The Saintly CEO: Steve Jobs, Jesus, and the Art of the "Jerk" Boss
Know The Line Between Jerk and Pushing Your Team to Their Best
And we’re back! After a week off for my trip to San Francisco, I’m feeling even more energized about the work we are doing.
Welcome back to The Saintly CEO. A free weekly newsletter from Catholic Founders.
Each week, get (1) tactical ways to integrate your Faith w/ your business, (2) a curated list of Catholic biz owners, and (3) misc. resources to help you with your business.
In Today’s Email:
CF Role Model: He Focused on Being the Best. Now He’s Using That For God
+6 More Heavenly Hustlers
Steve Jobs, Jesus, and the Art of the "Jerk" Boss
Miscellaneous Resources
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Heavenly Hustlers
Looking to find more Catholics who share your ambition? Each week, we curate a short list to do just that.
Huge shout-out to Catholic Owned for partnering with us to aid in this curation experience. Catholic Owned is building the Catholic Economy — currently it’s a huge database of Catholic business owners, so we can buy from each other.
Some of those listed each week were discovered through Catholic Owned.
We encourage you to get listed in Catholic Owned today if you’re not already.
CF Role Model:
Andrew DeBerry has had an incredible career so far. Working for Microsoft, AWS, Meta, and now Google, he’s using his deep AI expertise to push for responsible usage of AI from a Catholic perspective.
On top of this, he’s also the president of Arimathea (founded by Daniel Catone), where they are helping Catholics move their retirement and investment savings to Catholic-aligned companies. This will help move money away from evil organizations that are anti-life (among other things).
Andrew is someone we should look up to for his example of pursuing excellence to the point that he’s been a key individual with many of the most influential companies of our time. He pursues excellence to become the best. Then leverages this to do great things in our world.
Other Heavenly Hustlers:
Christopher Podlaski is building Duplicati, an open-source product for protecting data from disaster.
Aditha Prathap is working on something incredible in stealth. You should follow him on X/Twitter because he’s doing incredible things.
Peggy OFlaherty & Kris Oei are building Vinly. A new AI-first social network that have a unique way of helping facilitate human connection rather than vanity metrics.
Tom Pagano runs the Oxenham Group, a search firm for mission-driven companies.
🙋♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.
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Steve Jobs, Jesus, and the Art of the "Jerk" Boss
Last week, we hosted a Catholic Founders dinner in San Francisco, and we got into a lively discussion on pushing to be the best. Naturally, that brought up Steve Jobs and his famous "reality distortion field," those legendary explosions where he pushed his team to do better, to create the impossible.
Most people see Steve as just an asshole for that. But we don't think that's the whole story. It begs a crucial question for all of us, especially in business: where's the line between truly pushing your team to become better and simply being an asshole?
The Heart of the Matter: Your Intention
The answer, we believe, lies squarely in why you're pushing them.
If your intention is genuinely to produce better products for your customers, because you know your team is capable of something more, or you're striving for excellence, then pushing them is not only okay, it's often necessary. Think about it: accepting mediocrity isn't exactly a virtue. We've talked before about the importance of utilizing your skills to the fullest. God gave you (and your team) incredible talents, and they ought to be used as well as they possibly can.
On the flip side, if you're pushing people hard and using them purely as a means to an end—say, just to stuff your own pockets with more money—that's no good. That's where it crosses into abuse. There are many ways this can go wrong, but generally speaking, if you're pushing them out of love or charity, and NOT as a means to an end, you're on the right track.
The Proof in the Pudding
Let's go back to Steve Jobs for a second. If he was truly only pushing people as a means to an end, do you honestly think so many talented individuals would have stayed working there, enduring that "abuse" for so long? Definitely not. People aren't stupid; they can sniff out purely selfish motives a mile away.
Consider Pietro Ferrero, the founder of Ferrero Rocher. We referenced him in a recent issue. He pushed his people to create the absolute best products, even having the patience to wait, in some cases, an entire decade before launching them! We don't know the exact intensity of his push, but it speaks volumes that their products are so widely beloved and so incredibly well-crafted. That kind of enduring quality doesn't come from a "good enough" mindset.
The God-Given Desire for Greatness
In a way, this pursuit of excellence is also indicative of the human spirit itself. We actually want to be pushed to greatness. It's built into all of us, that deep desire to build, to do great things, to do impactful things. Often, we simply need someone to summon it out of us.
And where does that desire come from? It comes from God. He put it in our hearts. We are, after all, created in His image and likeness—that of co-creators.
When you look at the world around us, I don't think any of us can say God did a half-a** job. He created true, breathtaking beauty. Could He have created something less beautiful? Honestly, probably not, because He is pure, and His nature isn't corrupted by sin.
If we take this idea to its extreme, it means that any mediocre output, anything truly lacking in beauty, isn't really "of God." And aren't we striving to be as much like God as we possibly can in our daily lives and our work?
Time for Reflection
So, what does all this mean for you and your business? We need to spend some time reflecting on these crucial questions:
What does it truly mean for me to produce good products?
What does it mean for me to be as God-like as I can in my business?
To what extent should I push my team?
Am I pushing my team for the right reasons?
Am I or my team capable of more, but I'm accepting mediocre results?
At the end of the day, here's a simple truth: good products are beautiful products. Beautiful products are godly products. And only godly people can truly create the most godly products.
Oh, and let's not forget the practical side: good products also lead to sales and keep the business going.
God Bless & Happy Building
~Silas Mähner
Misc. Resources:
Groups:
Events:
Sign up for the SENT Summit (Sep 8-11, 2025, in Notre Dame, Indiana)
Join the next DOMINUS Lab event on July 31st (I’m speaking at it) (this is for any Christian startup founder)
Content:
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