Steve Jobs

I gave him the pros and the cons, and in the middle he stopped me and said, “Steve, I don’t give a shit about Apple.” I was stunned. It was then I realized that I
do
give a shit about Apple—I started it and it is a good thing to have in the world. That was when I decided to go back on a temporary basis to help them hire a CEO.
     
     
    The claim that he was enjoying spending more time with his family was not convincing. He was never destined to win a Father of the Year trophy, even when he had spare time on his hands. He was getting better at paying heed to his children, especially Reed, but his primary focus was on his work. He was frequently aloof from his two younger daughters, estranged again from Lisa, and often prickly as a husband.
    So what was the real reason for his hesitancy in taking over at Apple? For all of his willfulness and insatiable desire to control things, Jobs was indecisive and reticent when he felt unsure about something. He craved perfection, and he was not always good at figuring out how to settle for something less. He did not like to wrestle with complexity or make accommodations. This was true in products, design, and furnishings for the house. It was also true when it came to personal commitments. If he knew for sure a course of action was right, he was unstoppable. But if he had doubts, he sometimes withdrew, preferring not to think about things that did not perfectly suit him. As happened when Amelio had asked him what role he wanted to play, Jobs would go silent and ignore situations that made him uncomfortable.
    This attitude arose partly out of his tendency to see the world in binary terms. A person was either a hero or a bozo, a product was either amazing or shit. But he could be stymied by things that were more complex, shaded, or nuanced: getting married, buying the right sofa,committing to run a company. In addition, he didn’t want to be set up for failure. “I think Steve wanted to assess whether Apple could be saved,” Fred Anderson said.
    Woolard and the board decided to go ahead and fire Amelio, even though Jobs was not yet forthcoming about how active a role he would play as an advisor. Amelio was about to go on a picnic with his wife, children, and grandchildren when the call came from Woolard in London. “We need you to step down,” Woolard said simply. Amelio replied that it was not a good time to discuss this, but Woolard felt he had to persist. “We are going to announce that we’re replacing you.”
    Amelio resisted. “Remember, Ed, I told the board it was going to take three years to get this company back on its feet again,” he said. “I’m not even halfway through.”
    “The board is at the place where we don’t want to discuss it further,” Woolard replied. Amelio asked who knew about the decision, and Woolard told him the truth: the rest of the board plus Jobs. “Steve was one of the people we talked to about this,” Woolard said. “His view is that you’re a really nice guy, but you don’t know much about the computer industry.”
    “Why in the world would you involve Steve in a decision like this?” Amelio replied, getting angry. “Steve is not even a member of the board of directors, so what the hell is he doing in any of this conversation?” But Woolard didn’t back down, and Amelio hung up to carry on with the family picnic before telling his wife.
    At times Jobs displayed a strange mixture of prickliness and neediness. He usually didn’t care one iota what people thought of him; he could cut people off and never care to speak to them again. Yet sometimes he also felt a compulsion to explain himself. So that evening Amelio received, to his surprise, a phone call from Jobs. “Gee, Gil, I just wanted you to know, I talked to Ed today about this thing and I really feel bad about it,” he said. “I want you to know that I had absolutely nothing to do with this turn of events, it was a decision the board made, but they had asked me for advice and counsel.” He told Amelio he respected him for having “the highest integrity of anyone I’ve ever met,” and went on to give some unsolicited advice. “Take six monthsoff,” Jobs told him. “When I got thrown out of Apple, I immediately went back to work, and I regretted it.” He offered to be a sounding board if Amelio ever wanted more advice.
    Amelio was stunned but managed to mumble a few words of thanks. He turned to his wife and recounted what Jobs said. “In ways, I