(CNN) -- When Apple co-founder Steve Jobs succumbed
to cancer in his California home a year ago today, the world rushed to
eulogize him in glowing terms: Genius. Visionary. A modern-day Thomas
Edison.
Obituaries and video
clips focused on how he led a mobile-computing revolution, upended the
music industry with iTunes and, at Pixar, changed the way movies are
made. Pundits marveled at his brilliance in creating a mystique about
Apple products and knowing which unborn electronic gadgets consumers
would most desire.
Fans lit candles outside
Apple stores around the world, and more than a million people left
thanks or tributes to Jobs on Apple's website.
But in the 12 months
since, as high-profile books have probed Jobs' life and career, that
reputation has evolved somewhat. Nobody has questioned Jobs' seismic
impact on computing and our communication culture. But as writers have
documented Jobs' often callous, controlling personality, a fuller
portrait of the mercurial Apple CEO has emerged.
"Everyone knows that
Steve had his 'rough' side. That's partially because he really did have a
rough side and partially because the rough Steve was a better news
story than the human Steve,"
said Ken Segall, author of "Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success."
"Since Apple is the most-watched company on Earth, there are a ton of
writers always looking for the new angle," Segall added. "After all the
glowing tributes to Steve ran their course, it's not surprising that the
more negative articles would start to pop up."
The book
Nineteen days after Jobs' death,
Walter Isaacson's much-awaited biography
of the Apple leader hit stores and immediately became the top-selling
book in the country. In "Steve Jobs," Isaacson crafted a compelling
narrative of how Jobs' co-founded Apple with Steve Wozniak, got pushed
out of the struggling company a decade later and then returned in the
late 1990s to begin one of the most triumphant second acts in the annals
of American business.
But he also spent many
pages chronicling the arrogant, cruel behavior of a complicated figure
who could inspire people one minute and demean them the next. According
to the book, Jobs would often berate employees whose work he didn't
like. He was notoriously difficult to please and viewed people and
products in black and white terms. They were either brilliant or "sh-t."
As a young man Jobs
abandoned his pregnant girlfriend and was later a cold, distant father
to his daughter, Lisa. And in one especially callous episode, Jobs
refused to give founding stock options to one of Apple's earliest
employees, even after a fellow employee intervened and offered to match
whatever Jobs was willing to spare.
"What Isaacson's book
did was puncture a hole in the image the rest of the world had of Steve
Jobs," said Adam Lashinsky, a senior editor at Fortune and author of "
Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired -- and Secretive -- Company Really Works."
Thanks to Isaacson, "the population at large has gotten a much fuller
picture of who he really was," Lashinsky added. "I don't think that
really changes anyone's opinion of his accomplishments. It just may
change their opinion of him."
The Isaacson book, and
other accounts of Jobs' life and work, have reinforced parallel images
of the late executive as an ingenious innovator but a demanding,
unpleasant person.
"His stature is greater
than ever. No one denies his brilliance and his legacy," said Leander
Kahney, editor and publisher of Cult of Mac and author of
"Inside Steve's Brain," a book about Jobs.
"However, his
personality, his methods, have been thrown into a harsh new light by
Isaacson's biography," Kahney told CNN. "Everyone knew he was a
taskmaster, but his cruelty -- his relentless, humorless pursuit of
corporate perfection -- wasn't so widely acknowledged. It's certainly
put some people off. Some see his life as a warning. It's a lesson in
how not to devote your life to your work."
This dichotomy was reinforced in July when
Wired magazine published a cover story, "Do you
really
want to be like Steve Jobs?" and a cover image of Jobs wearing both a
halo and devil horns. The article argued that Jobs' example has created
two camps of people: those who want to emulate his ruthless,
idiosyncratic business style, and those who are turned off by his
failings as a father and a human.
"Indeed, his life story
has emerged as an odd sort of holy scripture for entrepreneurs, a gospel
and an anti-gospel at the same time," said the article, by Ben Austen.
"To some, Jobs' life has revealed the importance of sticking firmly to
one's vision and goals, no matter the psychic toll on employees or
business associates. To others, Jobs serves as a cautionary tale, a man
who changed the world but at the price of alienating almost everyone
around him."
Apple since Steve
Some observers say that
Apple's mighty financial performance over the past year, its stock price
is almost $300 higher now than it was when Jobs died and Apple is now
the world's most valuable company, diminishes Jobs' legacy. If he was so
crucial to the company, why are they doing better without him?
Others say Apple's
ongoing success cements Jobs' business reputation because the company is
being run by a team that he handpicked and is still releasing products,
most notably the third-generation iPad and the iPhone 5, that he helped
design.
"It's hard to argue that
Apple's great financial performance in the last year diminishes Steve's
importance at all. It's safe to say that everything we've seen so far
has had Steve's mark on it," Segall said. "From this point forward, not
as much. The next year or two should be interesting times for Apple
watchers, as Steve's direct influence slips further into the past."
Then there's the issue
of the much-maligned new Apple maps, which replaced Google Maps as the
default mapping system on iOS 6, Apple's new mobile operating system.
Apple CEO Tim Cook issued a rare public apology last month for the maps,
which have misplaced or mislabeled multiple streets and landmarks.
A few pundits grumbled
that Jobs the perfectionist, with his obsessive attention to detail,
never would have allowed Apple to release such a flawed product. Others
pointed out that Jobs presided over such Apple flops as MobileMe, a
subscription service for owners of Apple products, and Ping, a social
network centered around music.
Segall doesn't think the maps fiasco will have much impact on Jobs' legacy either way.
"I don't think anyone
can conclude that Steve would have made a different decision about
releasing Apple Maps," he said in an e-mail to CNN. "But I also don't
think Steve would have been as apologetic as Tim Cook was in his open
letter. I imagine he would have done something similar to what he did
when dealing with the backlash against Apple's ban on Flash. Of course
there is a big difference here, in that Flash had a lot of enemies and
Google Maps has a lot of fans."
In the long term,
however, Apple's fluctuating stock price and flaps over maps probably
won't do much to change consumers' opinions of the man who birthed their
beloved phones and tablets. And if Steve Jobs is remembered decades
from now, it'll likely be as the man who invented the iPod, iPhone and
iPad, not as the executive who was sometimes a tyrant. Does anybody
really care whether Alexander Graham Bell was cranky?
"Among Apple employees,
I'd say his reputation hasn't changed one bit. If anything, it's
probably grown because they've realized how central his contributions
were," Lashinsky said.
"History tends to
forgive people's foibles and recognize their accomplishments. When Jobs
died, he was compared to Edison and Henry Ford and to Disney. I don't
know what his place will be in history 30, 40, 50 years from now. And
one year is certainly not enough time (to judge)."
