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> Honestly why do people think that cannot happen at Apple ? That kind of thing can happen in any company. Apple is thousands of employees, it only requires a few bad people to create a situation like that.

That's mind boggling, especially since all accounts paint Steve Jobs as being an massive asshole manager, and company culture gets set by examples at the top.

https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-jerk-2011-10

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/books/steve-jobs-lisa-bre...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidcoursey/2011/10/12/steve-j...




That is a common but very shallow take on Steve Jobs management. Yes, there are instances of him being abrasive, but he led some very successful tech development efforts which involved getting people to come together around difficult goals. Remember that for most of his second period of management Apple stock went for around 12-25 a share and it was hard to hire good engineers because it was common knowledge that Apple was doomed.

An example of how direct, involved management clashes with traditional corporate style came up right after Steve Jobs returned. He would walk around the offices, knock on doors and introduce himself, and ask what people were working on. Those who were fully engaged were kind of jealous that others had a chance to talk with the top manager directly in such a way. Oddly enough, most of the long term Apple corporate types reacted very badly to this. They stuttered and could not summarize what they were actually doing. In every case I was aware of these employees left the next day in absolute shock and horror, sharing with everyone just how mean Steve Jobs was. But I was there and observed some of these encounters myself and all he did was drop by, casually introduce himself, and ask about what people were working on. For some and those who stayed at that time that was actually pretty cool hierarchy flattening behavior but for corporate climbers it was an inconceivable breach of protocol.


Perhaps it's a case of cargo culting. His confrontational, often personally insulting behaviors were retained, but not his ability to bring people together.


It’s certainly much easier to be scathing than pairing it with the ability to actually benefit a team.


> That is a common but very shallow take on Steve Jobs management. Yes, there are instances of him being abrasive, but he led some very successful tech development efforts which involved getting people to come together around difficult goals.

He might have had other talents that compensated (at a corporate level) for the damage from his asshole behaviors, but it seems pretty clear that he was, in fact, an asshole. Not all those stories are from the workplace, that second link is all about how he treated his daughter.

The issue here is how does having an asshole like that at the top affect the rest of the company's culture and the behavior of the other managers?




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