I usually take notes of interesting facts, less-known stories, great insights or exciting business ideas for later use. As I went through the notes today, a few interesting stories on Steve Jobs and Peter Thiel stood out. These two are legends in the startup, business and technology world. They are often looked up to as visionaries and outstanding business individuals. And they really are.
But they are not Gods. World-class brilliant as they are, they don’t have a crystal ball or have all the ideas all the time. In other words, they are just humans like us. This is not to downgrade them in any way. Just a reminder that we should learn with a grain of salt, even from the established legends, that it’s normal to make mistakes or miss the boat and that the luck of working with great colleagues/partners and being at the right place at the right time is hugely important.
Steve Jobs on iTunes
But Steve Jobs, of course, had a legendary stubborn streak of his own. Jobs had always conceived of the iPod as a way to sell more Apple computers. He was still married to the idea of the Mac as the digital hub, so he was reluctant to bring iTunes to Windows machines (and thus, the majority of computer users). “It was a really big argument for months,” Jobs recalled, “me against everyone else.” Jobs declared that Apple would do a Windows version of iTunes “over my dead body.” Only after Apple executives showed him business studies that proved Mac sales would be unaffected did Jobs capitulate, saying, “Screw it! I’m sick of listening to you assholes. Go do whatever the hell you want.”
From the book: How the Internet happened
Steve Jobs on App Store
The original, App Store-less iPhone was very much Steve Jobs’ platonic ideal of a closed and curated computing system, a perfect, hermetically sealed device. For several months after the iPhone’s launch, Jobs was actually vocally opposed to the very idea of an app store, refusing to let outside developers infect his perfect creation. He told the New York Times: “You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers.”
In the end, the battle to do an app store was a replay of the argument over opening up iTunes to Windows users a few years earlier. Just as before, everyone inside Apple wanted to do it, and Jobs kept saying no. But in the end, just as with iTunes, the result was the same. Jobs finally caved, telling those who had been haranguing him, “Oh, hell, just go for it and leave me alone!”
From the book: How the Internet happened
Peter Thiel on Facebook
In the interview below, Peter Thiel (around 7:20) admitted that he didn’t think Facebook was going to be as big as it turned out to be, claiming that he would have been happy with Facebook signing up only college students in the US.
Stories like these are not rare. If you know some, feel free to share in the comment.
Minh Quang Duong 