Jobs

Last night I watched the Steve Jobs biographical film Jobs. What I had expected from the trailer was a story emphasizing that if you have a vision and work hard enough, you can become wildly successful and change the world; the standard american dream of prosperity. While that was definitely there, it was counter balanced by the ugly truth about how ambition destroys friendships and families; and how success also means ending up surrounded by backstabbing businessmen.

This bipolar narrative continued back and forth throughout the film. Jobs screws over the Woz while making the game Breakout for Atari, then recruits and inspires a team to build the Apple I, then kicks his girlfriend out of the house for getting pregnant, then inspires the Macintosh team on the importance of including different typefaces. It really felt like two different films as times, leaving it bittersweet as a viewing experience.

The interpretation would be that the american team is an achievable goal, but in order to reach the level of success that Jobs did, you are going to have to do some sleazy backstabbing behavior to get there. And that you can still be perceived and a genius and a legend, but while the general public thinks you’re great; the people closest to you will likely see you as an asshole.

A legacy of ambition and the rise of the antihero

When I first heard about the Jobs film being made, I was not the least bit surprised since The Social Network was such a successful film. However, the Social Network was almost entirely about Mark Zuckerberg being an arrogant prick. There were a few moments of The Social Network that were inspiring to me as a programmer and designer. My favorite being the montage of programming the original version of Facebook while drinking a few beers and pulling an allnighter, accompanied by a hard thumping electronic score.

It came as no surprise after watching The Social Network, that Zuckerberg did not approve of the film, since one of the real life partners had helped write the story which is why they portrayed him as such a conniving jerk. I figured this was just an example of dramatizing what would otherwise be a boring story about programming to the general public. However, after seeing Jobs I think that these films are not so telling of industry ambition, but of the trend in popular narrative towards antiheroes.

Last year I attended a KPCC radio interview with Brett Martin who wrote “Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad.” In the book and interview, he spoke of how the antihero narrative has come into vogue in the last decade, mostly through television but increasingly through feature films. Relating this trend to the aforementioned films, I am curious on how this will affect the view of the computer industry going forward and how might it misinspire those looking to into the field.

Since the legends of the computer industry are just now emerging as a tale to be told, it may turn out to be a disservice to the industry that they began being told during this current narrative trend. While the antihero narrative allows audiences to follow otherwise unrelatable degenerative personalities, the formula being applied to modern biographical pieces that may be harmfully shaping perceptions about required personality to be successful in this industry.