Jobs once called a former senior Apple manager a "f***chop"

He continues to be one of the most inspiring icons of all times, and the ‘i’ brand that he helped flourish, maintains its steady grip over a sizeable chunk of the market and imagination of tech enthusiasts the world over. However, a rather unpleasant side to Jobs was unearthed when a former senior manager at the Cupertino-based company revealed that Jobs once called him a f***chop. Andy Grignon, a former senior Apple manager, in a post on Geeklist, a social sharing tool for tech enthusiasts, revealed, “In the early iChatAV days, one of the many things Steve Jobs called me was a “f***chop”. When I got to iPod, I thought it would make a nice title.” He underlined the post with a photo of his business card that displayed “f**kchop” as his title.

On being asked, what led to the late Apple boss calling him that, Grignon narrated in a Y Combinator post, “Scott Forstall had these meetings with Steve every Tuesday, where Scott and team gave updates on things Steve wanted to know about. Sometimes these were fun, sometimes not. (imagine a small room full of anxious people.. [execs, UI guys, engineers] getting a call from steve’s admin saying he was on his way. ‘oh, and he’s just coming back from the dentist, not in a good mood’) This day in particular started light, with Steve laughing/incredulous about this insult he was called or had heard “f***chop”, and wtf did that mean anyway. (this is the way back machine here, so it’s fuzzy) I was up to show what would become iChatAV, very early days. That still didn’t excuse a bad demo. We talked about a couple things, and then I went to my office to get the party started. A few seconds in to the demo, my mic went dead - I could hear/see them, they could see but not hear me. Trying to debug during a demo is a rook move, but I did it anyway. He got agitated, and said something to the effect of “I think I’ve figured it out… you’re a f***chop!.” It was meant to be funny.. or at least that’s I say when I cry myself to sleep at night."

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Andy Grognin’s business card! ( Image credit)

Grignon further went to add in a public Facebook post that “unless a manager specifically rejects a card, they auto-approve in 2 weeks.” In a tiny post on his Facebook page, Grignon explained, “Suspecting something was up, I visited Ruby and asked what was happening with my cards. He replied, “c’mon, that can’t go on a card…” Not more than a few hours later, Apple Printing said everything was approved and on its way. WTF?"

Elaborating further, putting down his thoughts, Grignon added, “What was I doing wrong? Well, plenty I’m sure! Anyone who had any dealings with Steve at any point eventually incurred his wrath. Just the way it was. You didn’t get to that point however by being an idiot (or, ‘f***chop’). Steve always pushed the envelope, and that guaranteed you were going to fail at some point. That’s good! If you don’t fail, you’re not trying hard enough. However, chalking up failure with a simple “oh well”… that’s bad! He wanted you to take failing seriously. Or maybe he was having a bad day. Either way, you got the business.”

The late Steve Jobs’ authorized biography penned by Walter Isaacson had the latter revealing about Jobs in an interview with “60 minutes” on CBS, as “He’s not warm and fuzzy … He was not the world’s greatest manager. In fact, he could have been one of the world’s worst managers.”

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