Tag Archives: movie

They All Want to Be Steve Jobs

Last night, MR. HECC and I went out for a date night featuring deliciously overpriced bison burgers from The Counter and a movie. Well, he wanted to see James Bond but given we can’t stand other people in movie theaters sitting near us and it was opening night, we opted for the less popular and has-been-out-for-a-while Steve Jobs flick.

I haven’t seen the handful of other Steve Jobs movies that have come out since his passing, but this one focused on his life story from the first Mac to the launch of the iMac. The story followed his professional path and personal life in a series of too-long dialogue scenes which all took place in the hour leading up to a major launch conference or in flashbacks. This fit a lot of story into a short amount of time but wasn’t exactly the most compelling to watch. Despite that, it did provide a reminder of the live of one Steve Jobs, who, without his existence, I wouldn’t be writing on this MacBook Air, wouldn’t be texting friends and family on my iPhone or reading non-fiction on my iPad. Love him or hate him, the man changed the world of consumer computing, music, and phones.

Steve Jobs is known as being an asshole, but one people loved to follow – a fearless cult leader who cared only about being true to himself and his vision. I’ve worked for a lot of CEOs who I believe would be trying to “be like Jobs.” They get the asshole part down but their intuition in business isn’t quite so keen. This is definitely a certain style of leadership which only works should your intuition be right most of the time. Even Jobs was wrong for a long time. He got fired from Apple. He was hired back because in the long run instinct and understanding what customers want – not what they THINK they want – is the most coveted talent known to business, even beyond top engineering chops.

There are parts of Steve Jobs’ personality that I recognize in myself. I constantly get chided over my focus on details, on making things absolutely perfect. But, unlike Jobs, it’s my job to make the things perfect too. Jobs was an ideas man and people loved him for it. They saw that brilliance and the value he brought and eventually he got it right. Now Apple stock is up hundreds upon hundreds of dollars. Jobs brought Apple back from the dead and said fuck you to anyone who didn’t believe in what he knew was right.

Of course, I don’t say “fuck you” to anyone. Unfortunately I have that part of my psyche which tries to please everyone. It’s pretty standard for females and I have it really bad due to a father who constantly told me all my ideas were wrong, and who would aggressively debate me should I decide I disagreed with his judgement. My mother was not allowed her own opinion, so I was taught very clearly that women should not have a voice. Women should be obedient. I didn’t have a brother so I never experienced that family dynamic (would have been interesting to see how my father treated a boy child) — but ultimately that was my life. My father certainly didn’t believe in “thinking different.”

I’m not my father, you say. I’m a grown-ass woman. I’m going to be 32 years old this month (fucking A) and I need to just stop being influenced by my past and think about my future. Be a leader. Be strong. Be a – man?

Here I am, approaching two new business opportunities. The leadership team of one (if you’ve been following – this is the larger, 300 person company) has one woman on it. The 15-person startup has 2 women in it, which, actually, compared to the ratio I believe exists at the larger company, is probably, percentage-wise, more women then at the bigger firm. I’m not 100% sure about that. Maybe it’s around the same. In the smaller company, I’d be the first female on the non-official leadership team.

This is nothing new. Even my last company which was heavily female the leadership team was all dudes plus one token women. This is life in Silicon Valley. Men can get away with being Steve Jobs – or faking to be Steve Jobs until finally someone realizes they aren’t. Somehow these men are so confident that they manage to go on to other roles even after major failures. They wear their failures proudly and walk on to the next opportunity.

Women leaders are far and few between in my life. While I have a few male mentors, it’s not the same. Many men who have been my peers had much closer ties with the male leaders at companies. They’d go out to drink with them on the regular, not just once to have a serious “mentor” chat. It was easy for them to call up their now friend to explore life’s many professional possibilities. The one female VP I know fairly well gets mad at me when I try to talk about work. I’ve learned to stop asking those questions.

I wish I could be more like Steve Jobs. Not in terms of being an asshole and horrible parent, but in terms of not giving a shit what other people think. How beautiful would that be? When it comes to opinions, everyone has one, but no one is actually right – so I might as well stand behind mine.

When I’m up in front of a room inspiring people, sharing my passion for great user experiences and products, I’m at my best. When I’m trying to coordinate a marketing program, I’m at my worst. I’m a catalyst, not a finisher. I need to learn how to be a leader. I need to learn how to be my own version of Steve Jobs – only then will I be valued, because I know I have great instincts, and my life’s challenge is to figure out how to get people to listen to them. I think that starts with not caring if they do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gone Girl: The Modern Marriage Commentary

The stories within a story of my life are endless. Take, for instance, my mother’s decision for us — my father, her, and myself — to go see the movie “Gone Girl” at the movie theatre for our family night activity together. I haven’t been paying much attention to pop culture lately so I didn’t know what the movie was about other than a wife’s disappearance. My mother had read the book so she had “a clue.”

If you plan to see the movie and/or read the book, spoilers ahead, fair warning. So the plot pretty much starts out with a woman and a man who supposedly fall in love at a time in their life when they’re young, self-entitled, horny, and everything is going right for them. But then the shit of life hits the fan – parents get sick, recessions crumble the economy, people lose their jobs, trust funds are tapped into – and the two lovebirds realize that they aren’t in a relationship with the person they wanted to be in the first place. The prenup just adds to the jealousy and drama once the perfect relationship falls apart. Because, as I took it, all of us are faking who we are when we’re dating and all of us say we’re not going to end up like those horrible married couples that nag and bicker at each other and have sex like route routine vs with passion and many of us do. Then one cheats with something newer and younger and more like the fantasy that they originally married, the other feels hurt, angry, and wants vengeance. For a moment they may even want the other partner to greatly suffer for the rest of their lives.. And there you have the plot behind Gone Girl, or at least the rational for it.

Well, going to see this movie with my parents, for those of you who follow my blog and understand my relationship with my parents and their relationship with each other, is a bit of a farcical plot line to begin with. Add to that attending the movie in one of those  newer “luxury” cinemas with the comfort seating and recalling chairs, and both my mother and father for large chunks of the movie falling asleep and beginning to snore quite loudly, and their golden commentary on the film afterwards, I couldn’t help but find myself cackling inside.

After the film was over my dad could in no way shape or form hide his disgust at the film. With my father there are no opinions that matter but his own. This time around I mostly agreed with him (it was a dumb plot line in terms of what actually happened and the constant elevator music to, I think, add a state of creepy and coldness to the film, was annoying as fuck, though I appreciated the social commentary.) Yet when my father has an opinion, he takes it personally. He even gets a bit angry or at the least annoyed – like, how dare anyone create a movie that’s so stupid that other people like that he has to see.

I must admit my favorite review from him of the evening was his frustration with the detective being female, as, and I quote, “that’s just not realistic.” He apparently has been annoyed for years with all the leading female detective characters souring the reality of his favorite shows like Law and Order. This conversation, of course, led into my mother noting that it is like how there are too many gay people on television these days – not that she has a problem with gay people – but there “just aren’t that many gay people” and that too isn’t realistic. I asked her to note a specific show where a gay person was written into it where it didn’t make sense (I’m waiting for her to tell me about some show in Rural Georgia where there’s a flamboyantly gay person who never gets threatened or shot, and perhaps that I could believe as unrealistic) but then she goes on to tell me she doesn’t watch a lot of TV these days so she can’t name a specific case, this is just in general.

Oh, my parents. At some point you just have to accept the crazy that is. My favorite part of last night was after the movie when we went to a cafe for dinner. Following our crepes my father ordered a pecan tarte. I asked if I could have a bite and he said ok. I noticed that there weren’t actually many pecans on top and tried unsuccessfully to secure one with the tiny piece I took off the site of the tarte. My mother then asked my father if she could have a taste. “Sure,” he said, as if it was rude of her to assume he might say no (but heaven forbid she just take it without asking, that would start a shit show.) My mother, knowing that any cut she takes will be horrible in the eyes of my father, asks him to cut her a piece. He, again in some sort of offended manner says “you cut your own piece.” She noted out loud that if she did he would say “she took too much.” He continued that she can cut her own piece and he wouldn’t get upset.

Ha.

She then initially takes a tiny bit of the tarte only to cut further into it about half way to get a piece with one of the few pecans on it. It does look like she took half the tart but I could see clearly that she just wanted to get the pecan. My father, of course, throws his hourly temper tantrum by saying something along the lines of “what the hell” and grabbing back the piece she cut with the pecan on it and leaving her with the original tiny piece she had cut. He then, as a peace offering, and to retain his belief that he’s a rational person, took a tiny pecan and put it on top of her tiny piece of the tart.

In reference to the film, I can’t imagine how my parents ever were the type of people who were young and in love. Was my mother just so beautiful and youthful when they met (she was 17 so maybe) that my father looked past her lack of ability to empathize with others? Was my father so stable and successful that by the time they got married my mother just looked past the fact that he smacked her glasses off her face on their honeymoon and broke them? I don’t know how these two were ever in love. Like the characters in the film they’re extremely self-absorbed people who instead of working together on communicating just make up their own stories, live their own lives. My dad was always opposed to a divorce — because it “hurts the kids” — while my mother was to scared to leave as she didn’t want to have to “work” another day in her life.

So here we are. Neither of them tried to frame the other for murder, though I wouldn’t be absolutely surprised if one day the result of my father’s explosive anger seriously injures my nagging mother. I’m surprised it hasn’t so far. Oh, there have been bruises and other pains, but nothing deadly. They seem to work together some how in their home of narcissism. One fight after the other after the other. It really is not pleasant to be here. I come back to spend time with family because logically I think that is what I should do. With my father dying and my mother getting older I don’t want to regret not spending the time with them – and I enjoy to some extent being in my childhood home for the few years left when it’s still in our family name. The rest of the visits are usually painful if not viewed as a sitcom and watched with an internal monologue of canned laughter.

I do worry about my own relationship and marriage – if I am to get married – and how that will play out in life. It’s easy to say that you won’t be like that, not a spiteful, angry couple, but as Gone Girl points out maybe we all turn into that a little bit. We’re so caught up in ourselves that we forget to care for the other. When times are good and there’s money and there’s security we can get through it, but then when the hard parts of life strike things start to crumble. I don’t want to be that way with my partner. I already hear the nagging going on in my head, we have our arguments, our moments of tension. I try to remind myself the value of the relationship is in the love itself, in the comfort, the partnership, the security. I can’t imagine a person in the world who could be a better fit for me and I’m pretty sure he feels the same way about me. As long as I focus on building the financial life that I want, and to save the money now versus later, to get to a point where with the exception of a major financial meltdown in the markets, I don’t have to worry about his career.

That’s why I’m so neurotic and crazy about my saving. I don’t want to ever rely on anyone else to support my happiness or security. It’s the moment we rely on someone else to do this when love cannot be the center of a relationship, it’s money – and when money is the center of the relationship that relationship will undoubtedly fall apart.