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Fortune Story on The Trouble With Steve Jobs: *beep*, Genuis, or Both?

Finally, in reading the story and even my own writings and comments, I worry that, by glorifying Jobs, we are making the world safe for *beep* infested organizations and fueling the belief that assholes make more effective leaders. If you take a careful look at research on leadership, it is quite clear that civilized and less selfish leaders are more effective at creating workplaces where people learn, repair mistakes, and innovate when they are compared to their nastier counterparts (and note this is not argument for wimpy leaders). Companies led by routinely demeaning people might succeed because (perhaps like Jobs) their leaders' other talents are so strong that they overwhelm such "*beep* costs."

A quick guide for Starbucks going to identify such a person here;


The first step is to recognize who is an *beep*. Sutton’s blog cites one method. It’s called the Starbucks Test It goes like this: If you hear someone at Starbucks order a “decaf grande half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n’-Low and one NutraSweet,” you’re in the presence of an *beep*. It’s unlikely that this petty combination is necessary—the person ordering is trying to flex her power because she’s an *beep*.

The Techtopus: How Silicon Valley’s most celebrated CEOs conspired to drive down 100,000 tech engineers’ wages

By Mark Ames
On January 23, 2014

In early 2005, as demand for Silicon Valley engineers began booming, Apple’s Steve Jobs sealed a secret and illegal pact with Google’s Eric Schmidt to artificially push their workers wages lower by agreeing not to recruit each other’s employees, sharing wage scale information, and punishing violators. On February 27, 2005, Bill Campbell, a member of Apple’s board of directors and senior advisor to Google, emailed Jobs to confirm that Eric Schmidt “got directly involved and firmly stopped all efforts to recruit anyone from Apple.”

Later that year, Schmidt instructed his Sr VP for Business Operation Shona Brown to keep the pact a secret and only share information “verbally, since I don’t want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?”

These secret conversations and agreements between some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley were first exposed in a Department of Justice antitrust investigation launched by the Obama Administration in 2010. That DOJ suit became the basis of a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of over 100,000 tech employees whose wages were artificially lowered — an estimated $9 billion effectively stolen by the high-flying companies from their workers to pad company earnings — in the second half of the 2000s. Last week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied attempts by Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe to have the lawsuit tossed, and gave final approval for the class action suit to go forward. A jury trial date has been set for May 27 in San Jose, before US District Court judge Lucy Koh, who presided over the Samsung-Apple patent suit.

Robbie wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 06, 2011 3:31 pm

Like Bill Gates and several other self-made billionaires, Steve Jobs was a college dropout.

For those of you who have teenagers in high school who are struggling with good grades to enter university or have decided not to attend university altogether, how would you respond and react if your kid argues by stating: "People like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, and Theodore Waitt didn't have college degrees and they all became extremely successful and wealthy. So I don't need university either and I'll do just fine and successful without a college degree just like those self-made billionaires!"