I recall an instance of Steve Jobs actually being a nice guy in this respect. He was talking to a well-known third-party Mac developer (I think Panic, but mayb

I recall an instance of Steve Jobs actually being a nice guy in this respect. He was talking to a well-known third-party Mac developer (I think Panic, but maybe it was a different one) and asked what they were going to be working on next. "Well, we're thinking about doing an MP3 player". Jobs just said "Don't." (this was not long before iPod/iTunes came out). So they didn't, no doubt saving them a lot of development time and money.