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Or maybe he knows Eric Schmidt doesn't take orders from him and therefore it's politically inaccurate to make a demand? Many leaders with people skills will say
by hammock 5y ago
Or maybe he knows Eric Schmidt doesn't take orders from him and therefore it's politically inaccurate to make a demand? Many leaders with people skills will say "i prefer if you did x" or similar when appropriate because they know they can't control everyone, it gives the person they are talking to an out and preserves everyone's ego, etc.
- igetspam 5y agoIf memory serves, Erik personally had a business relationship with Apple at the time. He may have been a board member or advisor... So he actually did take _some_ orders from Steve. This also isn't the only threatening email from Steve to Erik. There was a Google labs project that had been approved by apple legal that got an angry email from Steve too. The lawyers signed off, so Google was protected but it didn't prevent swift action. (The lab project was taken down but the dev was not in trouble.)
- nostromo 5y agoYes, Erick served on Apple’s board at the time.
- suyash 5y agoYes, Eric was on the board so he would be in the position to order, board member don't take order from CEO, they give. In this case, I think it was a friendly communication between two tech leaders.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> board member don't take order from CEO, they give Theoretically. In practice, Steve Jobs wasn't taking orders from Apple's Board in 2007.
- trangus_1985 5y agoThey had an agreement pre-established. I think he was just being polite. Versus "yo we agreed not to do this".
- notjesse 5y agoThis is called speech mitigation, btw (Coined by pop-psychologist Malcolm Gladwell). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitigated_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitigated_speech