I've always wondered about Steve's decision to severely limit stock distribution at Pixar when it had its IPO. What he did was apparently legal, but many staffers there felt like they were treated unfairly. A theory I've been considering is that Steve did it to avoid changing the people who made Pixar what it was[1]. I mean, Steve certainly didn't seem like he cared about having the money, except maybe to say "told you so" to all those who doubted him after his removal from Apple. Just something that seems to fit with the facts that I'm aware of.

[1] Of course, John Lasseter, for one, ended up with a load of money and nobody could argue that he changed. He just went from collecting toy train sets to having actual train sets installed in his backyard.

Didn't he do the same thing during Apple's IPO? I was under the impression that Apple employees only received stock because Woz voluntarily gave up some of his own to form an employee pool.

It's this tight-fisted aspect of Jobs that makes it difficult for me to appreciate him on a non-professional level.

When you work with people you could at least respect their right to make their own mistakes and to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I found the previous sentence more interesting.

"Another aspect of Jobs' character revealed was his disdain for conspicuous consumption."

I definitely see some incongruency there!

Why? Did jobs show off his Ferrari, did he wear $10,000 bespoke suits? Did he buy anything at all that demonstrates status and wealth?

Jobs was NOT a conspicuous consumer. At all. All of his purchases were justified based on utility - albeit as someone who appreciates art, he considered beauty to be a utility. Psychologists like Maslow would agree with that.

Beauty leads to good feelings as surely as food and shelter do. He bought stuff for himself, not to show off.

im guessing the OP was referring to the fact that apple products could be considered as a conspicuous consumer item

If Apple products were a conspicuous consumption item, they'd have diamonds embedded, and gold plating. And they'd cost enough in order to not be owned by practically everybody, because conspicuous consumption loses its appeal when you have the same phone as the fourteen-year-old ghetto kid on the bus.

A statement that may have some degree of truth to it (disclaimer: I own at least 4 of these products and indirectly worked on them), but strange to rant about it on HN of all places.

Are you referring to the perception of Apple as a luxury brand?

I also wonder if that's Apple the first time (IPO) or the second time (when the stock surged so much).

It's probably the first time since, by the second time, he would've already been very rich and, by then, money would've changed him, if it was going to at all.