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

Toy 
Story
and other computer-animated films—might be scheming to take over Apple.”
Once again Ellison publicly floated the idea of doing a hostile takeover and installing his “best 
friend” Jobs as CEO. “Steve’s the only one who can save Apple,” he told reporters. “I’m ready to 
help him the minute he says the word.” Like the third time the boy cried wolf, Ellison’s latest 
takeover musings didn’t get much notice, so later in the month he told Dan Gillmore of the 
San 
Jose Mercury News
that he was forming an investor group to raise $1 billion to buy a majority 
stake in Apple. (The company’s market value was about $2.3 billion.) The day the story came out, 
Apple stock shot up 11% in heavy trading. To add to the frivolity, Ellison set up an email address, 
[e-mail], asking the general public to vote on whether he should go ahead with it.
Jobs was somewhat amused by Ellison’s self-appointed role. “Larry brings this up now and 
then,” he told a reporter. “I try to explain my role at Apple is to be an advisor.” Amelio, however, 
was livid. He called Ellison to dress him down, but Ellison wouldn’t take the call. So Amelio 
called Jobs, whose response was equivocal but also partly genuine. “I really don’t understand what 
is going on,” he told Amelio. “I think all this is crazy.” Then he added a reassurance that was not 
at all genuine: “You and I have a good relationship.” Jobs could have ended the speculation by 
releasing a statement rejecting Ellison’s idea, but much to Amelio’s annoyance, he didn’t. He 
remained aloof, which served both his interests and his nature.
By then the press had turned against Amelio. 
Business Week
ran a cover asking “Is Apple 
Mincemeat?”; 
Red Herring
ran an editorial headlined “Gil Amelio, Please Resign”; and 
Wired
ran 
a cover that 
showed the Apple logo crucified as a sacred heart with a crown of thorns and the headline 
“Pray.” Mike Barnicle of the 
Boston Globe
, railing against years of Apple mismanagement, wrote, 
“How can these nitwits still draw a paycheck when they took the only computer that didn’t 
frighten people and turned it into the technological equivalent of the 1997 Red Sox bullpen?”
When Jobs and Amelio had signed the contract in February, Jobs began hopping around 
exuberantly and declared, “You and I need to go out and have a great bottle of wine to celebrate!” 
Amelio offered to bring wine from his cellar and suggested that they invite their wives. It took 
until June before they settled on a date, and despite the rising tensions they were able to have a 
good time. The food and wine were as mismatched as the diners; Amelio brought a bottle of 1964 
Cheval Blanc and a Montrachet that each cost about $300; Jobs chose a vegetarian restaurant in 
Redwood City where the food bill totaled $72. Amelio’s wife remarked afterward, “He’s such a 
charmer, and his wife is too.”
Jobs could seduce and charm people at will, and he liked to do so. People such as Amelio and 
Sculley allowed themselves to believe that because Jobs was charming them, it meant that he liked 
and respected them. It was an impression that he sometimes fostered by dishing out insincere 
flattery to those hungry for it. But Jobs could be charming to people he hated just as easily as he 
could be insulting to people he liked. Amelio didn’t see this because, like Sculley, he was so eager 
for Jobs’s affection. Indeed the words he used to describe his yearning for a good relationship with 
Jobs are almost the same as those used by Sculley. “When I was wrestling with a problem, I would 
walk through the issue with him,” Amelio recalled. “Nine times out of ten we would agree.” 

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Somehow he willed himself to believe that Jobs really respected him: “I was in awe over the way 
Steve’s mind approached problems, and had the feeling we were building a mutually trusting 
relationship.”
Amelio’s disillusionment came a few days after their dinner. During their negotiations, he had 
insisted that Jobs hold the Apple stock he got for at least six months, and preferably longer. That 
six months ended in June. When a block of 1.5 million shares was sold, Amelio called Jobs. “I’m 
telling people that the shares sold were not yours,” 
he said. “Remember, you and I had an understanding that you wouldn’t sell any without 
advising us first.”
“That’s right,” Jobs replied. Amelio took that response to mean that Jobs had not sold his 
shares, and he issued a statement saying so. But when the next SEC filing came out, it revealed 
that Jobs had indeed sold the shares. “Dammit, Steve, I asked you point-blank about these shares 
and you denied it was you.” Jobs told Amelio that he had sold in a “fit of depression” about where 
Apple was going and he didn’t want to admit it because he was “a little embarrassed.” When I 
asked him about it years later, he simply said, “I didn’t feel I needed to tell Gil.”
Why did Jobs mislead Amelio about selling the shares? One reason is simple: Jobs sometimes 
avoided the truth. Helmut Sonnenfeldt once said of Henry Kissinger, “He lies not because it’s in 
his interest, he lies because it’s in his nature.” It was in Jobs’s nature to mislead or be secretive 
when he felt it was warranted. But he also indulged in being brutally honest at times, telling the 
truths that most of us sugarcoat or suppress. Both the dissembling and the truth-telling were 
simply different aspects of his Nietzschean attitude that ordinary rules didn’t apply to him.