A Tribute to Steve Jobs, a Crybaby

One of the most striking aspects of the personality of Steve Jobs (1955-2011) was his disproportionate tendency to cry. In the biography that Walter Isaacson did, numerous episodes are described in which the American businessman broke down crying for the most diverse reasons.

To convince Stephen Wozniak to found the Apple Company with him, Jobs shouted, shrieked, asked for the intervention of some friends and even went to the home of Wozniak's parents, where he broke down crying and asked for help from his parents. Later he would also cry in front of Jerry Wozniak, Stephen's father when Stephen reproached him that engineers should have more salary. In addition, shortly after the book describes: "one of the first confrontations, which took place by order of the numbering of employees. Scott assigned Wozniak the number 1 and Jobs the number 2. As expected, Jobs demanded to be number 1. Jobs gave him an outburst and even burst into tears. "

Jobs would also cry in front of Mike Scott when the CEO of Apple tried to mediate the conflict that had arisen between the mathematician Jeff Raskin and him. The sobs are repeated when Jobs read a criticism of the journalist Mike Moritz in Time magazine "an article so terrible that it even made me cry" (In the report it was said that Jobs cried in some meetings).

However, the real flood of tears comes in the process that ended Apple's job dismissal executed by Jonh Sculley. The biographer Walter Isaacson points to five scenes of Steve Jobs (pages 538, 543, 544, 553 and 564). As if this were not enough, page 572 of the book states: "Even after several years, Jobs' eyes were filled with tears as he remembered the story. "He preferred Sculley before me. That left me completely frozen. I never thought he would leave me. "

Jobs cried as a negotiating strategy - Bill Gates recalls a meeting with Steve Jobs to negotiate an agreement between Microsoft and Apple in which his interlocutor "showed tremendously and then there was a part where he almost burst into tears" - and by expressing Joy, as when he announced the merger of Pixar and Apple - "Everyone embraced, and Jobs burst into tears" -.

On the other hand, Jobs tells his reaction when he was introduced to the advertising campaign of 'Think Different' on his return to Apple: "I got to the bottom, and I still cry when I think about it, both because of the fact that Lee worried up to that point for us as for how great was his idea of ​​'Think different'. From time to time, I find myself in the presence of authentic purity -pureness of spirit and love-, and it always makes me cry. 

It is something that moves me and seizes me. That was one of those moments. There was in it a purity that I will never forget. I cried in my office while he showed me his idea, and I still cry when I think about it. " But his tears were also produced in outbursts of anger as when he saw that the prototype of the iMac had put buttons instead of a simple slot: "I will only continue with the presentation if you promise that we will move to the slot as soon As possible, Jobs warned them with tears in their eyes. "

The Cure (Boys don't cry) Bosé and in general all the macho education we have received teaches us to avoid whining in public. But as we all evolve, there are less and fewer feelings about men expressing their feelings with tears. Nowadays millions of millionaire footballers cry when they lose a game, politicians when they cease, or contestants of reality shows cry.

The case of Jobs goes a step further and teaches us the most emotional and human face of an exceptional creator endowed with deep sensitivity. I leave you a video in which Walter Isaacson explains this character.