Steve Jobs debunked: 'Vicious' and 'unfair' says intimate partner

Saturday, October 19, 2013 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: Steve Jobs, Apple Computer, cult of personality

(NaturalNews) The Steve Jobs that many people have grown to know and love as the visionary behind Apple and pioneer of personal computing as we now know it is an illusion. Though still revered the world over for his technological brilliance and clever intellect, Jobs was apparently a wholly different animal in his personal and business lives according to Chrisann Brennan, a former girlfriend and love interest of Jobs who tells all in her new book, The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs.

An excerpt from Brennan's book, which was recently published by the New York Post, spares no details in exposing the true nature of a man whose public image seems to contrast sharply with his alleged private one. Brennan recounts the incredible turmoil she faced while dating Jobs back in the 1970s and living with him in Cupertino, California, near where Apple's now-prodigious global headquarters is located.

She claims to have witnessed first-hand how the mind of a young and ambitious genius, one whom she recalls admiring in the early days of their relationship before Apple grew to multinational size, transformed over time into an almost maniacal one. Brennan's intimate, and at the same time unsettling, recollections of her life together with Jobs in a small rental house in a San Jose suburb and beyond reveal a Steve Jobs that may come across as shocking.

The excerpt opens with a brief biographical foreword on the young, pre-Apple Steve Jobs and proceeds with vivid details of what would serve as the transformative catalysts for the ruthless, control-freak Steve Jobs. It is understood that Brennan's story is, of course, one-sided. But her experience corroborates with what others have since revealed about the corporate culture of Apple under Jobs' leadership.

"Living with Steve in Cupertino was not as I had expected it to be," writes Brennan, noting that the growing success of Apple helped facilitate Jobs' transformation into an egomaniac, of sorts, who always had to be the ruler of the roost. "It was like a game of Snakes and Ladders, with Steve as the game master. The ups were hopeful and the downs were extreme. I didn't know how to hold my own with him because he didn't play fair."

"He just played to win -- and win at any cost."

Jobs' behavior as a 'brilliant misfit' mutated into 'positively despotic,' says Brennan

This would become a theme in all areas of Jobs' life, according to Brennan, as he increasingly would take advantage of situations for personal gain, even if it meant hurting other people. He also became increasingly more cruel in his everyday social demeanor, manifesting traits that others would describe as lacking in compassion and normal human empathy.

"As Apple grew, so did Steve's sense of self-entitlement; in parallel they both seemed to take on lives of their own," adds Brennan. "And his behaviors didn't improve with success, they changed from adolescent and dopey to just plain vicious ... He had entered into an elite world where others took care of the lower-level functions so that he could operate with more efficiency, on his presumably higher plane."

Jobs and Brennan eventually separated, and when Brennan later became pregnant with their daughter Lisa, Jobs publicly denied being the girl's father, even after a paternity test showed otherwise. Jobs even went so far as to publicly shame Brennan by telling TIME magazine back in 1983 that "28 percent of the male population in the United States could be the father," insinuating that Brennan had been with many other men.

You can read the full excerpt from Brennan's book here:
http://nypost.com.

You can also order her book here:
http://www.goodreads.com.

Sources for this article include:

http://nypost.com

http://www.ibtimes.com

http://www.goodreads.com