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New Book Reveals Apple's Steve Jobs Was First Choice for Google CEO

Posted by Roblimo on from the do-no-evil-while-wearing-a-black-turtleneck dept.

A Reader notes, Steven Levy's latest book, In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives, lifts the lid on the secretive world of Google, revealing how the founders fell out with Apple's Steve Jobs and what happened in the search engine's exit from China. Levy claims that when Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were on the hunt for a chief executive they wanted Steve Jobs to take the job. Obviously, he didn't, and later the two companies became fierce rivals rather than allies.

18 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. How different things could have been by McGuirk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It makes you wonder how things would have turned out if Jobs had accepted the offer. Then again, the competition between the two is likely to still lead to some new innovations that might not surface otherwise.

    1. Re:How different things could have been by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Don't be evil" could not have been the motto with that douChEO in charge

    2. Re:How different things could have been by joh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Don't be evil" could not have been the motto with that douChEO in charge

      Youtube wouldn't be using Flash right now, though.

      And Google Apps would be a joy to use instead of the total mess it is.

    3. Re:How different things could have been by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm not sure that Jobs could possibly have been induced to take the offer: He already has more money than he could conceivably spend on any hobby that isn't "tell financial minion to write check for value of liquid holdings to somebody"(and, unlike many wealthy CEOs, he doesn't seem to have any wildly expensive hobbies), so he is unlikely to be buyable.

      His work with Apple(which obviously gooses the value of his stock holdings; but for which he doesn't get paid nearly what he easy could demand) seems to be entirely about pursuing his perfectionism wherever it leads him, even if that means killing profitable products(hello iPod Mini...), stomping on backwards compatibility in ways that upset important partners(Yo Adobe, 64 bit carbon is dead, we didn't bother to tell you until the last second; because Cocoa is just better.) and trading marketshare for margin whenever necessary(nearly all the Macs, the continued lack of a 1 socket mini-tower type config).

      Google, on the other hand, really only does relentless perfectionism on the back end(datacenter efficiency and search algorithms). Most of their user-facing stuff is not bad; but is proudly beta, low margin, and basically about being good enough to serve its strategically vital cash cows.

      Unless Jobs suddenly developed an intense hatred of publicity, in which case he might well be a good recruit for some position in Google's back-end operations, a gig with Google would run strongly against his tastes, and he already has enough money, and not enough interest in money, that Google couldn't easily buy him.

    4. Re:How different things could have been by vakuona · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah. The Pixar guys were really cowed and faceless. People have this idea of Jobs, the CEO being one person, the Apple CEO. But he was also Pixar CEO, and they seemed to do OK. Maybe, he is just a really clever guy who knows how to organise a business to make money. Compare his computer company (I use the term loosely, Apple ceased being that a long time ago) to other computer companies (Dell, HP, Compaq (now HP obviously), Gateway etc). His is the most successful, running on a completely different strategy, making it work. He also ran Pixar, right up until he sold it and they didn't make a single flop movie. Who says he wouldn't have been able to run Google. He proved himself in 2 completely different industries already.

  2. Wired has it this month by scotch51 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually Jobs was choice number 3, after Sergey and Larry as co-CEO.

    Wired has it this month, from the same author. Oddly I don't recall a book reference.

    http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/mf_larrypage/

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  3. Surprised Jobs Didn't Steal Something... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    from them.

    Jobs and Gates seem to display sociopathic, if not psychopathic characteristics. Is that necessary to succeed in business today?

    Or perhaps it has always been true. Have any studies been done that rate the sociopathic/psychopathic levels of captains of industry?

    1. Re:Surprised Jobs Didn't Steal Something... by Man+On+Pink+Corner · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yes, and it's true that sociopathy is more prevalent in corporate management than it is in other parts of society.

      This isn't necessarily a bad thing, for the most part, just a case of different people with different personalities finding roles in society where their traits are assets rather than liabilities. If you could wave a magic wand and remove the influence of so-called "sociopaths" from human history, we'd all find ourselves back in the caves, if not the trees.

      Likewise if everyone behaved like a stereotypical CEO, we'd have destroyed ourselves long ago. It takes all kinds.

    2. Re:Surprised Jobs Didn't Steal Something... by improfane · · Score: 3, Informative

      Jobs did steal, he pocketed cash that was meant for Steve Wozniak.

      http://www.woz.org/letters/general/91.html

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    3. Re:Surprised Jobs Didn't Steal Something... by microbox · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This isn't necessarily a bad thing, for the most part, just a case of different people with different personalities finding roles in society where their traits are assets rather than liabilities.

      You have to be kidding. Bullying and walking over people is never an asset in a civilized society. Only about 2% of people are like that, and they cause almost all of the problems.

      If we didn't have the problem of sociopaths and psychopaths (pigs might fly), then our political and business system would actually be ethical, since 98% of the population doesn't have much of a problem with being ethical.

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    4. Re:Surprised Jobs Didn't Steal Something... by joh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I always felt that those people who insist in demonizing Jobs and Gates look much more psychopathic than Jobs and Gates. They are surely less grounded and in touch with reality, even if just because they did *not* manage to get large companies up and running from nothing. They're purely negative and destructive, just reacting to something they don't understand or don't like, with no means to do something successful on their own.

      I'm not saying there are no psychopaths in the industry but mostly you find them in meager positions of power that cater to their special "talent". The "captains" mostly are bright and realistic guys, even if often with an iron will and/or personal quirks. Like it or not but success is the most clear indicator for psychological health we have. There are exceptions in certain dysfunctional communities, but usually true madness sinks to the bottom. Describing Jobs as a sociopath just because he has very clear (and obviously very correct) ideas how devices for the masses should work is, well, mad.

    5. Re:Surprised Jobs Didn't Steal Something... by pushing-robot · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Or, as it really happened:

      Jobs was working for Atari.

      Atari offered Jobs $750 to create a Breakout prototype in 4 days, with a $100 bonus for every chip he eliminated from the original estimate of ~100 chips.

      Jobs told his friend Woz about the project, and offered to split the $750 if Wozniak made the prototype. Jobs never told Wozniak about the bonus.

      Wozniak produced a prototype with an incredible 50 fewer chips than the estimate. However, Atari decided not to use the prototype, since for all its efficiency it was the hardware equivalent of a mass of spaghetti code only Wozniak could understand. The final Breakout game had close to the original design estimate of 100 chips.

      Atari kept their end of the bargain though, paying Jobs $750 for the prototype and a huge $5000 bonus.

      The same year, Jobs left Atari and used the money to found his own startup, Apple Computer, along with Wozniak.

      Wozniak left Apple five years later after crashing his light plane, with an estimated net worth at the time of $45,000,000.

      So I'm sure Woz cried his way to the bank on that one.

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    6. Re:Surprised Jobs Didn't Steal Something... by nomadic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If the story is true, at the time Jobs intentionally screwed over his supposed friend for money. What's the relevance of what happened after?

    7. Re:Surprised Jobs Didn't Steal Something... by pushing-robot · · Score: 4, Informative

      So If I didn't pay you a small sum of money—money I never said I'd pay you—and then invested said money in a company which gave you a job doing exactly what you always wanted to do, which you worked at for five years and retired at 30 a multi-millionaire, I'd be screwing you over?

      Oh, and if you'd rather hear from Woz himself:

      Comment from E-mail:
      According to the site, you resigned from Apple. Is this true? And was you actually cheated by Jobs for $5000?

      Woz:
      No, I never resigned from Apple, and I still receive a small paycheck because I want to be an employee forever. The press constantly tries to make it out that Steve and I are enemies but we are not and have not been. You'll find virtually no negative words and definitely not a single person who ever saw us argue or fight. It's just something that the press likes to say. The Wall Street Journal once printed that I was leaving Apple because I was disgusted, even though I'd told the reporter that was not the case. If it were true, it's hard to imagine me staying on the payroll with employee agreements in effect. Every book from then on printed that story and it became history.

      I'm sorry that the story about Steve cheating me ever got out. First, it concerns something from long ago and even our memories are suspect. Second, it's good to forgive small things. Third, I would have gladly split money the way it was if he just said that he needed it. We were both like that. For example, around that time Steve went to India and ran into someone who had lost their plane ticket home. Steve actually gave that person his own ticket. Steve had no money but trusted the person to replace it, and sure enough the replacement was mailed to him and he got home.

      I got a great excuse to design a video game for Atari and that was worth more than any money to me. If I'd gotten more money, I might have wound up buying a computer kit or constructing a different kind. Many good things about the Apple I and Apple ][ came from not being able to afford expensive parts.

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      How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
  4. Totally different corporate cultures. by TerranFury · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's the impression I get:

    Apple is a dictatorship run by an obsessive-compulsive designer. It works its employees hard to produce well-integrated, very refined products, following one man's vision.

    Google is a confederacy of teams joined by a common culture. People within the organization have considerable freedom to pursue their own agendas, and Google tries to harness this energy to make its search business more profitable, even if it means taking a scattershot approach.

    Apple has OCD. Google has ADD.

  5. Re:good thing by skribble · · Score: 4, Insightful

    . o O { don't feed the troll, don't feed the troll, don't feed the troll...}

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  6. Re:good thing by the+linux+geek · · Score: 3, Informative

    WebKit was a derivative of KHTML, a GPL'd system.

  7. Also different ideas of how to make money by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google's idea is basically to make money on their search technology, which means on ads. To that end they develop new things that help get people using their search, and make those things free. They aren't concerned about monetizing a given product so long as that product helps drive their primary business.

    Apple's idea is to make a ton of profit on all their hardware. Anything they introduce, they want high margins on. It is designed to be profitable as it is, not to try and drive other business. They tie their products together, but as a way to get you to buy more products.

    It's probably a very good thing Jobs didn't get hired on at Google because I think Bing and/or Yahoo would have crushed them now. Apple's strategy is not a bad one, as is clear by the money they make, but it is not one that would work in the market Google is in.