Benjamin franklin and albert einstein, this is the exclusive biography of steve jobs

Wall Street Journal
as saying he “was stunned and shocked” by Jobs’
s behavior.
Jobs had left his meeting with Sculley thinking that things might proceed smoothly, so he had 
kept quiet. But after reading the newspapers, he felt that he had to respond. He phoned a few 
favored reporters and invited them to his home for private briefings the next day. Then he called 
Andy Cunningham, who had handled his publicity at Regis McKenna. “I went over to his 
unfurnished mansiony place in Woodside,” she recalled, “and I found him huddled in the kitchen 
with his five colleagues and a few reporters hanging outside on the lawn.” Jobs told her that he 
was going to do a full-fledged press conference and started spewing some of the derogatory things 
he was going to say. Cunningham was appalled. “This is going to reflect badly on you,” she told 
him. Finally he backed down. He decided that he would give the 
reporters a copy of the resignation letter and limit any on-the-record comments to a few bland 
statements.
Jobs had considered just mailing in his letter of resignation, but Susan Barnes convinced him 
that this would be too contemptuous. Instead he drove it to Markkula’s house, where he also found 
Al Eisenstat. There was a tense conversation for about fifteen minutes; then Barnes, who had been 
waiting outside, came to the door to retrieve him before he said anything he would regret. He left 
behind the letter, which he had composed on a Macintosh and printed on the new LaserWriter:
September 17, 1985
Dear Mike:
This morning’s papers carried suggestions that Apple is considering removing me as Chairman. I 
don’t know the source of these reports but they are both misleading to the public and unfair to me.
You will recall that at last Thursday’s Board meeting I stated I had decided to start a new venture 
and I tendered my resignation as Chairman.
The Board declined to accept my resignation and asked me to defer it for a week. I agreed to do so in 
light of the encouragement the Board offered with regard to the proposed new venture and the 
indications that Apple would invest in it. On Friday, after I told John Sculley who would be joining me, 
he confirmed Apple’s willingness to discuss areas of possible collaboration between Apple and my new 
venture.
Subsequently the Company appears to be adopting a hostile posture toward me and the new venture. 
Accordingly, I must insist upon the immediate acceptance of my resignation. . . .
As you know, the company’s recent reorganization left me with no work to do and no access even to 
regular management reports. I am but 30 and want still to contribute and achieve.
After what we have accomplished together, I would wish our parting to be both amicable and 
dignified.
Yours sincerely, steven p. jobs
When a guy from the facilities team went to Jobs’s office to pack up his belongings, he saw a 
picture frame on the floor. It contained a photograph of Jobs and Sculley in warm conversation, 
with an inscription from seven months earlier: “Here’s to Great Ideas, Great Experiences, and a 
Great Friendship! John.” The glass frame was shattered. Jobs had hurled it across the room before 
leaving. From that day, he never spoke to Sculley again.
Apple’s stock went up a full point, or almost 7%, when Jobs’s resignation was announced. “East 
Coast stockholders always worried about California flakes running the company,” explained the 
editor of a tech stock newsletter. “Now with both Wozniak and Jobs out, those shareholders are 
relieved.” But Nolan Bushnell, the Atari founder who had been an amused mentor ten years 
earlier, told 
Time
that Jobs would be badly missed. “Where is Apple’s inspiration going to come 
from? Is Apple going to have all the romance of a new brand of Pepsi?”

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After a few days of failed efforts to reach a settlement with Jobs, Sculley and the Apple board 
decided to sue him “for breaches of fiduciary obligations.” The suit spelled out his alleged 
transgressions:
Notwithstanding his fiduciary obligations to Apple, Jobs, while serving as the Chairman of Apple’s 
Board of Directors and an officer of Apple and pretending loyalty to the interests of Apple . . .
(a) secretly planned the formation of an enterprise to compete with Apple;
(b) secretly schemed that his competing enterprise would wrongfully take advantage of and utilize 
Apple’s plan to design, develop and market the Next Generation Product . . .
(c) secretly lured away key employees of Apple.
At the time, Jobs owned 6.5 million shares of Apple stock, 11% of the company, worth more 
than $100 million. He began to sell his shares, and within five months had dumped them all, 
retaining only one share so he could attend shareholder meetings if he wanted. He was furious, 
and that was reflected in his passion to start what was, no matter how he spun it, a rival company. 
“He was angry at Apple,” 
said Joanna Hoffman, who briefly went to work for the new company. “Aiming at the 
educational market, where Apple was strong, was simply Steve being vengeful. He was doing it 
for revenge.”
Jobs, of course, didn’t see it that way. “I haven’t got any sort of odd chip on my shoulder,” he 
told