I work a lot. Less now than before, but still more than I should. I like work and will probably continue to do some kind of it for as long as I can.
Last fall, I read Walter Isaacson’s biography on Steve Jobs. I’m fascinated by Jobs, and found the book hard to put down. I wanted to better understand the man, and perhaps gain insight into his success. The part that stuck with me, though, wasn’t what I had expected. It was that Jobs authorized the biography so that his kids could know him.
For all the insight into the mind of the consumer, ability to see past the short-sightedness of focus groups, once-in-a-lifetime mix that enabled him to build the world’s most valuable company, he was stumped by the most simple of problems.
If you want your kids to know you, spend time with them. (Biographer unnecessary.)
For a long time, work was my only thing. I worked evenings, weekends, and Christmas. At those rare times when I wasn’t at work in body, I was there in spirit, unable to speak or think of much else. I wanted so badly to climb the mountain that I stopped asking why I was doing it.
I admire Steve for the mountains he climbed. At the same time, I wonder if he missed the whole point, becoming the John Henry of our time. He won the race, but at what cost?
Me? I may turn out to be a failure in business, but I refuse to fail my kids.
I leave the final words to Bill; he says it so much better than me:
Still, I agree with your point though ('...may be to not get so wrapped up in any one thing that we miss our lives)' - absolutely!
As my email signature has said for years now, "Success is looking forward to going to work AND looking forward to going home." I think someone can still be a success if they pour themselves into caring for their spouse and kids but fail at business but it just doesn't work the other way around.
I find it interesting that some of the public views Steve Jobs as some sort of demi-god and thinks of Bill Gates as his evil nemesis. When you look at them personally, Steve sacrificed his family to build a huge company but Bill, while I don't know how he treated his family, has dedicated his life to saving millions of lives all over the world through his charity. While Apple has saved up 100 billion dollars, Bill has personally given away 26 billion.
They deserved a father that loved them and was present, not one that, on a Saturday morning, was more interested in logo design than having pancakes with them. And yet the men in my field (software development) tell stories about him working at all hours as if he were a god, beyond questioning.
I once asked, when someone told me the logo story, who was having breakfast with the kids. They gave me a disgusted look. Steve was ABOVE that.
No. No one is.
Lately I've been leaning towards work because it's the only thing where time and effort spend could be crudely linked with the result. In a relationship of any kind (kids, girlfriend, friends) there's this risk that all invested may wasted somehow. The hard to understand truth is that the effort spend makes the one richer from the inside and not only the girl, kids or friends.
I cannot think of anything else that is worth focusing on. A noble cause at the end is just work. But a better kind of work.
Steve knew that he was dying, and that a lot about his career and how he grew up, he wouldn't be able to tell his kids when they were older. Hence the biographer (although I think he picked the wrong one) to help pass on those stories.
My impression is that he did regret not spending more time with them when they were very young, but he made sure he was around a lot more over the last ten years of his life.
I spent a lot of time with my grandfather, who was one of the soldiers who went into Belsen at the end of WWII. He never talked about it, probably because I was too young at the time to understand about it. I only found out about it years after he died. I think Jobs saw the stories in his biography the same. Stuff that he would like the kids to know, but there were more important stories and experiences with his kids to share while he was still here, and it was those he wanted to work on while he was alive.
There are things you share with your children directly - mostly the things that you share as part of your family experience. What what little I've heard, Jobs was no slacker in this regard. (Have you checked into this with people who know prior to making your negative assumptions about him and his family? I didn't think so...)
The book does—repeatedly—make note of the tenuous link Jobs had with his children. While there may be inaccuracies in the biography, I have to stress that he asked (even implored) Isaacson to write it. As a result, I think it reasonable for us to consider it a reasonably sound account of who the man was.
In addition to this, I believe some people are just not wired to be caregivers like others are. Although Steve Jobs may not have been there for his kids when they scrapped their knees or had recitals, he was able show them that anything was possible and that he was actually doing it.
Although the impression he left them as a father was nothing great, I'm sure that for decades to come, they will hear personally from people whose lives were changed by the things he dedicated his life to. Possibly through those testimonials, they'll understand his role in this world and why he did what he did and why he was how he was.
PS: I have read his biography, those kids didnt suffer.
Carnac the Magnificent is dismayed and hopes this 31-year-old starts asking himself some bigger questions.
Overwhelmingly, though, I'm not judging Jobs' decisions. I just think there may be something to be learned from them.