Steve Jobs' Tough Love for Obama

The biography of Steve Jobs, written by Walter Isaacson, former patron of CNN and Time, published recently was so well awaited since the death of the founder of Apple that the Huffington Post couldn’t resist. Of course, Steve Jobs’ refusal to have surgery on his cancer and then to have it done much later is discussed. But it was the strange connections of Jobs with the 44th president which intrigued so many, as one would think that these two men who belong to the same technological generation would have a positive relationship. Yet, the book contains some revelations and anecdotes on the rather neurotic relationship of the genius of Apple and Obama. Nice, nice, nice, here we go!

Steve Jobs was obsessed with absolute control. President or not. He was deciding on everything from a detail of the organization to the content of the strategy. Only he knew what needed to be done. Let’s start with detail:

The famous dinner with the Titans in the Silicon Valley was everything but smooth sailing to organize. It was Steve Jobs’ idea from the beginning. Obama gathered six or seven company presidents from the Valley to obtain their innovative ideas. The collaborators of the White House set too many names on the short list and it was Jobs who wanted every little committee of giants to know “that he hadn’t the intention of coming” under these conditions. Then, this fool for precision and detail started to sharply criticize the shrimp menu, fish, and lentil salad near John Doerr finding it very bizarre and not wanting any chocolate dessert. The protocol of the White House had to impose the president’s taste for a cream cake.

Was it him who wanted to leave the place on the right side of Obama to the youngest of the group, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook? Check.

Leaving aside his obsession to be called directly from the president and not, most importantly, his collaborators to the point of almost refusing the meeting — saved by his wife — which would take place late in 2010 at the Westin in San Francisco.

From the outset of this discussion, he passed to the attack and declared to Potus that he was heading right toward a one-term presidency. He is a strict conservative. He expressed all of his negative thoughts on the administration niggling in matters of regulation and taxes for companies that want to develop themselves. In China, it’s so much easier to construct some factories than here. Not content undermining the morale of the president, he drove the point home by pointing to the failure of the education system, which will not be reformed while there are still teachers unions. There is no chance to reform teaching without authorizing the heads of the establishments to recruit and rid the professors on the basis of their proven competence. And to finish off Obama, he said that nothing will progress if schools don’t stay open until 6 p.m. 11 months out of the year. That’s all, Steve? Get dressed for winter, Potus.

Isaacson speaks of several telephone conversations between Obama and Jobs proving the interest that Jobs had in being heard, and even of a proposal from him to create a political campaign for 2012. It was the second time that he made this offer. He made it in 2008, but Obama had already found David Axelrod, a strategist who had similar political views. Consequently, that wasn’t done; we know that his idea was to create something as strong as the “morning in America” commercials of the Ronald Reagan campaign based on the confidence of Americans and the revival of the country. Only thing missing now is Obama’s reactions, and it’s rather annoying.