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I think this is what Jobs believed as well. When you look at history, people who ended up changing the world were mostly not the most rational people. They were people with a passion and persistance, who, often because of these character quirks, persued ideas where other people would have given up a long time ago. One only has to look at the lives of Napoleon, Albert Einstein or Nicola Tesla to realize this.
Tesla didn't invent electricity. But his unique ideas and insights made it possible to turn it into a practical application.
The correct comparison with Jobs is Edison. Edison blatantly stole other peoples ideas on many occasions. He exploited his loyal staff and publicly ridiculed his competitors. Edison was a two bit showman who publicly electrocuted animals, including an elephant, to show the "dangers" of AC.
Edited 2011-10-23 02:38 UTC
Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament is a book by the American psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison that examines the relationship between bipolar disorder and artistic creativity. It contains a number of case histories of dead people who are described as probably having suffered from bipolar disorder.




Member since:
2009-09-04
I find these findings of Steve Jobs being so irrational and inconsistent to be fascinating. I wonder of it’s the same “craziness” that also drove him to create products nobody other than him (and Apple) believed in (of which some turned out to be huge hits).
Maybe being consistent and rational can be limiting in certain scenarios?