tech industry
07/20/2005, 9:50am, EDT
Wednesday, July 20th
New book calls Apple's Steve Jobs a "hypomanic"
John Gartner, who studied successful businesspeople in his recent book, "The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between A Little Craziness and A Lot of Success in America," says that the most successful entrepreneurs are "somewhat manic in their single mindedness." Apple CEO Steve Jobs comes to mind. Gartner says Jobs formally acknowledged the importance of evangelism in business when he made Guy Kawasaki Apple's "Mac evangelist" in the early 1980s. "Jobs also embodied the hypomanic's dark side, and was ousted from the company in 1985 due to his mercurial management style," explains Fortune writer Louise Witt. "To Gartner, describing someone's behavior as manic was more than an easy label—it described a specific type of behavior. Maniacs have grandiose visions and high energy, and are risk-taking and impulsive. A hypomanic shares some of the same characteristics of a manic depressive, but he doesn't suffer from a psychiatric disorder." Hypomanics "don't think outside the box, because they don't even see the box," Gartner says.
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So definitely, there is both good and bad. And clearly, as has been observed by many others, Jobs post-NeXT is certainly a more restrained Jobs. So yes, Jobs does have some credit here too.
Umm, that's the whole point of the book. Taken from the above line: "The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between A Little Craziness and A Lot of Success in America," says that the most successful entrepreneurs are "somewhat manic in their single mindedness."
The author is wrong about BiPolar Affective Disorder, (the so-called manic-depression.) When characterized by Hypomania, is called Type 2. Hypomanics do not lose touch with reality, which is the key chacteristic of mania. (Depressions may or may not be present.) Many famous people had this, including W. Churchhill & T. Roosevelt (and perhaps A. Lincoln). All that said, the author may be right about S. Jobs. Like people with photographic memories, there are competitve advantages for people who are hypomanics since they can "hyper-focus" for long periods, are usually of above-average intelligence, and very creative in their chosen field.
Kinda like most Macnn posters who think they are smarter than they actually are but have neither the big words or concepts to prove it!
"Those who can't do teach and those who can't do or teach write books about famous people."
And there's a third one to: stupid Steve Job sycophant zealots who cannot teach, do, write books/articles i.e. journalist, or be bankers i.e. IB analysts who then post on Macnn and think they are better than the teachers, doers, journalists, and analysts.