In the end, Isaacson’s concluding assessment seems to be spot on: “Was he smart? Not, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius.”