> He won the sociopath lottery; he was able to take enormous risks because they didn't particularly faze him.
I'm not so sure about that. Having been around during the period when he was canned from Apple, founded NeXT/Pixar, and subsequently came back to Apple Jobs had changed considerably.
I think that (and he has stated) that getting canned from Apple was a bit piece of humble pie for him, that he was lost and had to do a lot of self-examination before he picked himself up and founded new companies.
Acknowledging his weaknesses and mistakes doesn't strike me as sociopathic, or as being an unfazed man. What he shared with the public regarding his personal struggles is a whole different story. He was never particularly public, especially after the Great Firing.
Your other points regarding survivorship bias are point on.
> I'm not so sure about that. Having been around during the period when he was canned from Apple, founded NeXT/Pixar, and subsequently came back to Apple Jobs had changed considerably.
This is what makes me most sad about Isaacson's biography. He left out the one period that I was most interested in. The time at NeXT, combined with the developments in his 'family situation' seemed to have really changed him for the better (or at least better at running a company). I was so curious about that, and instead I got stuff I mostly knew about and too-frequent descriptions of Jobs' tantrums/meltdowns. Such a shame.
(btw, if anyone can recommend material on this period of his life, I'd love to know!)
He left Apple as a loose canon, a renegade who kept sabotaging his own projects, often losing touch with reality.
NeXT brought him back to Earth, both in terms of being able to produce a product people wanted, and in terms of managing a team without being a total tyrant. It wasn't a smooth progression, NeXT did start out pretty out-there, but in the end it was more pragmatic. OpenSTEP and other efforts demonstrated that.
The Isaacson biography isn't worth the paper it's printed on. It's utter garbage. I can't believe someone has that level of access and churns out a book that's basically the Cliff's Notes version of all other books about Jobs already published.
I'm not so sure about that. Having been around during the period when he was canned from Apple, founded NeXT/Pixar, and subsequently came back to Apple Jobs had changed considerably.
I think that (and he has stated) that getting canned from Apple was a bit piece of humble pie for him, that he was lost and had to do a lot of self-examination before he picked himself up and founded new companies.
Acknowledging his weaknesses and mistakes doesn't strike me as sociopathic, or as being an unfazed man. What he shared with the public regarding his personal struggles is a whole different story. He was never particularly public, especially after the Great Firing.
Your other points regarding survivorship bias are point on.