'Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine' Film Debuts at SXSW, Eddy Cue Calls It 'Inaccurate' and 'Mean-Spirited'

[MH01]

As with most arguments, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Thumbs up to this comment

 

[jimbobb24]

Questions

Corporations that cancel charity have focus.

Is there really tax evasion? Or does he mean following stupid US laws in a way the director doesn't like?

Tim Cook and Steve Jobs have the exact same political views. Jobs just thought they were personal and separate from Apple, Tim Cook sadly not so much.

 

[kas23]

I was and am still looking forward to Alex Gibney's upcoming documentary on Scientology, but this Steve Jobs doc lowers the esteem I had for the filmmaker. It's great when you apply balls to the wall, muckracking investigations to an evil cult. Steve Jobs doesn't deserve that treatment. He raised the standards of everyone around him, was absolutely devoted to his work, and created an enormous amount of good in the world despite his personal flaws.

I see you live in a black and white world; an entity can only be wholey evil or Saintly. I don't like Scientology. I think it's a bunch of rubbish too, but I'm sure they are responsible for some good, just as Jobs has very probably offended many, destroyed careers, and alienated his family. So, we should only be hearing one side of the story because he directed the production of a music player and a mobile telephone? We've heard the walking on water and puppy saving stories, now it's time for a more realistic portrayal.

 

[iPadCary]

TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS A DAY for your only daughter when you're worth $200M ....
What a lowlife, piece-of-fiilth, scumbag.
That smacks of some sort of psychosis at work there.
Jesus, no wonder poor Wozzie kept his distance.

 

[2010mini]

Lacking in empathy would be exactly right seeing how he treated his own daughter for years.

 

[numlock]

Corporations that cancel charity have focus.

Is there really tax evasion? Or does he mean following stupid US laws in a way the director doesn't like?

Tim Cook and Steve Jobs have the exact same political views. Jobs just thought they were personal and separate from Apple, Tim Cook sadly not so much.

its the laws in pretty much every country apple has an operation in. i guess they are all stupid

 

[IbisDoc]

You seem to know him very well to make such statement. Share with us, please!

It's never worthwhile to share the truth in a reality distortion field. The invitations to share never represent a genuine thirst for the truth.

 

[FieldingMellish]

All I know is that Steve killed the Newton and I've never forgiven him for it.

 

[Taipan]

200 millidollars?

 

[2010mini]

Technically, a DNA test only proves that he is the father, it says nothing about whether she was promiscuous, or he was infertile. Infertility is a condition where it is incredibly difficult, but not necessarily impossible to have a child. It is entirely possible to be correctly diagnosed as infertile, but still end up becoming a biological parent 'the old fashioned way'. This is especially true for men, because even the most infertile male *occasionally* produces a viable sperm, which makes conception *possible*.

Frankly, if you honestly believe you are infertile, and your ex turns up pregnant, it would be pretty stupid to just go 'oh, it must be mine', just because there's a 1:1,000,000,000 chance that it might be.

Note: Infertility is different than sterility, though they can be difficult to distinguish for extreme cases of infertility.

He settled the case BEFORE his company went public and he was worth millions so he would only have to pay the max he was worth then under Cali. law.

That is douchbaggery right there.

 

[villagehiker]

Let Self Righteousness Go Unrewarded

Unless I receive a press free—and I might—I will not see this film. Trusting the Cue Vue, I plan to not reward the film maker for producing trash.

 

[spinedoc77]

From the Hollywood Reporter review...
"according to Steve Wozniak's account, Jobs swindled him out of 90% of his share of payment for work they did on Atari's Breakout game."

Basically, Jobs split Atari’s fee with Wozniak but secretly kept the extra bonus Atari paid for minimizing the number of chips the game required. Yes, a total dick move, one which has already been covered ad nauseaum. But when compared to how most companies treat their talent, was this really such a bad deal? How likely is Wozniak to have secured the deal with Atari without Jobs? How likely is he to have negotiated equal or better payment terms, given his propensity for giving away intellectual property and rarely thinking of the business opportunities for his inventions? What percentage of profits does a developer typically receive for a product he designs which is later sold by his employer?

News flash: Steve Jobs was not the perfect humanitarian. I wonder, though, how well Gibney's public image would fare if his own life were subjected to the same level of scrutiny. I doubt we'll ever know, since his accomplishments will never merit that level of interest.

Woz is a clever guy and made significant contributions to a nascent Apple, but his talents were by no means unique, nor were they essential to Apple's birth and eventual explosive growth. To put it another way, Jobs is far more likely to have found some other smart computer geek with whom to partner than Woz was to have met up with another visionary genius like Jobs.

In the end, Wozniak had a fruitful and lucrative career at Apple, and to this day lives what appears to be a happy life of financial independence. Additionally, he (technically) remains an employee of Apple (though I doubt he's doing any actual work for them) and receives a stipend, estimated to be $120K per year.

That's more than we can say for early collaborators in some other Silicon Valley giants - for example Zuckerberg's underhanded betrayal of Saverin and others, who were tricked into relinquishing their shares of the company.

I don't understand this line of reasoning. How likely was Jobs to get the bonus at all without Wozniak's work?

I don't see what everyone is up in arms about. So Jobs was a douchebag, he introduced some incredible things which changed society positively, but also did some terrible things which changed other societies negatively. At the end of the day he was simply a business man out to make money and any other altruistic label is just a bunch of fanatical BS. Go worship the teacher making 25k teaching your kid, or worship that firefighter that just saved someone's life. I never understood the idolatry around Jobs or around any business man.

 

[emvath]

Scientists have determined planet earth is 4.5 billion years old. Some religionists claim it's 6000 years old. The truth isn't "somewhere in the middle":

Yes, that is exactly the same thing. Arguing if so-and-so was a "nice guy" can be solved with mathematics and objective data exactly like solving for the age of Earth.

 

[Glideslope]

Jobs was a dick...are we really surprised by this?

Sometimes jerks have good ideas.

Just like Tim, eh?

----------

Familiarity breeds contempt.

People are rarely all good or all bad. Human beings are complex creatures.

Precisely. Tim is a "nicer person" because we don't see the displays in public?
Or are we afraid to criticize him for other reasons?

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Some of the stories in the 'authorized' biography were pretty mean spirited, petty, and ruthless.

I mean, to show up for a 'surprise party', and as I remember the story going, throwing a tantrum about the location, forcing people to move it at the last minute, sulking through the ordeal, and then leaving all of the gifts in your hotel room doesn't sound like anyone that I'd really want to waste my time on, or with.

I mean, I'm sure that he was a great thinker, and he did do some great things, but at least some of it seems to have been accomplished in spite of himself and his 'FU' personality.

I was told a few years ago that it is called 'borderline personality disorder'.

Whatever it is, it's not pleasant to be on the bad side of it...

 

[Lankyman]

I simply don't get all this continued fascination with SJ. He was simply a guy who ran a tech company or am I missing something?

 

[xSinghx]

Capitalism rewards sociopaths, big surprise, and the aspirational class defend them.

Readers of Jobs biographies would do better with: http://www.amazon.com/Sociopath-Nex...426546397&sr=1-1&keywords=sociopath+next+door

Let us not conflate technological progress with societal, Jobs wasn't a genius he was a hustler.

 

[gnasher729]

The same negative anecdotes were covered in Isaacson's biography. At least there, there was some attempt at balance. How would your biography look if the writer focused solely on everything you've done wrong?

My view is that while Steve Jobs was less than perfect on a personal level, there are plenty of people, and I actually know a few, who would make him look like a saint. When you hear that he initially abandoned his daughter and her mother, I know that there are many daughters and mothers of daughters who would have been much better off if the father had left them alone.

If you look at the faults that the man had in an objective way, then there is actually nothing that is worth making a movie about. All his faults are totally unspectacular and not news worthy, except if you take them in contrast to what he achieved professionally.

Lacking in empathy would be exactly right seeing how he treated his own daughter for years.

At least according to the Isaacson biography, his youngest daughter (he had four children) isn't complaining, and if she isn't complaining about her father, why are you? And let's be serious, there are plenty of children who would wish they never had met their father. Some wish they had never met their mother. His daughter is not among them.

 

[CFreymarc]

This is what I love about the Internet. You can kill trash talking propaganda quick making it nearly irrelevant. A lot of crap has been flushed out recently with elected officials not buying the false stories from the mainstream media.

While propagandists have the right to free speech, others have the right to express opinion to disqualify and sort the wheat from the chaff.

The nullifying of false stories such as recent shootings of perps who were falsely portrayed as innocent, propaganda documentaries hating religions and now this make for a more free society.

The Internet Fathers smile upon you.

 

[xSinghx]

This is what I love about the Internet. You can kill trash talking propaganda quick making it nearly irrelevant. A lot of crap has been flushed out recently with elected officials not buying the false stories from the mainstream media.

While propagandists have the right to free speech, others have the right to express opinion to disqualify and sort the wheat from the chaff.

The nullifying of false stories such as recent shootings of perps who were falsely portrayed as innocent, propaganda documentaries hating religions and now this make for a more free society.

The Internet Fathers smile upon you.

Simply because something is contrary to your preconceived opinion does not make it propoganda.

Much of Gibney's directorial work has been independent throughout his career, including his '05 Oscar nominated Enron film. It is only recently (upon critical success) that he has been able to secure more mainstream sources of funding.
Not that that speaks at all to the validity of the work either. Only the work itself can be judged, to which you are obviously totally uninformed.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0316795/?ref_=nv_sr_1

 

[Tiger8]

It's never worthwhile to share the truth in a reality distortion field. The invitations to share never represent a genuine thirst for the truth.

Or, People simply make statements with nothing to back it up

He could be an angel or the devil himself, we will never know cause none of us knew him on a personal level.

 

[Mojo1]

Humbug

From the Hollywood Reporter review...
"according to Steve Wozniak's account, Jobs swindled him out of 90% of his share of payment for work they did on Atari's Breakout game."

Basically, Jobs split Atari’s fee with Wozniak but secretly kept the extra bonus Atari paid for minimizing the number of chips the game required. Yes, a total dick move, one which has already been covered ad nauseaum. But when compared to how most companies treat their talent, was this really such a bad deal? How likely is Wozniak to have secured the deal with Atari without Jobs? How likely is he to have negotiated equal or better payment terms, given his propensity for giving away intellectual property and rarely thinking of the business opportunities for his inventions? What percentage of profits does a developer typically receive for a product he designs which is later sold by his employer?

News flash: Steve Jobs was not the perfect humanitarian. I wonder, though, how well Gibney's public image would fare if his own life were subjected to the same level of scrutiny. I doubt we'll ever know, since his accomplishments will never merit that level of interest.

Woz is a clever guy and made significant contributions to a nascent Apple, but his talents were by no means unique, nor were they essential to Apple's birth and eventual explosive growth. To put it another way, Jobs is far more likely to have found some other smart computer geek with whom to partner than Woz was to have met up with another visionary genius like Jobs.

In the end, Wozniak had a fruitful and lucrative career at Apple, and to this day lives what appears to be a happy life of financial independence. Additionally, he (technically) remains an employee of Apple (though I doubt he's doing any actual work for them) and receives a stipend, estimated to be $120K per year.

That's more than we can say for early collaborators in some other Silicon Valley giants - for example Zuckerberg's underhanded betrayal of Saverin and others, who were tricked into relinquishing their shares of the company.

Nothing you write justifies the way Job treated Woz. They are simply rationalizations comprised of the usual banal arguments unethical people use to justify cheating people.

 

[Mojo1]

If you watch the "Lost Interviews" or whatever it's called, Steve was pretty clear about his role. He wasn't an engineer, he couldn't actually build his visions. But what he could do, was push people. So his job, as he put it, was to find the best engineers he could get and then tell them they weren't doing good enough. People were right to think he was an a**hole, but being a**hole is what they needed.



It's one thing to work for someone who is "arrogant" and gets no-where with it (what most of us deal with). If I worked for someone who was arrogant and was a pioneer at every step, I would be pretty pumped to work with them.

It's a myth that a leader needs to be an a$$hole to motivate talented people and get the best out of them.

 

[tentales]

milk it

I generally hold Alex Gibney in high regard for many of his excellent docs, like about Enron, Lance Armstrong, The Eagles and Julian Assange. Steve Jobs is still a hot topic and like they say, nothing sells like negative campaigns, both in politics and filmmaking.

I'll reserve judgement until I've seen it, but making a negative doc about a deceased person is a bit unfair though, since Steve can't defend himself and it's left up to his friends to do it for him. Good on ya Eddie!

I'd take A.G.'s doc with a grain of salt and an understanding of the motivation behind it.

 

[RockSpider]

I generally hold Alex Gibney in high regard for many of his excellent docs, like about Enron, Lance Armstrong, The Eagles and Julian Assange. Steve Jobs is still a hot topic and like they say, nothing sells like negative campaigns, both in politics and filmmaking.

I'll reserve judgement until I've seen it, but making a negative doc about a deceased person is a bit unfair though, since Steve can't defend himself and it's left up to his friends to do it for him. Good on ya Eddie!

I'd take A.G.'s doc with a grain of salt and an understanding of the motivation behind it.

So you don't think you should say anything bad about Hitler and Pol Pot, just nice things because they can't defend themselves, uhhm okay.