Let Steve Jobs teach you how to hate, part two

Timing is everything.

Earlier this week, I wrote a post entitled Let Steve Jobs teach you how to hate, and scheduled the post for publication this morning. So when my insanely great readers went to their RSS feeds this morning, they saw a post that talked about Steve Jobs' hatred of...John Sculley.

However, by the time the post actually appeared on Friday morning, no one really cared about Steve Jobs' hatred of John Sculley. (Sculley wronged again.) What they really cared about was Steve Jobs' hatred of Eric Schmidt:

Tension between the two companies escalated as Google used the Android operating system to follow Apple into the burgeoning market for smartphones. The rivalry forced Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Google, to resign from Apple's board in 2009.

"I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product," Jobs said in the book, according to the AP. "I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

Now I acknowledge that no one is perfect, and that there were both good and bad things about Steve Jobs. But before you start eviscerating people for their bozo ideas, consider what Doug Hardy has to say:

•Temperamental is not the same as demanding.

What boss doesn’t savor the ability to judge people perfectly? Hey, if Steve Jobs got results by firing people in the elevator whose offense was not being able to articulate on the spot their value, why can’t I? Jobs got away with inexcusable outbursts because they were part of the whole (charismatic) person. If being temperamental isn’t absolutely necessary to your success, don’t give yourself a pass on common civility.

Hardy concludes:

If you must obsess over every detail, you’d better be right.