[HN Gopher] Memoir by Steve Jobs' eldest daughter describes ways...
___________________________________________________________________
Memoir by Steve Jobs' eldest daughter describes ways he was cruel
to her (2018)
Author : rendx
Score : 39 points
Date : 2026-01-08 20:42 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (finance.yahoo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (finance.yahoo.com)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| When someone is long dead, what is the point in one-sided
| accusations about their character?
| baal80spam wrote:
| Some people just want to see the world burn, destroy culture
| etc.
| Supermancho wrote:
| Some culture touchpoints are based on misinformation. It's
| usually moral to point out historic inaccuracies and to
| portray humans as they are.
| clipsy wrote:
| > destroy culture
|
| If the truth destroys your culture, it says more about your
| culture than it does about the people destroying it.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| depends on their legacy. If a a policy maker died but still has
| bills and laws in flight, it's an easy way to kill those. As
| well as any proteges that were running for office.
| amelius wrote:
| Except it compensates for the one sided praising of the guy.
| wilg wrote:
| I would not say Steve Jobs received only praise during his
| life or after his death.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > not say Steve Jobs received only praise
|
| Jobs was idolised during his later life. (reality
| distortion field a-la the register) lots of founders and
| CEOs adopted his mannerisms, and cosplayed his stories,
| because they thought that was what made him _good_
|
| Obviously there were dissenters, either people who were
| personally shat on by him, or didn't buy the "Jobs is
| better than jesus" stuff.
|
| But, they made a fucking movie about him, thats how much he
| was idolised.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Really? I have heard _plenty_ of "Jobs was an asshole"
| comments, every time his name comes up. The most consistent
| assessment seems to be "he was talented, lucky, and a real
| asshole to work for."
| wolvoleo wrote:
| To make sure history doesn't only remember the good things like
| their accomplishments. He was often really mean in person,
| that's pretty clear from his biography (and I also heard from
| some people who met him). Seeing him remembered as a tech saint
| is weird then.
|
| I'm glad I never worked for Apple while he was there. Though I
| have unfortunately worked for someone with very similar traits.
|
| Even though he is dead and can no longer improve himself,
| people will use him as a role model and idolize all the bad
| stuff too.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I did work for Apple while he was there, and he was entirely
| decent.
|
| I came to believe that there was a bratty entitled
| personality from his 20s that gave rise to most the jerk
| stories people reference, and that he wised up after being
| ousted (probably for being that jerk). He was essentially
| exiled for the better part of a decade.
| onlypassingthru wrote:
| The jerk was there from the beginning. A friend's mom was
| temp-hired by two young guys, both named Steve, to help
| them set up their first company office. She liked one of
| the Steves but declined the offer to join their new company
| as the first office manager because the other Steve was an
| a-hole.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Seeing him remembered as a tech saint is weird then.
|
| Hero worship is always pretty weird. I wish we would do less
| of it in general. But for Steve Jobs, I feel like negative
| reports about his character were pretty well known during his
| life and after his death. I don't feel like I've seen a lot
| of positive only content about him now that his death isn't
| so recent (maybe a little bit in the context of people hating
| on current Apple products), unlike some other celebrities
| where people seem to forget all of the misconduct (alleged or
| proven) during their lifetime.
| 46493168 wrote:
| >To make sure history doesn't only remember the good things
| like their accomplishments.
|
| This horse has been beat to death. Every reddit post that has
| Jobs name in it covers this. Same with John Lennon.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| The article made a lot of sense in 2018. If I was Lisa I would
| want my story to be heard. And so in turn I empathize and want
| to hear her story.
|
| I'm not sure why it is being reposted in 2026, though.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| My go to example for this is Saint Cyril.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_of_Alexandria
|
| He is a canonized saint of Catholicism and revered as a
| virtuous defender of Christianity. More evidence based history
| instead indicates he was a narcissist primarily motivated to
| elevate himself politically in Alexandria which included wide
| spread murder and the destruction of the greatest intellectual
| institution the world had ever seen.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| if Steve Jobs wasnt famous would you have anything negative to
| say about a person writing a memoir describing their cruel dad?
| caycep wrote:
| it seems quaint to dunk on Jobs now...he seems like a saint in
| comparison, in light of Mao Zedong-style mass-murder-by-policy
| from the current crop of tech industry CEOs.
| phaser wrote:
| Do we have mass murdering CEOs now? What did I miss?
| wilg wrote:
| You missed Elon Musk killing hundreds of thousands of people
| with his DOGE scam. https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-
| shutdown-has-led-to-hund...
| utternerd wrote:
| That article cites nothing other than someone's model.
| There is no hard evidence in what you linked.
| nemo wrote:
| While the quantification isn't inherently reliable, the
| reality of many dead at the hands at Elon Mush is a
| simple fact that's not up for dispute. The only question
| is how many he's killed so far. He cut off life saving
| meds to sick kids and food aid to the areas with food
| shortages, the deaths are known and reliably reported.
| utternerd wrote:
| Then it should be easy to prove, instead of saying "it
| isn't up for dispute" or citing a person's model.
| nemo wrote:
| [delayed]
| ikrenji wrote:
| Someone's model says that if you detonate a nuclear bomb
| in Manhattan, millions will die. There is no hard
| evidence tho.
| wilg wrote:
| You can read more here:
| https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/issues/making-
| foreign-a...
| suburban_strike wrote:
| That's not how subrogation works. Those women died from the
| HIV raped into them by African men.
| cmiller1 wrote:
| Jobs was a terrible person on a personal level, all the other
| tech CEOs are terrible people on a societal level.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Just from afar, I'd imagine someone like Zuckerberg is
| terrible all around. Are there any stories of him doing
| anything for the greater good?
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I think Zuckerberg is just wet. We've not seen his final
| form yet.
|
| Musk is malevolent and Theal is a malevolent shit, but has
| the ability to be discrete about it.
| wmf wrote:
| Supposedly Zuck is good to his family.
| kisama wrote:
| That's largely because Jobs didn't care about the societal
| level. Creating consumer products was "changing the world"
| enough for him.
| Cornbilly wrote:
| Don't forget the child porn generator.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Your comment makes me interested in the hypothetical of how
| Jobs would have positioned Apple under the current
| administration.
|
| I haven't read much about Tim Cook being anywhere near the
| level of sycophant, or raising the curtain to show the ugliness
| behind, as much as some of the others.
| nipponese wrote:
| I can't wait to hear stories from Linus' kid's childhoods.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Totally different. Linus is a jerk for justice, Steve was just
| a narcissistic asshole.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| So you think now. A few years after Linus is dead maybe the
| real truth will come out, when he won't be around to defend
| his legacy.
| razingeden wrote:
| I thought it was already pretty well established that
| Torvalds is a jerk? Or, at a minimum, somewhat petulant.
|
| But also a good example of someone's accomplishments ..
| arguably being worth something even if that's true. I made
| my whole existence off of Linus's handiwork and owe him a
| debt of gratitude for it. I probably still get more in
| monthly residuals than 90% of the people who wrote anything
| I deployed. Who cares what I think of anyone personally?
|
| I'd hate to be so deranged about anyone that I can't see
| any good in their accomplishments. I'm not exactly Miss
| Manners in the professional or personal realm either, don't
| let me cast the first stone.
|
| Id even go as far as saying that Linus's are way more
| important and that Steve's destroyed society but that's
| enough out of me. Even if that's my opinion, I'm still
| saying that about a trillion dollar company and that's
| still someone's yardstick for success. Genius is genius,
| accomplishments are accomplishments
|
| ... and god what a grey and insecure and screwed up IT
| world this would be if neither of those people ever existed
| and Microsoft ruled the world. Either we wouldn't even have
| functional _cash registers_ let alone any other technical
| pillars or infrastructure... or we'd all be in our rightful
| BSD utopia right about now.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| Eh, pretty sure it would be out by now.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| There were things about Jobs around before he died, I'm
| pretty sure.
|
| The denial of paternity of his first born being one of
| them.
|
| (I think that was relatively well known well before he
| died)
| kazinator wrote:
| Unfortunately, maybe it was in part due to Steve's personality
| that nobody talked him out of following quack home remedies for
| curing cancer.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| There's no question in my mind that having kids gets in the way
| of single-minded vision that's required of the kind of career
| success that Jobs had.
|
| It's unfortunate, but the reality is that having kids and
| actually caring for them in a way that gives the best chance to
| turn them into good, undamaged human beings requires a massive
| amount of attention that would heavily distract from lofty career
| goals.
|
| If the drive for career success is strong enough, kids will be
| resented and treated as such. It sucks, and they probably
| shouldn't have had kids in the first place, but the biological
| imperative is incredibly difficult to overcome.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Excusing abusive parenting because he prioritize career over
| child rearing is pretty awful.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Being absent for work is different than being cruel.
|
| As a counterpoint I would highlight Buffet, Branson, and others
| who have managed to fulfill their obligations to the next
| generation without failing to dominate their industries.
|
| There is no excuse for cruelty to children, doubly so when they
| are your own. Jobs was an asshole because he was an asshole,
| not because he was driven.
| diegocg wrote:
| Have you read the article? He didn't just ignore her. He
| combined periods where he ignored her with periods of caring
| only to hurt her in dark ways.
|
| > Once, she says, as Jobs groped his wife and pretended to be
| having sex with her, he demanded that Brennan-Jobs stay in the
| room, calling it a "family moment." He repeatedly withheld
| money from her, told her that she would get "nothing" from his
| wealth -- and even refused to install heat in her bedroom.
|
| This isn't just a career driven person
| BeetleB wrote:
| The guy had issues, and "driven to build a company" was not the
| cause.
|
| Ironic that he blamed his biological father for abandoning him,
| and then tried really, really hard to do the same to his
| daughter.
|
| She wasn't a product of "trying to have kids". It just
| happened, and he denied she was his daughter for years.
| getnormality wrote:
| Interesting little detail buried near the end:
|
| > Powell Jobs and Jobs' sister have said in a statement that the
| book "differs dramatically from our memories of those times."
|
| I've learned from experience that people who aggressively
| denounce others publicly sometimes have stuff going on that isn't
| readily visible.
|
| It's not that I want Jobs to be free of moral stain. I have no
| investment in it. But people should be cautious trusting a report
| of one person's disputed report.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-01-08 23:01 UTC)