There's not much to this. The only specific evidence he offers about Jobs's character is "stiffing early Apple employees out of stock options when the company first went public." Which (a) is an inaccurate description, because options were not so much the norm in the 1970s as they are now, and (b) may not have been, and in fact probably wasn't, even his decision.
Other than that, his only basis for the conclusions in this article is something we all know: Jobs was supposed to have been a difficult man.
This article may be correct, in the way a broken clock is twice a day. Jobs may well (a) have been a jerk in a way that would normally make someone ineffective as a manager, and (b) have had other qualities that compensated for that; and maybe (c) the latter qualities were extremely rare. But we are told practically nothing about (a), (b), or (c).
This would have been a better article if he'd just written
"Steve Jobs was successful, but beware of imitating his bad qualities, because most people couldn't get away with behaving like he did."
Well, I knew that Jobs was "supposed to have been a difficult man". But after reading the biography it's pretty clear that this guy had some serious, deep running flaws, character traits that other people could never get away with. Just to name a few, based on the biography, he was pathologically self-centered, a habitual liar, he belittled people in public for his own personal gratification and so on.
Now, not just from a management perspective - Is this something to emulate? Do we want a society where everyone is like this?
In my opinion, people like Jobs need level-headed, strong people around them. Without people who are willing to work with them despite their flaws, guys like Jobs would probably end up in the gutter with a knife in their back.
Everyone lies, most people are self-centered since birth, and his belittling is pretty much non-existent when you compare it to a CEO like Steve Balmer.
I think Jobs was just a guy who had a vision for computers, and knew that he had to be relentless to reach that goal in a short amount of time. I also think Jobs is probably one of the most level-headed people in the tech industry. Check the beginning of this video, very observant and calm, and I don't think he is necessarily as self-centered as you wrote.
The 60 minutes interview gave an anecdote where employees with options were giving some of their own options out to other founding employees without after they went public. When one of the first employees, and a close friend of jobs asked for some options, another founding employee told Jobs that they should help him out, and offered to give out some options if Jobs would match him. Jobs declined, and never gave out any of his options.
While it's certainly his decision to make, I think it's entirely reasonable for people to say he doesn't deserve the worship he's been receiving.
I'm perfectly willing to believe Steve Jobs had a mean streak or whatever, but you can't call it evil when someone refuses to do something no one else does either. Steve Wozniak giving away some of his stock to other Apple employees at the time of the IPO is the only instance I know of that happening. What this story shows is that Wozniak is a saint, not that Jobs is evil.
The article isn't making an argument that he is evil. The argument is that he shouldn't necessarily be put on a pedestal as a person to model your behavour on.
Half way through the biography and there are plenty of more sinister examples of behaviour (e.g. denying paternity).
However, I believe the term is "flawed genius". The world is a better place when a few of them succeed! Of course, an unsuccessful flawed genius is better known as an "unbearable asshole".
I don't understand why anyone would think they should model themselves after Steve Jobs.
Only Steve Jobs could live the life of Steve Jobs, for better or worse. We can learn volumes from his life and work, but wisdom is learning how these lessons apply differently to each of us.
I'd define a role model as someone who helps the world in a repeatable way, i.e. if a lot of people were like the person, the world would be significantly improved.
I think the article, whether successfully or not, tries to show a definition more like that, no "perfection" involved.
A role model is someone who is a model for a role the follower wants to fill. The world doesn't really enter into it, unless the follower is looking to make the world better, as opposed to looking to become fabulously wealthy or inwardly peaceful or remembered for generations or experienced in everything or privy to a secret no one else would know or one of many other possible life goals.
Or that Wozniak was empathetic while Jobs was apathetic towards his coworkers' concerns in this certain instance. Generalizing either of the two as saints or satans based on this instance alone would be quite shallow...in this certain instance.
I may be very wrong, but I have a feeling Jobs was the "dad" and Woz was more like "mom" of the employees. I think this difference was Apple's greatest asset in their first year.
I have run some two-headed departments and it's my preferred way to manage.
Woz, a decent human being, likely. But saint? Are any of us perfect? What does perfect even mean? Is it even possible? We shouldn't tag humans with supernatural labels.
Yes, jumping right to WWII might be a bit hyperbolic, and the grammar here is a bit shaky, but I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. 'Everybody's doing it' is never an acceptable excuse for bad behavior.
An act can be "bad", or "injust", but describing it as evil is bullshit. Evil, for one, is a theological term, that doesn't explain anything. It's like saying "the satan made me do it".
Like, it wasn't because of being "evil" when people in the US discriminated (and exterminated) Indians and enslaved blacks.
They didn't do it because they were "evil people", they did it because their societal norms and prevailing ideology permitted it and even encouraged it. And the norms got such because of catering to various collective interests (like, taking away the indian land, exploiting cheap labor).
The article is dead on from one perspective, he was not the rest of the 99.99999% of the planet. So what worked for or was allowed for him simply won't work for anyone who's not paid the price.
If anyone has to gain the position to figure out what it took to be him.. try building just one company that was not just a quick flip.. try working out one extremely difficult idea against certain approaching defeat.
Building insanely great things will push you limits that the rest of the planet, to put it respectfully, does not even know exists. It also produces incredible shear stress that will make you appear as a complete psychopath to many normal people.. including employees, co-founders etc.. at times.. if your level of care is past what they have about the game.
" Now while hopefully the work appeared inevitable. Appeared simple, and easy, it really cost. It cost us all, didn’t it? But you know what? It cost him most. He cared the most. "
Fair enough, but it sounds like you're critiquing the author's writing style rather than their point, which I think is a reasonable one.
Personally, I think there's a bigger lesson to be learned though: you shouldn't emulate anyone except yourself. Otherwise, you're doomed to a life of being a poor impression of someone else.
I couldn't disagree more. "Myself", insofar as I want to "be myself", describes my values rather than my habits. I often meet inspirational people who are very talented in ways I admire, and usually this is because of their habits, their wisdom, facts they've learned the hard way.
I do my best to notice how they've achieved this, and imitate whatever meshes with my personality, my priorities, and my values.
Was Steve Jobs a genius? Is this granted? I feel like he was a great salesman, and knew how to identify and manipulate smart people in order to attain a goal (with the intention of cashing in on it himself). He also had a strong vision of what he wanted, was willing to be bullheaded about it, and managed to accumulate the credibility from early successes to keep people working on his vision and not deviating (although I feel like often his vision happens to be something he liked that someone else came up with, but the origin of the idea is not the point here). His cultural interests probably made it easier for some people to think he had some special insight.
But... genius? Unless we're talking genius manipulator (the best con men are almost magical in their abilities), for me the jury is still out.
EDIT: Actually, the comments on the site itself bring up a lot of great points along the lines of what I wrote.
EDIT2: Thanks for interesting discussions, was certainly worth the karma-risk.
"Great salesman" are folks you see doing informercials. That phrase is reserved for people like Billy Mays(big fan!).
Anyone who wants to paint Steve Jobs as mostly a salesman is showing utter ignorance. Salesmen mostly sell stuff made by a product guy. They don't work on building a product that is perfect to their vision. Steve Jobs believed in perfecting products as much as selling.
"but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?"
While i find Apple products really well made, they have only given us minor technical innovations (unibody construction, 3d desktop graphics, sensible touch-based apps, etc?). In fact, you could remove apple products from the world, and we wouldn't be missing anything essential technology-wise. Yes they did match the technologies right to make amazingly desirable products, just like expensive cars match technologies without introducing major innovations.
I would rephrase the pythonesque quotation "But apart from the polish in sanitation pipes, better scrubs for doctors, yellow paint on roads, cleaner baths and lighter shields for soldiers, what have the Romans done for us?"
Unibody minor? Please. I'm on my 3rd MBP. I destroyed my 4 yr old model (last before unibody). The latest is model is wicked tough. I also have recent Dell and HP laptops. Pieces of shit. No comparison.
I've never understood how people manage to mess up cases so badly - especially other (supposedly) technical people. I have never replaced a computer because of physical failure. --Even my first laptop, which lasted me 5 years, was replaced because I was moving overseas and didn't want to have to worry about paying higher prices for a laptop in the UK.
People expect different things from their hardware. Some people are super careful with their kit. Always keep it in a special case when not using it, always transport it in a padded bag, always put it down very carefully, never but anything on top of it etc. Others simply chuck their phone or laptop unprotected into whatever bag they happen to have handy and set off.
Personally I'm very much in the second camp. I expect my hardware to keep up with me, not to change my habits to accommodate my hardware.
At least 4 of the items on your satirical list have the power to literally save lives from infection, head-on collision, or swordfighting. So, yeah, even "merely incremental" improvements can be world-changing.
All Einstein did was add a small error-correction term to Newton's theory.
get your facts together, the ISS still thinks thinkpads are sturdier, and Einstein altogether replaced Newton's concepts, reducing him down to a marginal case in his equations.
...It's a Monty Python reference. The point is that someone has enumerated a list of fairly substantial things and then, quite absurdly, discards them.
I know perfectly where it comes from, I have access to google too, and the quotes remarked perfectly that the quote was not yours. I was replying to your intention, not to the literal text.
EDIT: this reply actually looks more personal than I wanted it to be, and given your clarification, have my apologies...
So it's your thinking that my intention was to compare Steve Jobs to the Roman Empire (an apple to an elephant), and it was not my intention to compare OP's remark to absurdist writing in The Life of Brian (a piece of writing to a piece of writing)?
I didn't mean to imply Jobs was a con man. But I don't get why your comment applies, especially since it credit a large group which I would be entirely willing to accept contained numerous geniuses. It would be equivalent to praising Apple as a whole, which I would definitely be fine with. Lots of excellent work from very talented people going on there no doubt.
Genius is not somebody that makes you believe that you 'need' something that you actually don't, those are mere leaders of the consumerism religion. Geniuses were people like Pitagoras, Newton, Gödel... you know, people that opened whole new science fields just with the power of their minds. Please don't insult them with your first world cheap heros.
I guess "First world Heroes" means people who solve problems that are do not really matter for humanities progress. And I think there is a lot of truth in that: Mp3 players, Smartphones and such are nice things to have, but their impact is negligible in comparison to things like the telegraph, Phones, microprocessors, mobile phones, cars, railways, aviation, space flight, the internet and the theoretical works enabling them.
Is good leadership always genius? Was his good leadership all the way up there at genius level? Is working hard to bring out the ideas of your staff worthy of genius-level praise? If he was more humble no-one might have called him a genius, although he would still be respected.
I think there is plenty of room for praising people for quite astonishing accomplishments, but I don't necessarily equate accomplishment with genius. It's not a knock on someone if they really pull something off but they don't get called genius. Genius is in the mind.
I think Jobs was a risk taker. And, crucially, he commanded the respect necessary for others to follow his lead.
I think plenty of other companies probably had a chance to launch something like the iPod, but shied away thinking the strategy too risky. Or maybe the CEO wanted to go for it, but couldn't convince the rest of the board to trust his judgment. Jobs greatest achievement was bringing all this talent and financing and creativity and vision together and using it to take risks (in the market/domain of consumer electronic and personal computing). With Jobs gone, will Apple still be able to function the same way? I don't know.
I've never been a huge fan of Jobs, but I don't doubt he was a genius. His genius may have been sales/showmanship/leadership as opposed to traditional technical genius, but it was genius just the same.
Have you even met any? The reason I'm asking is that to know genius one has to see one in person. And the work of a genius cannot even come to be without the persona. It is always the personality that fascinates and then as if trying to find the essence for themselves, people go around looking at the work and life of a genius, pondering what it is that makes them so.
And its passion. Pure single minded passion. The dark side of the force, all the way. Thats what genius is.
Another thing they have in common is that they simply cannot be classified in concise terms without calling them genius.
You might be right that certain undefinable qualities taken together are what genius amounts to. But I guess I feel it means having a special insight in some area(s). Thing about Jobs is he so carefully tried to cultivate the sense that he had a special insight, and I feel like he desperately wanted to believe he did, and was superior to others because of it. I have met geniuses, but I haven't met Jobs, and second hand evidence is unreliable to me here given his abilities (ironic since they may be the crux of his genius).
Do you say he has no insight? iPod introduced: analysis say it will fail. iPhone introduced: analysis say it will fail. iPad introduced: analysis say it will fail.
WWDC 1997 video shows that Jobs clearly had a vision for many many years into the future.
I thought the iPod and iPhone would do great. So did many others. As I'm sure is the guy who actually came up with the ideas that were present in the iPod, which may or may not have been Steve Jobs himself. My point is, he may have had the insight to design the iPod in its glorious form, or maybe he just recognized it in someone else's work (Apple engineers/designers/whatever), just as millions did when it went on sale. So who's the genius(es)?
There are many fine product designers and maker geniuses around the world. I'm not trying to say that it is a common gift.
But it is certainly more common than an inspired and/or visionary business managers. At least I have met many of the former type and maybe only one or two of the latter. And they will probably never get a chance to take a shot at making a story as Job's.
That he was a genius manager is even a bigger cred to me. Since keeping ones true self and inner voice intact in cacophony of minds, emotions and ambitions that is a multinational is a worthy feat of its own accord.
Hell, the biggest team I ever got a shot at running was 15 people big. And for myself the wide variety of emotions and motives experienced, was barely a taste of what it means to run an organization 10's of thousands people strong.
I agree his talents did not lie in the technical areas. But given how much he stole credit for ideas, I'm naturally suspicious about the source of the brilliance attached to him. And I'm not willing to concede that a combination of stubbornness, single-minded vision, and eccentricity can necessarily be called genius. What if those are simply personality traits that happen to drive other people to work hard to achieve something or fork over money? Genius implies a true insight. So did he truly understand people enough to manipulate them like he did (both business partners and customers)? I guess that's the question I ask myself. Or was it a happy accident of his style, desire, and stubbornness that just happened to work.
I think you're being very presumptuous about what his role was at Apple. You're portraying him as nothing more than an exacting editor, yet there's plenty of evidence to suggest he contributed ideas and direction to Apple's products. And as others have said, as CEO he was more responsible than anyone else for one of the most remarkable turnarounds in business history. Oh, and I don't think any manipulation of customers was required. Just a focus on making great products.
Don't go overboard there. Jobs had no compunction getting up on stage and making untrue or exaggerated claims to a gullible public. Maybe no more than the average CEO, but no saint.
The term "Reality Distortion Field" was invented for Jobs
As you say, no more so than the average CEO. In fact, you could argue that for a while now his product unveilings were relatively spin free, since when he'd say "Isn't this great?" he actually believed it.
The claim wasn't that he was a genius because he endorses his own products (I wasn't claiming he was a genius in the first place). I was refuting the claim that the manipulation of customers was one of his primary skills.
1) It's too soon. Jobs had a great impact on the tech community. Give it a few months at least.
2) I'm concerned about black-and-white thinking. As great as Jobs was, he was only a human. He had all the frailties and foibles as other humans. I don't want the tech community to put Jobs up on a shelf where he could do no wrong and he's some sort of patron saint of technology or something. That's not fair to Jobs or us.
Once enough time has passed, and it hasn't yet, a 3-dimensional picture of Jobs will emerge, warts and all. At that point we might get into a good discussion about what kind of role model he was. Odds are, parts of his story will be very inspirational and parts will not. That's usually the way these things work.
Seems like everybody is in a hurry today to get to the next story. Geesh folks, give things time.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said the test of a great intellect is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in one's mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
I think that quote should be kept in mind, because Steve Jobs was a deeply complex and dynamic man. His wife told Isaacson not to pull any punches. From what I've read, and from the things people closest to him have recounted, they did not. A lot of people are having a hard time reconciling the insanely great with the insane. Humans are complicated.
I think this quote is hogwash, because having two opposed ideas in one's mind is a core functionality of the human mind. Everybody does it.
Take this vulgar example:
Idea 1: "I really want to have sex with that waitress" - "She is so hot"
Idea 2: "I really do no want to have sex with that waitress" - "Because I have a wife and kid"
Conclusion: "I will do nothing silly"
This article reads as if its from someone who has never worked for someone like Steve Jobs. I have once, and I worked with another for a long time.
People are speaking as if Jobs was alone in his truculent and persnickety management style, and alone in using that to extract good things from the people around him while simultaneously pissing others off.
My view is that you need a balance of Jobs and Cooks to run a company. I've been very fortunate to work for one place that had this, and while difficult, it made me better.
EDIT: That being said, I worked for 30 year industry veterans in their fields and they were demanding but fair and well earned their ability to inspire through demand. I loathe to think of how many Steve Job's "taught me the ways" middle managers we'll see justifying being dicks because of honoring a legacy.
Having gotten a significant way through the Steve Jobs book, I'm fairly certain he would agree with the article's title.
The recurring theme is that he made a lot of mistakes in life and people should carve out their own path, and specifically not try to emulate him.
The book specifically quotes Jobs and his wife's desire not to sugarcoat anything in the least, and from what I've read, the author abided by those wishes, for better or worse.
I can only assume those objecting to this article and responding to it as an attack, haven't really looked at the book or watched the Isaacson interview yet.
Being a leader sometimes means pissing people off. If you don't like your boss: quit.
Steve Jobs probably wouldn't make a good boss for everyone but that's OK, he only needed to be boss of one or two companies, Apple and Pixar. The other companies in the world can run their company as they see fit. Other bosses probably make good bosses for other personality types. You simply can't please all of the people all of the time. Sometimes you need to refuse to do things do that you can do the other things well.
I don't see your point. I absolutely agree that sometimes you have to piss people off to be the boss. But wouldn't you agree that this is offset by the number of times you have to empathize with people and be their friend? After all, a complete asshole gets neither respect nor friendship. And a lot of the people who work for the asshole boss will probably take your advice and quit. What good is a boss without workers?
Other bosses probably make good bosses for other personality types.
I disagree. If an organization is a round hole, the only person who benefits is the round peg who built it (if anyone benefits). The key is building a hole that can accommodate as many pegs as possible, even if some pegs require a bit more "accommodation" than others.
The article points out a weakness in the author's philosophy of management, not the weakness in Jobs as a manager. The notion of 'personality disorder' seems largely out of context for someone of the mindset change the world.
'Old Steve'? People grow. How does an individual overcoming personality 'disorders' make someone a bad role model? Sounds like the last paragraph of the article is actually contradicting to the headline.
"By the time Jobs did have surgery, nine months after being diagnosed, the pancreatic cancer had spread through his tissues and was largely unstoppable. He died soon after."
You can only imitate a master, but by doing so, one will never become one.
Steve Jobs was an adept at connecting with human emotions (consumers and employees alike) and not only built products which did the same, but also marketed them in a deeply human way.
I believe it is this connection that attracts so many people.
I think it's always questionable to approach people as if their personality traits can be selected a la carte, as if there's no interdependence between them.
"Well, I love the world-changing products with the amazing attention to every detail that requires extremely difficult execution of the highest order. Oh by the way, could I have that delivered to me in a nice and laid-back manner?" Sorry, life just doesn't work that way.
I'd be willing to guess that a lot of the personality traits that made Jobs an extreme asshole at times were essential in enabling his success.
The article pretty much admits that the "new Jobs" (ie, the one most know) could be an excellent role model. Why is it so hung up on actions from 20 or 30 years ago?
A very beautiful and probably very correct interpretation of Jobs' management approach was given by 'alexqgb' in a not so old thread here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3078669
This difference, I suppose, is between someone bending your will to theirs, reducing you terribly in the process, and someone who sees you failing to deliver everything you're capable of, and pushing you (hard) to do what he thinks what you can.
The former doesn't care about who you are. The latter cares deeply, and expresses in by placing genuine faith in you. Everything being said by the people who worked with him indicates that they feel humbled and honored by the experience. It's hard to get upset with someone's approach when you know in your bones that it got you to the top of your game.
What people feel in response to that is love.
"He was dubbed a megalomaniac, but Steve Jobs often gambled on young, largely inexperienced talent to take Apple forward; Jony Ive and his team prove that such faith was spot on."
I say probably very correct owing to the Al Gore's remembrance speech about the love and genuineness in respect that Steve held for others in the 'Celebrating Steve' event.
I have yet to read Steve's bio, however, based on the information that I have seen over the years from both large scale and rumor based media, I can say with confidence that he was a marketing wizard.
I have nothing to say regarding his demeanor until I finish Isaacson's work, but unless it turns out that he was another Edison finagling Tesla, I doubt my opinion will change too much.
I don't see the point of this article, even if all the claims are true, (and like PG said they may not be) and Jobs was really a bad man in his personal life, why bring it up? I see only harm in doing so, because people who've already looked up to him as a role model, will continue to do so (I'm presuming it takes more than an article to stop him from being one) and this article only gives them means to be more like Jobs, except that they'll only emulate his bad qualities because it's easier, much easier than emulating his sense of design or for that matter, any aspect of his genius. So if there really is a point, can anyone direct me to it?
Amidst the various hagiographies and anti-hagiographies circulating, I can't help wishing someone could pull it all together into a cohesive whole and act as Speaker for the Dead.
Does anyone know if the new biography attempts this?
Isaascson had 40 some-odd interviews with Jobs, and none of it was censored by Jobs apparently, so the biography ought to give a good picture of the real jobs.
From the 60 minutes interview with Issaacson, it seems like a fairly honest appraisal of Jobs.
I'm half-way through the biography and I think that's a good description of it.
I think it's brutally honest and really portrays Steve as a mere mortal subject to the ups and downs of life, while presenting various perspectives. I've been really impressed with how it doesn't try to sugar coat anything, and I find myself hating Steve yet at the same time admiring him.
It really does seem to put you through his life, and in the end you do have to make a call on what to make of it, and what you can take away. I think it really added depth and nuance to the way he's portrayed and illustrated the costs of his way of running things.
Yes. I started reading the biography. I am about 1/5th through. The author meticulously tried to depict true facts, and Jobs' true personality, often directly quoting 3-4 persons involved in some of the "incidents". In the preface, it is also revealed that both Jobs and his wife asked the author to not attempt to sugar-coat reality. So I would say it is pretty well done.
Isaacson's biography of Ben Franklin is much like you describe. I alternately revered and resented Franklin while I was reading, and took notes to apply to my own life. I would trust the Jobs book to be similar.
Any person with so much of the spotlight on them is gonna go off the farm a ways. I won't even get into the eccentries of Hollywood celebs so lets just focus on "our" tech world.
Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, and so on and so on.
The point is, with that much money and fame and responsibilities would any of us not be a little "off the mark"? (This is assuming "we" aren't already). From my point of view, people are strange.
I'm glad this was written, in a way, although I think he's a bit too hard on Steve Jobs. From everything I've heard about the guy, he was a totally different man at Pixar.
When Jobs started Apple, he was young and very unpolished in his interpersonal style. When he re-joined it the culture had become something that he wasn't entirely responsible for, having been out of the company for over a decade. Also, the impression I've had of Jobs is that he was very harsh on VPs (whose high salaries and job status justify the difficulty) but not on lower-level employees.
That said, the worst thing about Steve Jobs isn't the man himself. It's the Fake Steve Jobs's out there. No, I don't mean the parody blogger. I mean the two-bit clowns who think that being "visionary" gives them the right to behave like complete assholes because that's what they understand Jobs's management style (I've never worked for him) to be.
There was a lot of good to Steve Jobs, and apparently a lot about him that was difficult. A lot of people assume they have the good and that it allows them to be difficult. That's toxic.
The "fake Steve" (he actually cited Steve Jobs to justify his personal shortcomings) whom I encountered was an "entrepreneur" who lied (to his angel investor and employees) for over 3 years to keep people in his company. I left when I got tired of the insanity, micromanagement, and dishonesty, but I lost a hell of a lot of time there.
What does genius mean? Has the meaning changed over time? Look it up, observe the etymology.
There's much more to being a man of character than simply being a man of genius. And Jobs failed to show he was a man of character. We have no evidence to suggest he was a man of character.
If the article is meant as a cautionary note to young people who might mistakenly attribute character to anyone who posseses what we define as genius (again, look it up), then it's certainly justified.
There's a common misperception promoted by business journal type literature that to be a financially successful CEO one needs to treat others well. This is simply not true. There is at least one study that has examined the issue but the vast majority of studies aim at other conclusions. They avoid the question.
The reason to treat others with respect is not one that arises out of the pursuit of financial gain. It comes from another source. You might say it's rooted in a man's character.
Steve Jobs apparently wanted to destroy Android and for at least that reason, like Stallman, I am glad he is gone, so that he cannot do any more damage to computing.
Other than that, his only basis for the conclusions in this article is something we all know: Jobs was supposed to have been a difficult man.
This article may be correct, in the way a broken clock is twice a day. Jobs may well (a) have been a jerk in a way that would normally make someone ineffective as a manager, and (b) have had other qualities that compensated for that; and maybe (c) the latter qualities were extremely rare. But we are told practically nothing about (a), (b), or (c).
This would have been a better article if he'd just written "Steve Jobs was successful, but beware of imitating his bad qualities, because most people couldn't get away with behaving like he did."