Steve Wozniak: No one wanted to work under Steve Jobs ever again

Steve Jobs was known for being ruthless and controlling, driven by a desire for perfection with a clear image of how products, practices and Apple should be, which helped him turn the company around after rejoining it from NeXT in 1996 when Apple bought the computing startup. But that same drive had an effect on his relations with employees.

“Some of my very best friends in Apple, the most creative people in Apple who worked on the Macintosh, almost all of them said they would never, ever work for Steve Jobs again,” said Wozniak in an interview with the Milwaukee Business Journal at the Flying Car conference in Milwaukee two weeks ago. “It was that bad.”

Wozniak explained that in his earlier years at Apple, Jobs pushed people to bring products out before they were ready, creating enormous strain on employees and creating rifts.

“He would directly confront people and almost call them idiots,” explained Wozniak. “But you know what? When they confronted him back and told him why they were right in understandable forms, he was just testing and learning, and he would respect those people and give them high privileges in the company.”

“That was one thing he did respect – someone who believed enough in their own ideas to speak for him, not just shut up and be shy around him,” he said.

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