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It's my company, and I'll cry if I want to
April 27, 2005
Apple Computer's greatest asset is Steve Jobs's ego. His personal will, taste and sheer orneriness run like veins of gold through the company's products. Other electronics firms go out and ask "the market" what it wants, and then they dutifully churn out mediocre me-too commodities. All they can do to move units is to cut prices. Jobs asks himself what he wants, and then his hand-picked band of engineers and designers turns out distinctive products that sell at a premium.
But there's a dark side to confusing the personal and the professional. Sometimes it takes a trivial form, as it did yesterday when word leaked that Apple stores were pulling books published by John Wiley in retaliation for the publisher's upcoming, unauthorized biography of Jobs. This is embarrassing - and of course counterproductive, as the publicity will only bolster the book's prospects - but it's unlikely to have any effect on sales of iPods or Macs. Yet it reveals, once again, why watching Apple is like watching a Greek drama. We all know the hero's tragic flaw; what we don't know is how much blood will be spilled because of it.
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Comments
Yes, Apple (well, Steve) is throwing another tantrum, but I'm not sure that this is confusing the personal and the professional -- wouldn't it be stupid for Apple to sell a book whose title implies that Steve Jobs is a con-man? Why dignify the book by selling it.
What drives me crazy is how this ripples through the news as another freedom of speech case. Marketplace had a story this morning about Apple pulling the biography but failed to even mention that the title was iCon? Full disclosure may help to explain Apple's rationale, though the story isn't as juicy then.
Posted by: Tim Swan at April 27, 2005 11:37 AM
If it were just a matter of the stores not carrying the bio, it would be a nonissue (they don't carry bios anyway, I'd assume). It was the decision to pull all the publisher's books from the stores that turns it into a personal issue rather than a business one.
Posted by: Nick at April 27, 2005 02:21 PM
Agreed. Jobs is surprisingly thin-skinned for someone with his legendary temper. Still, this being a top story on NPR today seems bizarre. Looks like Jobs won the skirmish but lost the war on this one.
Did you see the post from Jean Louis Gassé over on Gilmor's blog? Sounds like the author of iCon was looking for the dirt when he was "researching" the bio.
Posted by: Tim at April 27, 2005 08:06 PM
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