Exactly--Jobs was a raging asshole, and that became what the managers looked up to as the example of what brings success. During my time there, the assholes were the ones rewarded and promoted, and thus became the promoters, and the people with a shred of decency and empathy who just wanted to be good and do good work were marginalized and not rewarded. It's up and down the chain from VP level down to the first level managers.

I think this has a lot to do with it. I worked at Apple for four years, and the most successful (promoted) managers all tried to emulate the managerial attributes they believed Steve embodied: Hard nosed, demanding, callous, ridiculing failure, and they all thought they had his product sense too. They attempted to be Steve-clones all the way up the chain to Craig (who was actually a really decent guy, and didn't, at least to me, act like a Steve-clone himself). They were consistently rewarded for this behavior, so that kind of behavior became known as the way to go places at Apple. I remember having [careful] conversations with my manager where I essentially asked, "Do I have to be a raging asshole to get rewarded here? Because that's all I see--raging assholes get the promotions and equity refreshes."

There were other managers who were not toxic, and knew how to develop a team and reward/motivate them, but most of them stagnated and never went anywhere promotion-wise.

I also found the place very clique-y. There was definitely a small in-group, with the rest in the out-group, and it seemed to have nothing to do with tenure, seniority, or level. They would have their own private off-sites to do who knows what. I think they called it Top-100 or something while I was there. Everything was siloed and secret so you could never be sure.

EDIT: Reading the article, I see the cliques were specifically mentioned. I have no doubt the author is for real.