It was as if Jobs’s brain circuits were missing a device that would modulate the extreme spikes of impulsive opinions that popped into his mind. So in dealing with him, the Mac team adopted an audio concept called a “low pass filter.” In processing his input, they learned to reduce the amplitude of his high-frequency signals. That served to smooth out the data set and provide a less jittery moving average of his evolving attitudes. “After a few cycles of him taking alternating extreme positions,” said Hertzfeld, “we would learn to low pass filter his signals and not react to the extremes.”

喬布斯的大腦電路中似乎缺少了一個裝置，這個裝置可以調節在他腦中閃現的沖動觀點的峰值。于是，在跟他打交道的過程中，Mac團隊運用了音頻上的一個概念——低通濾波器。在喬布斯向大家輸入11點時，他們學會了將他的高頻信號的振幅減小。如此一來就可以平滑地輸出數據集，并且為他不斷變化的態度提供一個讓人不那么緊張的平均值。“幾個周期后，”赫茨菲爾德說，“我們就學會了怎樣低通過濾他的信號，以及如何不對他的極端態度作出反應。”

Was Jobs’s unfiltered behavior caused by a lack of emotional sensitivity? No. Almost the opposite. He was very emotionally attuned, able to read people and know their psychological strengths and vulnerabilities. He could stun an unsuspecting victim with an emotional towel-snap, perfectly aimed. He intuitively knew when someone was faking it or truly knew something. This made him masterful at cajoling, stroking, persuading, flattering, and intimidating people. “He had the uncanny capacity to know exactly what your weak point is, know what will make you feel small, to make you cringe,” Joanna Hoffman said. “It’s a common trait in people who are charismatic and know how to manipulate people. Knowing that he can crush you makes you feel weakened and eager for his approval, so then he can elevate you and put you on a pedestal and own you.”

喬布斯做出這些極端的行為是因為他缺乏情感上的敏感性嗎？不，恰恰相反。他的情感理解能力是超強的。他有著不可思議的閱人能力，可以看出他人心理上的優勢、弱點以及不安全感。他能在別人毫無防備的情況下，直擊對方心靈最深處。他憑直覺就能看出一個人是在說謊還是真的知道一些事情。這讓他成為了哄騸、安撫、勸說、奉承、威脅他人的大師。“他就是有這種神奇的力量，能準確地知道你的弱點是什么，怎樣能讓你覺得自己很渺小，怎樣能讓你畏縮，”霍夫曼說，“這是那些極富魅力、知道如何操縱別人的入身上的共同特質。你知道他能摧毀你，這就讓你感覺自己變弱了，你渴望得到他的認可，然后他就可以把你推上神壇并徹底擁有你。”

Ann Bowers became an expert at dealing with Jobs’s perfectionism, petulance, and prickliness. She had been the human resources director at Intel, but had stepped aside after she married its cofounder Bob Noyce. She joined Apple in 1980 and served as a calming mother figure who would step in after one of Jobs’s tantrums. She would go to his office, shut the door, and gently lecture him. “I know, I know,” he would say. “Well, then, please stop doing it,” she would insist. Bowers recalled, “He would be good for a while, and then a week or so later I would get a call again.” She realized that he could barely contain himself. “He had these huge expectations, and if people didn’t deliver, he couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t control himself. I could understand why Steve would get upset, and he was usually right, but it had a hurtful effect. It created a fear factor. He was self-aware, but that didn’t always modify his behavior.”

Jobs became close to Bowers and her husband, and he would drop in at their Los Gatos Hills home unannounced. She would hear his motorcycle in the distance and say, “I guess we have Steve for dinner again.” For a while she and Noyce were like a surrogate family. “He was so bright and also so needy. He needed a grown-up, a father figure, which Bob became, and I became like a mother figure.”

There were some upsides to Jobs’s demanding and wounding behavior. People who were not crushed ended up being stronger. They did better work, out of both fear and an eagerness to please. “His behavior can be emotionally draining, but if you survive, it works,” Hoffman said. You could also push back—sometimes—and not only survive but thrive. That didn’t always work; Raskin tried it, succeeded for a while, and then was destroyed. But if you were calmly confident, if Jobs sized you up and decided that you knew what you were doing, he would respect you. In both his personal and his professional life over the years, his inner circle tended to include many more strong people than toadies.

這樣也有一些好處。那些沒有被摧毀的人都變得更為強大。他們能更好地完成工作，既是出于畏懼，又是渴望取悅他，也是意識到自己身上背負著這樣的期待。“他的行為可以讓你在情感上飽受折磨，但如果你能挺過去，它就能起到積極的作用。”霍夫曼說。有時候，你可以對抗喬布斯的力量，這樣的話不但可以幸存下來，還能茁壯成長。但這并不總能成功，拉斯金嘗試過，短時間內他成功了，但之后還是被摧毀了。但如果你很自信而且你是正確的，如果喬布斯審視你一番后認為你清楚自己在干什么，他就會很尊重你。多年來，無論是在他的私人生活還是職業生涯中，他的核心圈子里集中的都是真正的強者，而不是餡媚者。

The Mac team knew that. Every year, beginning in 1981, it gave out an award to the person who did the best job of standing up to him. The award was partly a joke, but also partly real, and Jobs knew about it and liked it. Joanna Hoffman won the first year. From an Eastern European refugee family, she had a strong temper and will. One day, for example, she discovered that Jobs had changed her marketing projections in a way she found totally reality-distorting. Furious, she marched to his office. “As I’m climbing the stairs, I told his assistant I am going to take a knife and stab it into his heart,” she recounted. Al Eisenstat, the corporate counsel, came running out to restrain her. “But Steve heard me out and backed down.”

Mac團隊也深知這一點。從1981年開始，他們每年都會將一個獎項頒發給最能勇敢面對喬布斯的人。這個獎在一定程度上是個玩笑，但也有認真的意思，喬布斯知道這個獎并且還很喜歡它。第一年，該獎被授予了喬安娜·霍夫曼。她來自一個東歐難民家庭，脾氣和意志都很強硬。比如，有一天，她發現喬布斯以一種完全扭曲事實的方式更改了她的市場規劃。她憤怒地沖向他的辦公室。她回憶說；“在我上樓梯的時候，我就告訴他的助理，我要拿把刀插進他的心臟。”公司的法律顧問阿爾·艾森施塔特（AlEisemtat）跑過來制止了她。“但史蒂夫聽我說完后作出了讓步。”

Hoffman won the award again in 1982. “I remember being envious of Joanna, because she would stand up to Steve and I didn’t have the nerve yet,” said Debi Coleman, who joined the Mac team that year. “Then, in 1983, I got the award. I had learned you had to stand up for what you believe, which Steve respected. I started getting promoted by him after that.” Eventually she rose to become head of manufacturing.

霍夫曼在1982年再一次贏得了這個獎項。“我記得我當時很羨慕喬安娜，因為她敢于面對史蒂夫，而我卻沒那個膽子。”那一年加入Mac團隊的黛比·科爾曼說，“然后，1983年，我贏得了那個獎項。我認識到，我必須堅守自己的信念，喬布斯也很尊重這種做法。從那以后我開始得到晉升。”最終，她成為了制造部門的負責人。

One day Jobs barged into the cubicle of one of Atkinson’s engineers and uttered his usual “This is shit.” As Atkinson recalled, “The guy said, ‘No it’s not, it’s actually the best way,’ and he explained to Steve the engineering trade-offs he’d made.” Jobs backed down. Atkinson taught his team to put Jobs’s words through a translator. “We learned to interpret ‘This is shit’ to actually be a question that means, ‘Tell me why this is the best way to do it.’” But the story had a coda, which Atkinson also found instructive. Eventually the engineer found an even better way to perform the function that Jobs had criticized. “He did it better because Steve had challenged him,” said Atkinson, “which shows you can push back on him but should also listen, for he’s usually right.”

一天，喬布斯沖進了阿特金森手下一名工程師的小隔間，說出了自己常說的那句話：“這是狗屎。”阿特金森回憶說：“那個家伙回答：‘不，這其實是最好的方法。’然后他向史蒂夫解釋了自己在工程方面作的一些杈衡。”喬布斯敗下陣來。阿特金森告訴他的團隊，喬布斯的話不能照字面理解，需要轉化一下。“我們把‘這是狗屎’解讀為一個問句，它真實的意思是‘告訴我，這為什么是最好的方法？’”但這個故事的結尾讓阿特金森也覺得很有教育意義。最終，那名工程師找到了一個更好的方法，來實現喬布斯之前指責的那個功能。“正因為史蒂夫挑戰了他，他才找到了更好的方法。”阿特金森說，“這意味著，你可以反駁他的意見，但也應該認真聽他說的話，因為他通常都是正確的。”