Free Web NovelSteve Jobs entered the office password. As the door opened, he pushed my back and said,
“Charlie, you more than qualify to be in here.”
In the end, I was shoved in by him and entered the office together.
Inside, an office packed with computers, about ten people were practically burying their heads in their monitors.
None of them even noticed us coming in; they were completely absorbed. freёweɓnovel.com
“Hey, Scott!”
Jobs called out to someone. Only then did the people who had been working stop and turn their heads.
After glancing at Jobs, they tilted their heads in confusion, then sent curious looks my way.
Seeing a stranger enter a restricted area alongside Jobs clearly intrigued them.
You really have to give developers credit for their curiosity.
But Scott was different. Scott stood up, scratched his head roughly, and frowned.
“Jobs. If you bring an outsider in—”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. This guy is Apple’s largest shareholder and the owner of DreamHigh.”
“What?”
Scott looked at me in shock. Interest began to surface on his fatigue-filled face.
“And he’s also the genius who told me about this whole idea first.”
At those words, even more curiosity lit up in the developers’ eyes.
‘Seriously, why are you hyping me up like this?’
I lightly poked Jobs in the side. He glanced at me, smiled, and said,
“This guy talked about the key idea of the iPhone from the very first time we met. A small computer in the palm of your hand.”
“Oh!”
“At the time, the concept of a smartphone hadn’t even properly taken shape yet. Hearing that felt like getting hit in the head. And that was before I returned to Apple. Now you can see just how much of a genius this guy really is, right?”
All the other developers’ eyes sparkled—but Scott’s didn’t.
Narrowing his eyes, he looked at Jobs and said,
“Jobs, is that really true?”
“What would I gain by lying?”
“I’m asking if you’re just saying that because of DreamHigh’s shares.”
“Haha! Scott. Have you ever seen me care about anyone else’s opinion? If I had, I wouldn’t have gotten kicked out of Apple in the first place.”
At that self-inflicted jab at a sore spot, Scott finally nodded. I nodded along with him without thinking.
Steve Jobs never compromised with anyone if he believed he was right.
He was famous for driving developers mercilessly until his vision emerged exactly as a finished product.
“Fine. Let’s assume you’re right about all that. So—what’s your name?”
Scott asked, looking at me.
“You can call me Charlie. You’re Chief Scott Forstall, right?”
“You know who I am?”
“I don’t know every Apple employee. But I should know a genius like you. After all, I am Apple’s largest shareholder.”
“Hm. You’re flattering me.”
Very few people know every developer by name.
Knowing that, Scott let out an awkward smile and scratched his cheek.
Then he looked back at Jobs and asked,
“So why did you bring Charlie here?”
“Let’s go inside first.”
“Hey, Jobs.”
“Let’s talk inside. Everyone else, keep doing what you were doing.”
At Jobs’s instruction, the employees wiped the curiosity from their faces and returned their eyes to their monitors.
“Let’s go inside.”
Jobs said that and lightly patted my back.
I followed him as he walked ahead, and soon Scott followed us as well.
We entered a conference room on one side of the office.
“Have a seat.”
At Jobs’s words, Scott and I sat down at the round table.
Jobs himself brewed coffee and set it down in front of us before taking his seat.
“Charlie.”
“Yes, Jobs.”
“I’m not a developer. You know that, right?”
I nodded.
Whether Steve Jobs could write even a single line of code had always been debated.
I’d bet on “no.” He wasn’t a developer—he was a businessman.
“Without Scott and the developers you saw outside, my imagination can’t become reality.”
“Of course. I know how important developers are.”
“And among them, Scott is a genius I acknowledge.”
I glanced briefly at Scott and smiled. He looked slightly uncomfortable at how often his name was coming up.
“I think this is the first time I’ve seen you acknowledge someone as a genius.”
“Haha! Of course I acknowledge him. But I don’t like stubborn geniuses. I need people who can turn my dream into reality. Most developers can’t escape their own little worlds. That’s why I need geniuses like Scott.”
I understood what he meant.
Silicon Valley was crawling with developers, but finding good ones was like plucking stars from the sky.
Apple was relatively fortunate, with many genius developers on hand.
Most geniuses simply founded their own companies to build what they wanted.
Yahoo, Google, and the IT companies growing right now all started that way.
“This really drove it home for me. That I have to personally command everything. When I saw the atrocious design of Motorola’s phone, I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
When Motorola came up, Scott nodded in agreement.
“We were only responsible for the software. Hardware was their domain. But when I saw the actual device, I was shocked too.”
“There’s no way I’d ever put Apple’s name on that trash. Absolutely unacceptable.”
Jobs’s voice grew more heated, as if the memory still angered him.
“How do they expect to charge money for something like that?”
“Jobs. Calm down a bit.” freёwebnovel.com
Scott tried to placate him, but Jobs slammed the table hard, ignoring him.
“That’s not what I wanted!”
“I know. We all know.”
“So I terminated the contract. The penalty was massive, though.”
Jobs muttered irritably, and Scott gave a bitter smile.
“And why aren’t you mentioning the board? It’s not like it passed without any noise.”
“Those idiots only look at immediate profits······.”
Jobs turned his head toward me.
“The directors sent by DreamHigh were the same, Charlie.”
I hadn’t received that report.
I had explicitly instructed them not to oppose Jobs—had they really disobeyed?
“Did our people oppose it?”
“Then it wouldn’t have passed. Nearly half the board is from DreamHigh. They voted in favor in the end, but they complained about the penalty that went up in smoke.”
“Jobs. They’re profit-driven people in the end. Even if they exist as voting machines, they can’t completely ignore DreamHigh.”
An Apple without Jobs meant nothing to me.
That was why I’d placed our people on the board to secure control.
Most of them voted in favor of Jobs’s opinions without much friction.
“So how much was the penalty? How big was it to make them complain like that?”
“About ten million dollars.”
Ah. No wonder the board whined. The figure was larger than I’d expected, and I was momentarily taken aback.
“Why so much? That’s far more than I anticipated. I thought five million at most—and that was a high estimate.”
“They’d already started production.”
“······They started production without approval?”
“We were providing the operating system. They assumed it would just pass. They fed me that ridiculous line.”
Without seeing the contract, I couldn’t say how it was structured, but if production had already begun, we got off cheap.
“I would’ve said something too. Ten million dollars is a painful penalty.”
“The damage to Apple’s image would be worth far more than ten million. A hundred million—no, even a billion wouldn’t compensate for it.”
Jobs said firmly. His pride in Apple was unmistakable.
“Once development of the iPhone begins, I don’t want to hear any opposition from the board. So, Charlie, back me up.”
“I’ll make sure the message gets through.”
So that was why he’d welcomed me so warmly today. I smiled to myself.
“By the way, you’ve been saying ‘iPhone’ for a while now. Did you already decide on the name?”
“Yes. From iPod to iPhone. What do you think?”
Even when history twists, some things never change.
Like how Apple’s smartphone ultimately becomes the iPhone.
“iPhone. I like it. It’s quite intuitive. Very Jobs-like.”
At my praise, Jobs’s face lit up. Seeing that, Scott let out a hollow chuckle.
“Jobs, I’ll accept that you called Charlie in for the board issue. But why did you call me?”
“So the three of us can put our heads together and build the iPhone.”
“I’m a developer. I just build what you tell me to. What ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ opinions am I supposed to give?”
“Don’t be dense. In the end, it’s you and I who build it. So you need to share ideas too. Charlie and I are just talking about what’s in our heads—”
Scott let out a deep sigh. It was the sigh of a developer weighed down by fate.
“Fine. Let’s hear it, then.”
“Charlie?”
Jobs looked at me and smiled. He’d set the stage—now I had to speak.
Recalling the presentation Jobs would one day give when unveiling the iPhone, I said,
“Let’s imagine an iPod with a widescreen that you can control by touch.”
“Touchscreen? We already experimented with that on the iPod. That’s not innovation.”
Jobs shook his head in dissatisfaction.
You should let people finish.
I met Jobs’s eyes and spoke clearly.
“No. Not that half-baked touchscreen. I mean a touchscreen that requires no auxiliary tools at all. One where you can do everything using just your fingers.”
“Is that even possible with current technology? I mean, possible—sure. But commercially viable? The price would skyrocket.”
Scott posed the question. I smiled and replied,
“DreamHigh is already in talks with a company that has capacitive multi-touch technology. We’ll likely acquire them soon. Once that happens, royalties are negotiable, right? Apple is connected to me, after all. And as for commercialization—mass production can bring costs down as much as we want.”
“Well, that does change things.”
At that moment, Jobs cut in.
“Then why not merge that company into Apple?”
Shaking my head, I opposed him.
“No. Monopoly isn’t always good. Competition grows the market. If only Apple survives, the pie can’t grow. It’s better to dominate a market that sells one hundred million—no, a billion units—than to monopolize a market that sells ten million.”
In my previous life, competition between Apple and Android made the smartphone market explode.
Eventually, everyone would carry a smartphone.
But if only Apple existed? If choices were limited?
The pie would inevitably shrink. Monopoly kills growth.
Jobs looked regretful, but quickly accepted it.
“And then? Go on.”
“Second, it’s a revolutionary phone.”
“That’s what we tried to do with Motorola. Combining the iPod and a phone.”
I smiled and delivered the final point.
“And lastly, it’s a breakthrough internet communication device. Those three things converge into a single smartphone.”
“A phone, an iPod, and internet access all in one? Yes—this is it! This is what innovation should look like. It matches exactly what I had in mind.”
As expected, Jobs had been thinking along the same lines.
It was obvious he’d been testing me, but I played along.
Scott, however, remained skeptical.
“If three products merge into one, the device will inevitably get bigger. And how is that different from existing smartphones?”
“The things currently called smartphones are clunky and crude. I think it’s embarrassing to even call them smartphones.”
“But they still work, don’t they? They are smartphones. It’s innovation, sure—but not entirely new.”
When you focus too much on the big frame, it’s easy to miss the details.
Scott seemed stuck in that mindset.
“You’re right. We’re not making something completely new. But Apple has the ability to make the same thing feel entirely new.”
“What do you mean? What capability sets it apart from existing smartphones?”
The answer came from Jobs.
“The operating system. That’s Apple’s greatest weapon.”
