http://gawker.com/5847344/what-everyone-is-too-polite-to-say-about-steve-jobs
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By Ryan Tate
Oct 7, 2011 11:30 AM
1,370,005 959
What Everyone Is Too Polite to Say About Steve Jobs
In the days after Steve Jobs' death, friends and colleagues have, in
customary fashion, been sharing their fondest memories of the Apple
co-founder. He's been hailed as "a genius" and "the greatest CEO of
his generation" by pundits and tech journalists. But a great man's
reputation can withstand a full accounting. And, truth be told, Jobs
could be terrible to people, and his impact on the world was not
uniformly positive.
We mentioned much of the good Jobs did during his career earlier. His
accomplishments were far-reaching and impossible to easily summarize.
But here's one way of looking at the scope of his achievement: It's
the dream of any entrepreneur to effect change in one industry. Jobs
transformed half a dozen of them forever, from personal computers to
phones to animation to music to publishing to video games. He was a
polymath, a skilled motivator, a decisive judge, a farsighted
tastemaker, an excellent showman, and a gifted strategist.
One thing he wasn't, though, was perfect. Indeed there were things
Jobs did while at Apple that were deeply disturbing. Rude, dismissive,
hostile, spiteful: Apple employees—the ones not bound by
confidentiality agreements—have had a different story to tell over the
years about Jobs and the bullying, manipulation and fear that followed
him around Apple. Jobs contributed to global problems, too. Apple's
success has been built literally on the backs of Chinese workers, many
of them children and all of them enduring long shifts and the specter
of brutal penalties for mistakes. And, for all his talk of enabling
individual expression, Jobs imposed paranoid rules that centralized
control of who could say what on his devices and in his company.
It's particularly important to take stock of Jobs' flaws right now.
His successor, Tim Cook, has the opportunity to set a new course for
the company, and to establish his own style of leadership. And, thanks
to Apple's success, students of Jobs' approach to leadership have
never been so numerous in Silicon Valley. He was worshipped and
emulated plenty when he was alive; in death, Jobs will be even more of
an icon.
After celebrating Jobs' achievements, we should talk freely about the
dark side of Jobs and the company he co-founded. Here, then, is a
catalog of lowlights:
Censorship and Authoritarianism
What Everyone Is Too Polite to Say About Steve JobsThe internet
allowed people around the world to express themselves more freely and
more easily. With the App Store, Apple reversed that progress. The
iPhone and iPad constitute the most popular platform for handheld
computerizing in America, key venues for media and software. But to
put anything on the devices, you need Apple's permission. And the
company wields its power aggressively.
In the name of protecting children from the evils of erotica —
"freedom from porn" — and adults from one another, Jobs has banned
from being installed on his devices gay art, gay travel guides,
political cartoons, sexy pictures, Congressional candidate pamphlets,
political caricature, Vogue fashion spreads, systems invented by the
opposition, and other things considered morally suspect.
Apple's devices have connected us to a world of information. But they
don't permit a full expression of ideas. Indeed, the people Apple
supposedly serves — "the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers" —
have been particularly put out by Jobs' lockdown. That America's most
admired company has followed such an un-American path, and imposed
centralized restrictions typical of the companies it once mocked, is
deeply disturbing.
But then Jobs never seemed comfortable with the idea of fully
empowered workers or a truly free press. Inside Apple, there is a
culture of fear and control around communication; Apple's "Worldwide
Loyalty Team" specializes in hunting down leakers, confiscating mobile
phones and searching computers.
Apple applies coercive tactics to the press, as well. Its first
response to stories it doesn't like is typically manipulation and
badgering, for example, threatening to withhold access to events and
executives. Next, it might leak a contradictory story.
What Everyone Is Too Polite to Say About Steve JobsBut Apple doesn't
stop there. It has a fearsome legal team that is not above
annihilating smaller prey. In 2005, for example, the company sued
19-year-old blogger Nick Ciarelli for correctly reporting, prior to
launch, the existence of the Mac Mini. The company did not back down
until Ciarelli agreed to close his blog ThinkSecret forever. Last
year, after our sister blog Gizmodo ran a video of a prototype iPhone
4, Apple complained to law enforcement, who promptly raided an
editor's home.
And just last month, in the creepiest example of Apple's fascist
tendencies, two of Apple's private security agents searched the home
of a San Francisco man and threatened him and his family with
immigration trouble as part of an scramble for a missing iPhone
prototype. The man said the security agents were accompanied by
plainclothes police and did not identify themselves as private
citizens, lending the impression they were law enforcement officers.
Sweatshops, Child Labor and Human Rights
Apple's factories in China have regularly employed young teenagers and
people below the legal work age of 16, made people work grueling
hours, and have tried to cover all this up. That's according to
Apple's own 2010 report about its factories in China. In 2011, Apple
reported that its child labor problem had worsened.
In 2010, the Daily Mail managed to get a reporter inside a facility in
China that manufactures products for Apple and the paper shared a bit
about what life is like:
With the complex at peak production, operating 24 hours a day,
seven days a week to meet the global demand for Apple phones and
computers, a typical day begins with the Chinese national anthem being
played over loudspeakers, with the words: 'Arise, arise, arise,
millions of hearts with one mind.'
As part of this Orwellian control, the public address system
constantly relays propaganda, such as how many products have been
made; how a new basketball court has been built for the workers; and
why workers should 'value efficiency every minute, every second'.
With other company slogans painted on workshop walls - including
exhortations to 'achieve goals unless the sun no longer rises' and to
'gather all of the elite and Foxconn will get stronger and stronger' -
the employees work up to 15-hour shifts.
Down narrow, prison-like corridors, they sleep in cramped rooms in
triple-decked bunk beds to save space, with simple bamboo mats for
mattresses.
Despite summer temperatures hitting 35 degrees, with 90 per cent
humidity, there is no air-conditioning. Workers say some dormitories
house more than 40 people and are infested with ants and cockroaches,
with the noise and stench making it difficult to sleep.
A company can be judged by how it treats its lowliest workers. It sets
an example for the rest of the company or in Apple's case, the world.
What Everyone Is Too Polite to Say About Steve Jobs
In Person and At Home
Before he was deposed from Apple the first time around, Jobs already
had a reputation internally for acting like a tyrant. Jobs regularly
belittled people, swore at them, and pressured them until they reached
their breaking point. In the pursuit of greatness he cast aside
politeness and empathy. His verbal abuse never stopped. Just last
month Fortune reported about a half-hour "public humiliation" Jobs
doled out to one Apple team:
"Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?" Having
received a satisfactory answer, he continued, "So why the fuck doesn't
it do that?"
"You've tarnished Apple's reputation," he told them. "You should
hate each other for having let each other down."
Jobs ended by replacing the head of the group, on the spot.
In his book about Jobs' time at NeXT and return to Apple, The Second
Coming of Steve Jobs, Alan Deutschman described Jobs' rough treatment
of underlings:
He would praise and inspire them, often in very creative ways, but
he would also resort to intimidating, goading, berating, belittling,
and even humiliating them... When he was Bad Steve, he didn't seem to
care about the severe damage he caused to egos or emotions... suddenly
and unexpectedly, he would look at something they were working on say
that it "sucked," it was "shit."
Jobs had his share of personal shortcomings, too. He has no public
record of giving to charity over the years, despite the fact he became
wealthy after Apple's 1980 IPO and had accumulated an estimated $7
billion net worth by the time of his death. After closing Apple's
philanthropic programs on his return to Apple in 1997, he never
reinstated them, despite the company's gusher of profits.
It's possible Jobs has given to charity anonymously, or that he will
posthumously, but he has hardly embraced or encouraged philanthropy in
the manner of, say, Bill Gates, who pledged $60 billion to charity and
who joined with Warren Buffet to push fellow billionaires to give even
more.
What Everyone Is Too Polite to Say About Steve Jobs"He clearly didn't
have the time," is what the director of Jobs' short-lived charitable
foundation told the New York Times. That sounds about right. Jobs did
not lead a balanced life. He was professionally relentless. He worked
long hours, and remained CEO of Apple through his illness until six
weeks before he died. The result was amazing products the world
appreciates. But that doesn't mean Jobs' workaholic regimen is one to
emulate.
There was a time when Jobs actively fought the idea of becoming a
family man. He had his daughter Lisa out of wedlock at age 23 and,
according to Fortune, spent two years denying paternity, even
declaring in court papers "that he couldn't be Lisa's father because
he was 'sterile and infertile, and as a result thereof, did not have
the physical capacity to procreate a child.'" Jobs eventually
acknowledged paternity, met and married his wife, now widow, Laurene
Powell, and had three more children. Lisa went to Harvard and is now a
writer.
Steve Jobs created many beautiful objects. He made digital devices
more elegant and easier to use. He made a lot of money for Apple Inc.
after people wrote it off for dead. He will undoubtedly serve as a
role model for generations of entrepreneurs and business leaders.
Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on how honestly his
life is appraised.
[Photos via AP, Getty Images]
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