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Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

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Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#322
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a small price to pay to assemble the most innovative animation studio that would bring joy to millions of people for decades.

You're saying serfdom and bullying is justified by .. art?

I’ve noticed that a lot of HN comments tend to be utilitarian, in an “ends justify the means” sort of way. This can lead to all sorts of ethical quandaries but it seems prevalent in business.

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a small price to pay to assemble the most innovative animation studio that would bring joy to millions of people for decades.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Unless you are the one of course.

Are you healthy? Lets harvest your organs to save so many more people for the small cost of one life.

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and vocabulary are class signifiers. These become pretty irrelevant at the highest echelons of class, and intentionally breaking them starts being a sign of personal style.

> Good grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and vocabulary are class signifiers. These become pretty irrelevant at the highest echelons of class, and intentionally breaking them starts being a sign of personal style. Over analysis if I’ve ever seen it. Not using capitalization was just a part of 90s Internet culture which both Musk and Brin grew up in.

Not sure I buy that. Interesting take though.

I grew up in 1990s internet culture, but culture changes and it's now the 2020s. I also no longer ask people for their MSNs or consume much of my content in the medium of Macromedia Flash videos.

> intentionally breaking them starts being a sign of personal style

This sounds more likely for someone as self-absorbed as a tech billionaire.

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#326

Why didn't Brin just ignore Jobs calls and have him put through to a secretary? Any good call centre worker knows you don't deal with irate people directly as they cannot be reasoned with, and (imho) their aggressive behaviour should not be rewarded.

quid pro quo

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also my impression after reading Isaacson's biography and Creativity, Inc. At Pixar, he behaved like a feudal lord because he pretty much owned the place and they relied on his money to keep the lights on.

> At Pixar, he behaved like a feudal lord because he pretty much owned the place and they relied on his money to keep the lights on. How do you mean by "behaved like a feudal lord"? Admittedly not read up on Jobs (sacrilege in this venue, I know), so I'm struggling to understand why he who pays the piper calls the tune is somehow objectionable.

[deleted]

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#328
post #262

Do we know who “redacted” is? I’ve heard stories that Google set up development office in Denmark because one of their V8 developers wanted to move home and he was “that good” that it was worth setting up an office just to keep him on staff.

It doesn’t say if “redacted” accepted an offer, so possibly Don Melton, Dave Hyatt, or Ken Kocienda? None of them left Apple until much later, so this is just speculation in descending order of assumed-Stebe-irateness. These February 2005 emails make for an interesting timeframe since that was the year of the Apple/Google default search engine deal. I can’t find a more exact date for the search deal than “2005”, so i…

I can say for sure that Dave Hyatt was working at Apple in 2008, I'm not sure if he left and came back though.

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to do quick refresh of Palm history, but it looks like they did not survive, but it does not indicate to what extent Apple may have been involved in it. Still, it is good to see there are some CEOs that were at least willing to say equivalent of 'not cool'.

I joined just before the Pre launch straight out of university so at the time I was still very very green and didn’t have special insights. I think there were three main challenges. The first is we bet wrong on 2 strategic directions: physical keyboards (blinded because of history / Blackberry making us think it was an important market segment that would resist Apple) and screen size (trying to zig and capture value…

Thank you for all this additional information. It makes sense and I am willing to side with you based on what you wrote.

edit: WebOS ended up being good though ( between touchpad and now LG it is actually my preference ). Can you elaborate on how big a difference it is between now and then ( are they tied by name only )?

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#330

Why didn't Brin just ignore Jobs calls and have him put through to a secretary? Any good call centre worker knows you don't deal with irate people directly as they cannot be reasoned with, and (imho) their aggressive behaviour should not be rewarded.

They had an agreement that they wouldn’t do this. If being ignored the call jobs would hire google employees, especially considering how much of a grudge he holds.
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