Putting hagiography aside for a moment.

The famous Jobs ” reality distortion field ” is a polite way of saying that he was a skillful liar and thief.

He even lied at his Stanford commencement speech.

The reality was that he was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 and advised to have surgery immediately–with prompt surgery his particular form of cancer is quite curable with a survival of 15+ years.

Jobs refused surgery and all other treatment– instead he he took herbs and saw witch doctors.

He did not tell Apple share holders nor the SEC about his cancer.

9+ months later he finally agreed to surgery – and claimed that he was cured.

When people wrote about his looking ill and frail he claimed it was nothing — just a minor bug and a slight ” hormonal imbalance ”

Next he bought himself a liver transplant and jumped the queue to get one out of state.

He did not tell Apple share holders about his new serious illness–the story was eventually broken by WSJ.

When he got caught back-dating his stock options he blamed his CFO and lawyer and threw them under the bus.

The story is that he appointed Al Gore to Apple B o D to buy protection from the SEC.

Jobs was a very skillful hustler and show man — he was great a recruiting and driving talent and taking credit for their work

–those who worked for him saw him as a creative sociopath and narcissist

–he could have been a very successful politician.

He was a great marketeer who created a cult that enabled him to charge a huge margin for pretty machines that were assembled in sweat shops in China.

Vanitas Vanitatum, Omnia Vanitas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Allisvanity.jpg

Now back to the hagiography.

People say that they feel like they did when John Lennon died

Who was John Lennon?

Oh yes the guy who claimed that

“THE BEATLES ARE BIGGER THAN JESUS”