Writers Block Live

The world’s lost a titan. I’ve lost one of my two heroes. (the other being my father)

Steve rehearses for a keynote, while I stand by.

Revised – In February 2001, as a gesture of appreciation for the tremendous cooperation between Apple and Pioneer (on the project to bring affordable DVD burners aka SuperDrives to the market), Steve agreed to do a presentation to a small group of Pioneer engineers at their facility near Tokyo. I was part of the team that set up the gear for that mini-keynote.
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Since starting this book I’ve occasionally been accused of being a Steve Jobs apologist. I can see how it might look that way. Even when I’ve written about being chewed out by Steve, I tended to focus on the positive aspects of the situation. Well, this book is just getting started and this is not one of those situations.

It was August 31, 2001, and I had already been in Richmond, Virginia for three days preparing for Steve’s presentation. (more…)

Note: This article was first published, in slightly edited form, in The Guardian on January 5, 2006 under the title ‘Behind the Magic Curtain’. It appears here in unedited form.

When the CEO of Cadbury announces a new line of truffles or speaks at a conference, or Nike introduces a new kind of air-cushioned running shoe, you might expect to see it covered on page 47 of some specialized magazines, then quickly forgotten. But next Tuesday a chief executive will stand up and announce something, and within minutes it’ll be examined in minute detail all across the Web and on stockbrokers’ computers. It’ll be in newspapers. They’ll talk about it for months.
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