>Whilst I broadly agree with the thrust of the article I do wince when I see statements like "once-in-a-century genius." applied to Steve Jobs.

Well, in business issues he IS a "once-in-a-century-genius".

He bootstrapped 4 companies. Apple (which he built from nothing), NeXT (which he build for a pittance and sold for 400 million), Pixar, and Apple v2 (which he built up from near bankruptcy to total dominance).

Even just taking a company from near bankruptcy to the highest ever profits and cash held in the history of enterprise in a decade, would be enough. But he also changed (and owned) 3-4 market segments (mp3 player, music downloads, app stores and tablets. And having the profit of all other top 5 PC makers combined for it's computer lineup I'd count as "owning" that market too.

>I also cringe when I see "You are not Steve Jobs" etc. indeed I'm not nor would I want to be

Noticed how the statement was not targeted at you, but to people who DO believe they are like Steve Jobs and that mimic him?

For that crowd, the reminder "you are not Steve Jobs" is totally appropriate.

>It fascinates me how we continue to set the bar of leadership based on a man who judged by his actions was a borderline sociopath, I guess success by whatever measure truly does forgive all sins.

And it fascinates me how you don't see that leadership is all about success.

Would you have a cuddly, lovable by all, Army General in World War II that lost the war, or a cursing, bad-tempered sonofabitch that won it?

Plus, what other "sins"? Shouting at some engineers? Closing favorable deals? Insisting he gets components in time? Losing his temper at meetings? Yes, because not 100% of us do the same things and worse at times...

It's not like he had employees beheaded, tortured children in his basement or paid prostitutes to piss on him or something. He yelled at some people, fired others. IMHO, the worst thing he did was taking advantage of Woz. And that was like 35 years ago.

(I also find the BI article you linked to extremely grasping at straws. He once left the hotel he had booked a room in because he didn't like the room"? Sure, borderline psychopath behavior. And for a while he didn't want to acknowledge his daughter and pay child support, but he later made up. Yeah, that's Jeffrey Dahmer material...).

OP here, I agree totally. Steve Jobs was by all accounts a jerk and I think it's unfortunate so many people idolize him instead of people doing more human good like Bill Gates. But it's undeniable that he had a once-in-a-century eye for picking and tweaking good design, and he was a once-in-a-century businessman too. Was he a good human? All signs point to "not really". But his uncompromising vision and massive business success are stories that are hard to match in modern times.

I'm sorry but I simply disagree with you on his "once-in-a-century" eye for good design.

Take (for example one of my favorite) industrial designers - Raymond Loewy - This is a man who created the Shell and BP Logos, designed the Scenicruiser greyhound bus (iconic), coca cola vending machines, the GG1 (in my opinion one of the most beautiful trains of it's generation and they ran for just shy of 50 years) and the PRR S1 (which I think is the single most beautiful train I've ever seen) and just to finish it off he designed the livery for Air Force One.

Yes, so Jobs only had "two-in-a-century". Or "twenty-in-a-century".

That's kind of a pedantic distinction, isn't it?

>> "he was a once-in-a-century businessman"

I would disagree with this. He was certainly an incredibly successful business man but there are plenty of others that have matched him: Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Sam Walton, Jack Welch etc.

"Boo hoo, Steve Jobs was a big meany!"