Yesterday, the mainstream outlets picked up on something that had been floating around the tech sites, about Steve Jobs allegedly dumping on a journalism student. Since then there’s been some confusion over the facts, but for the sake of this post I’ll assume it’s true that a journalism student made repeated efforts to contact Apple’s media relations people, didn’t receive a reply, then texted Steve Jobs directly.
If this is correct, and if Jobs saw the message and actually replied himself, why would he have said anything other than, “I’ll have somebody get back to you”? To say anything else was simply wrong, and is another indication that Steve should step back from the day-to-day doings at Apple. He had the all-time greatest return to power of any CEO in business history, and he has nothing left to prove, especially after his brush — two brushes — with death. Steve, it’s time to start thinking about calling it quits, and if you don’t have anybody ready to step in, then you haven’t been doing your job, have you?
Jobs clearly acted like an arrogant, shall we say … appendage, in this case, which seems to be happening more and more lately in the world around us in general, thanks to devices and venues like the iPhone and Facebook. Not good.
Some of the comments on that link I included show some real fanaticism, as if being graced with a reply — assuming it played out as given — was a blessing from Steve. Which is ridiculous. Media contacts aren’t there to “solve problems,” their job is to handle inquiries, and that’s what they should have done here. I admire Jobs greatly — his comeback was truly spectacular — but considering his sometimes precarious health, he needs to think differently about what he’s doing.
No one had time to answer her question, but Jobs himself had time to argue with her in repeated exchanges?
Yes, something’s definitely wrong here.