on 14 November 1997Cupertino, 1 November 1997—Apple interim CEO Steve Jobs today may have indicated that he would, wouldn’t, would, wouldn’t, wouldn’t – ha had got you there – would, wouldn’t, w, wo, woo, woo-d… d… be taking up the post permanently at an unspecified point this year, next year, sometime or never, either in contradiction to or in agreement with his previous statement that, well, he was going to think about it, maybe, but not necessarily with a view to making a decision or admitting there was a decision to be made, or that, if there was a decision, he would be interested in making it – although that statement was said to have been described by Apple and Pixar executives as having been misinterpreted.
‘Sorry I’m late, there was traffic,’ claimed Jobs as he reportedly arrived at an informal lunch held by unnamed members of a West Coast industry forum, fuelling fears that he might be considering a move into the automotive market, possibly as chairman of Ford or president of General Motors or vice president of internal marketing and incentives at Chrysler, or whatever. But he was later quoted as saying that wasn’t something he mightn’t refuse to avoid not being wrongly felt unlikely to not do.
Some analysts had attributed the buoyancy, resilience, or some other overblown simile for the not going down of Apple shares during October’s stock market crash to the perceived likelihood of Jobs accepting the CEO position, and suggested Apple, Pixar and Jobs were deliberately sending mixed messages in an attempt to have their cake, eat it, and make another cake from the crumbs, with jam on it. Other analysts, however, suggested the opposite, whatever that was. But those first analysts came right back and asked the other analysts what the hell they knew about what other people thought about what they should do with their Apple stock based on what they thought Steve Jobs was thinking about when he said what they thought he said anyway?
Then there was a fight between the analysts, but this was brought to an end by all the analysts taking time out to analyse which of them was most likely to win the fight they were having, and selling each other reports outlining their findings for $5,000 a pop.
An Apple insider told us: ‘One of the great things Steve has done since his return is end all the damaging uncertainty and speculation.’
adambanksdotcom @crazycolours @flayman @pauljchambers I'm quite surprised nobody who "does know" has offered Paul a job, the way he's handled it = great CV