The Missed Steve Jobs Story: A Path to Empathy
The big swing and miss in Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs is his portrayal of Jobs's journey to empathy during the 1990s. There is another perspective, as shared by retired Pixar Animation Studios executive Dr. Ed Catmull. Steve Jobs’ journey to expressing empathy
Backstory
It is well documented that after they advanced Steve Jobs by one grade, relentless bullying began. It became so severe that Steve threatened to quit school. This led his parents to decide to move to Cupertino, California, and the rest is history. According to a journal article from the EU, there is a one-to-one correlation between unresolved childhood trauma and anger management issues as an adult. Please hold this thought.
According to Dr. William Dodson, Steve Jobs was diagnosed with ADHD during the “Wilderness Years” after being ousted from Apple, and he began stimulant medication then. This coincides with the time when Steve married the amazing and intellectually equal Lauren Powell-Jobs, as well as Ed Catmull's description of how Steve Jobs started experimenting with empathy to connect with other Pixar employees and people.
Stimulants, Emotion Dysregulation, Caddies, and Empathy
In 2019, the EU ADHD consensus statement included emotional dysregulation as a feature of ADHD, rather than just a prefrontal cortical executive function deficit, as Dr. Russel Barkley championed. For nearly 20 years, PET scans have shown that Adderall and Ritalin co-activate the specific region of the corpus striatum that completes the cortical-striatal-amygdala circuit. A highly probable inference is that Adderall and Ritalin somehow replace a chemical in the corpus striatum that mobilizes faster than in neurotypicals. Once repaired, the corpus striatum can signal the central nervous system to release dopamine in specific regions of the prefrontal cortex, completing the circuit for emotional regulation. Recent research in the EU has demonstrated that two-thirds of adults with ADHD on stimulants are asymptomatic for emotional dysregulation. No other psycho-tropic drug shows such a high percentage of users experiencing an asymptomatic effect.
Using a Star Trek analogy, Adderall and Ritalin are “Insta-Spock” for most ADHDers.
Now on stimulants and with an insanely bright spouse, Steve Jobs could regulate his emotions effectively and was well scaffolded by a partner who served as his personal life “golf caddy” in many ways. This is a very different Steve Jobs.
Research in the EU has shown that there is a one-to-one link between unresolved childhood trauma and anger issues in adulthood. If an adult with ADHD struggles with anger management, examining their life will always reveal unresolved childhood trauma they experienced.
This very different Steve Jobs could now resolve and overcome the negative behaviors that resulted from his being ruthlessly bullied when he skipped a grade from 4th to 6th grade. Now, Steve Jobs could experiment with empathetic connections with his employees and colleagues.
“He was learning from those mistakes, 'cause he was so smart.
He also got married, had some kids, and actually married to a remarkable woman who was every bit his sequel in terms of intellect and understanding.
And they had a remarkable relationship.
And what I found was that, contrary to my original view, that people probably don't learn empathy as they get older, like you have empathy, you don't, that was wrong, is I would not have described, I would not describe Steve as having empathy when I first knew him, but over time, that changed.
The way he treated the people, the way he interacted, the way he listened, the way he cared, all changed.”
Ed Catmull, Former President of Pixar and Disney Animation
Why Walter Isaacson Swung and Missed On The Empathy Arc.
Those employees and colleagues who observed Steve Jobs’ journey toward empathy never agreed to be interviewed by Walter Isaacson. Sadly, to this day, Walter Isaacson has not addressed this omission from his biography of Steve Jobs.
“He had been kicked out of his kingdom.
He was going in the wilderness, failing, finding problems, and creating problems, but he was learning from them, and he changed.
And around the early 1990s, he changed so much that everybody that was with him stayed with him for the rest of his life.
So when it got to the point where it was getting near the end of his life, and people were doing interviewing and so forth, even though it was, the interviews were authorized by Steve, nobody was gonna psychoanalyze Steve.
His relationship with everybody was such that they wanted to respect him.
So that change in Steve was not captured in the articles or books or movies that were written about.
They were all about the early stuff, which is publicly accessible.
That's not the important story.”
Ed Catmull, Former President of Pixar and Disney Animation
A Very Different Steve Jobs Returns to Apple.
“Steve Jobs didn't start on medication till that seven-year period, where they kicked him out, and then he came back and saved them from a bankrupt company to the most valuable company in the world.”
Dr. William Dodson, LF-APA
With his transformation into someone who expressed empathy, Steve Jobs became a very different person when he returned to Apple. Often misunderstood by the press as a narcissist, Steve Jobs, when he returned to Apple, made it very clear that “It’s not about me.” Here are some examples.
When Toy Story was released, Steve Jobs, who owned Pixar at the time, was credited as an Executive Producer in the opening credits. If you are the owner of Pixar and invested your own money to keep the company afloat, you should naturally receive credit as an executive producer. However, the press saw things differently; many mocked Steve by saying something like “There you go. With Steve’s narcissism, it’s always all about him…” This had a significant impact on Steve moving forward.
Many people don’t realize that the first voice in Apple's famous“Think Different” ad was actually Steve Jobs himself. When the Apple brain trust, including Steve, watched the final ad with Steve’s voiceover, everyone loved it except Steve. After hearing all the praise, Steve interrupted, “It can’t be about me.” There might be an element of how Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria influenced Steve’s reaction, but we may never truly know. This pattern would continue with Steve.
When the iPhone 4 was released, the antenna gate controversy emerged. The antenna gate happened when users held an iPhone 4 without a case, which weakened the signal and caused the bars to drop, indicating a weak cell tower signal. The media widely criticized Apple for allowing this issue to occur, despite its reputation for near-perfection. Steve Jobs held a special meeting with the press, presenting the problem and noting that other cellphone makers had experienced similar issues. He announced that Apple would fix this by giving free bumpers to iPhone 4 users. Later, after the press conference, Steve was seen sitting on the floor, teary-eyed, saying, “We’re better than this.”
When the first iMovie app was released on CD, the credits included a line thanking Steve Jobs. When Steve saw this, he instantly asked, “Can you remove my name?” The developers told him the CDs had already been shipped. Steve then requested to be removed from future CD updates.
This new Steve Jobs openly responded to many user emails late at night, engaging with their concerns and ideas. Many knew his email was [email protected]. Emotional regulation allowed him to put himself out there and connect with his customers, unlike any other CEO.
Many in the press shredded Steve Jobs for not being publicly known for philanthropy. Years after his death, it was revealed that he had donated hundreds of millions of dollars to various research universities, with the stipulation that his name would not appear on a building and that his donation would stay anonymous. Steve may have been an arrogant jerk, but he was not a narcissist.
Steve Jobs’ journey of exploring empathy and its connection to a proper adult ADHD diagnosis and medication is something every ADHDer should understand. Clearly, it helps achieve unprecedented success in the fundamental passion an ADHDer hyperfocuses on for life.