The secret call to Andy Grove that may have helped Apple buy NeXT

So now we’ve seen a few Steve Jobs stores like this, including the one from John Carmack. A recurring theme is that Steve is such a bonehead that his underlings have to do things to “manage him.” Whether that be doing things behind his back, withholding information from him, controlling who he meets and talks to. You also read about people working insane hours to complete things which probably didn’t merit it, just to please steve’s whims.Since there’s a cult-of-personality around the guy, I think it’s important to remind everyone that these behaviors are actually signs of poor leadership. If you work for someone like this, don’t! You’re better than that.

Not saying Steve Jobs didn’t do great things. But let’s all agree he accomplished them in spite of these flaws, not because of them.

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My opinion after working for him (and writing this story) is he couldn’t see obvious things everyone else could see, but he could see things no one else could. I fought with him over stores as did virtually everyone on the board of Apple, and it turned out he was right. Thank God he was stubborn enough to go forward with them. We all said it drove Gateway out of business, yada.

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.. And the App Store as well, Steve thought it would be best to do deals n an app by app basis. However note that in both cases he did relent. For all the stories about his intransigence he didn’t hire yes men and he did listen to the people he trusted.

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Do we know that to be true? It seemed to me like they pulled the public SDK and App Store together much faster than they could have if it were a last minute change of direction.And it further seemed to me that had Apple let developers write apps from day one, the quality of apps would have been far worse, with many developers basing their iPhone apps on the designs and logic flows of their existing Blackberry/Windows CE apps.

Looking back on it, I think they did—whether by design or by accident—exactly what they should have done.

” … current distribution channels for the computer industry over the last several years have lost their ability to create demand. They can fulfill demand, but they can’t create it. If a new product comes out, you’re lucky if you can find somebody at the computer store that even knows how to demo it. So the more innovative the product is, the more revolutionary it is and not just an incremental improvement, the more you’re stuck [in getting people to try learn about it enough to try it out].”

Rage—Coming Soon From a Narcissist Near You

There are all sorts of disagreements regarding people like Steve Jobs*, Newt Gingrich and Bill O’Reilly, but one thing most people are in agreement about is that you don’t want to get on the wrong side of them.

Why is that? It’s because there is a belief (correct or not) that if you do, they are capable of a rage (even if it doesn’t cross over into violence) that is chilling.

Other characteristic traits of such narcissists** (and this also applies to the female variety) include:

  • Control freaks
  • Irritability
  • Short fuses
  • Low frustration tolerance
  • Argumentative
  • Need to have the last word
  • Unable to lose
  • Won’t take “No” for an answer
  • Quick to anger if you don’t accommodate them
  • Quick to being aggressively defensive if you call them on any deficiency, fault or responsibility
  • Can’t apologize or if do, can’t do it sincerely
  • Rarely say, “Thank you” or “Congratulations”
  • Don’t feel or demonstrate remorse
  • Feel entitled to enthusiastic and appreciative approval, adoration, agreement and obedience
  • Gloat in victory, sullen in defeat
  • Quick to rage if you humiliate them
.. There is a saying that when you’re a hammer the world looks like a nail.  When you’re a narcissist, the world looks like it should approve, adore, agree and obey you. Anything less than that feels like an assault and because of that a narcissist feels justified in raging back at it.
.. What is really at the core of narcissists is an instability in their ability to feel and sustain feeling bigger, larger, smarter and more successful than everyone else which they need to feel stable.
.. “the narcissist doth brag, scorn, talk down, primp and belittle too much” in order to continually prove to the world and themselves that they are larger than life.  This is not to increase their self-esteem as much as it is to continually spackle the holes in their core that lead to a feeling of instability—and that, if not spackled, will lead to brittleness followed by fragmentation.
.. Narcissistic rage occurs when that core instability is threatened and furthermore threatened to destabilize them even further.  Not unlike a wounded animal being the most vicious (because they think the next wound would kill them), narcissistic rage occurs when narcissists believe the next insult/assault to their grandiose based stability would shatter them.

.. In essence the reason narcissists are so self-centered is that their grandiosity based center needs to be constantly reinforced to remain stable.

.. What to do when a narcissist rages at you?

Don’t let them cross over the line to physical violence, but if it looks like they will follow you to keep verbally assaulting you and then maybe escalate, just listen to them until they sputter out.  Don’t try to engage them verbally.

.. After they calm down—or better, the next day—say to them: “I didn’t want to say this when you were yelling at or being sullen with at me, but going forward the next time you get so angry at me and verbally yell at me, speak contemptuously or act sullen, I will say once, ‘Please speak to me or act in a respectful manner,’ and if that doesn’t stop you, I will walk away and go to some other part of the house, office, or company.

Following that conversation, if it happens again, I will simply walk away saying, ‘I have other things to do.’ This is not an ultimatum, but just a heads up of what I will do if those exchanges happen again.”

One of the takeaways from this is that “words sometimes respond to words, but actions (which narcissistic rage is) respond to actions in the form of consequences.”  The challenge is to make your action response just right and not go to overkill, which you will have to take back, or underkill, which will only allow them to keep raging at you.