"He said, 'From then on, I realized that I was not just abandoned. I was chosen. I was special.' And I think that's the key to understanding Steve Jobs"
About this Quote
Isaacson is doing something sly here: he takes a raw biographical wound - abandonment - and recasts it as a kind of origin myth, the psychological software running in the background of Steve Jobs's legend. The phrasing is almost liturgical in its escalation: not just abandoned, but chosen; not just chosen, but special. It's a neat rhetorical flip that captures the Jobsian knack for alchemy, turning vulnerability into branding, pain into destiny.
The intent is less to psychoanalyze Jobs in a clinical way than to give readers a key that unlocks a lot of seemingly contradictory behavior: the messianic confidence, the reality distortion field, the demand that the world meet his internal standard of beauty and control. If your core story is "I was selected", then ordinary limits - social niceties, incremental progress, other people's timelines - start to feel like insults. Perfectionism becomes not a preference but a mandate.
The subtext also flatters and warns. It flatters by offering a coherent narrative: genius as the triumph over trauma. It warns because the same cognitive move that fuels ambition can justify cruelty. If you're special, other people become supporting characters; empathy becomes optional.
Context matters: Isaacson is a biographer of institutions as much as individuals. He's translating a complicated man into a readable American archetype - the adopted child who reinvents himself - while quietly pointing at the cost of that story, both to Jobs and to everyone orbiting him.
The intent is less to psychoanalyze Jobs in a clinical way than to give readers a key that unlocks a lot of seemingly contradictory behavior: the messianic confidence, the reality distortion field, the demand that the world meet his internal standard of beauty and control. If your core story is "I was selected", then ordinary limits - social niceties, incremental progress, other people's timelines - start to feel like insults. Perfectionism becomes not a preference but a mandate.
The subtext also flatters and warns. It flatters by offering a coherent narrative: genius as the triumph over trauma. It warns because the same cognitive move that fuels ambition can justify cruelty. If you're special, other people become supporting characters; empathy becomes optional.
Context matters: Isaacson is a biographer of institutions as much as individuals. He's translating a complicated man into a readable American archetype - the adopted child who reinvents himself - while quietly pointing at the cost of that story, both to Jobs and to everyone orbiting him.
Quote Details
| Topic | Entrepreneur |
|---|---|
| Source | Steve Jobs — biography by Walter Isaacson (2011). Contains Jobs' reflection on his adoption and feeling “chosen” in the book's early-life section. |
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