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

The Divorce
In testimony before a Senate committee in February 2002, Michael Eisner blasted the ads that Jobs 
had created for Apple’s iTunes. “There are computer companies that have full-page ads and 
billboards that say: Rip, mix, burn,” he declared. “In other words, they can create a theft and 
distribute it to all their friends if they buy this particular computer.”
This was not a smart comment. It misunderstood the meaning of “rip” and assumed it involved 
ripping someone off, rather than importing files from a CD to a computer. More significantly, it 
truly pissed off Jobs, as Eisner should have known. That too was not smart. Pixar had recently 
released the fourth movie in its Disney deal, 
Monsters, Inc.
, which turned out to be the most 
successful of them all, with $525 million in worldwide gross. Disney’s Pixar deal was again 
coming up for renewal, and Eisner had not made it easier by publicly poking a stick at his partner’
s eye. Jobs was so incredulous he called a Disney executive to vent: “Do you know what Michael 
just did to me?”
Eisner and Jobs came from different backgrounds and opposite coasts, but they were similar in 
being strong-willed and without much inclination to find compromises. They both had a passion 
for making good products, which often meant micromanaging details and not sugarcoating their 
criticisms. Watching Eisner take repeated rides on the Wildlife Express train through Disney 
World’s Animal Kingdom and coming up with smart ways to improve the customer experience 
was like watching Jobs play with the interface of an iPod and find ways it could be simplified. 
Watching them manage people was a less edifying experience.
Both were better at pushing people than being pushed, which led to an unpleasant atmosphere 
when they started trying to do it to each other. In a disagreement, they tended to assert that the 
other party was lying. In addition, neither Eisner nor Jobs seemed to believe that he could learn 
anything from the other; nor would it have occurred to either even to fake a bit of deference by 
pretending to have anything to learn. Jobs put the onus on Eisner:
The worst thing, to my mind, was that Pixar had successfully reinvented Disney’s business, turning out 
great films one after the other while Disney turned out flop after flop. You would think the CEO of 
Disney would be curious how Pixar was doing that. But during the twenty-year relationship, he visited 
Pixar for a total of about two and a half hours, only to give little congratulatory speeches. He was never 
curious. I was amazed. Curiosity is very important.
That was overly harsh. Eisner had been up to Pixar a bit more than that, including visits when Jobs 
wasn’t with him. But it was true that he showed little curiosity about the artistry or technology at 
the studio. Jobs likewise didn’t spend much time trying to learn from Disney’s management.
The open sniping between Jobs and Eisner began in the summer of 2002. Jobs had always 
admired the creative spirit of the great Walt Disney, especially because he had nurtured a 
company to last for generations. He viewed Walt’s nephew Roy as an embodiment of this historic 
legacy and spirit. Roy was still on the Disney board, despite his own growing estrangement from 
Eisner, and Jobs let him know that he would not renew the Pixar-Disney deal as long as Eisner 
was still the CEO.
Roy Disney and Stanley Gold, his close associate on the Disney board, began warning other 
directors about the Pixar problem. That prompted Eisner to send the board an intemperate email in 
late August 2002. He was confident that Pixar would eventually renew its deal, he said, partly 
because Disney had rights to the Pixar movies and characters that had been made thus far. Plus, he 
said, Disney would be in a better negotiating position in a year, after Pixar finished