Jobs was Apple’s reluctant savior
A court deposition, relating to the long ago concluded options back-dating scandal ,offers insights into Apple CEO’s role in the affair, why the options were offered at all and, interestingly, how the company co-founder found himself back at the helm of a sinking ship.
Bloomberg has laid hands on a 119-page transcript of Steve Jobs March 2008 US Securities and Exchange Commission deposition in which he speaks on a range of topics, including his reluctance to either let a “pretty messed up” Apple die or take the reins himself. Jobs is quoted saying:
Apple was not in good shape and everybody knew it. The kind of candidates that we were being offered up by the headhunters were not very talented—it just slid into the fact that I stayed.
I felt that to my knowledge there had never been a CEO of two public companies before. I felt if I took the job, the Pixar shareholders and employees would think I was abandoning them.
That’s the key asset Apple has—is its talent. I was very concerned that Apple could really suffer some big losses on its executive team with the business environment we were in and the competitors coming after our people.
I wanted the über important people to get a million shares.
Thereupon, Jobs said in his deposition that he wasn’t involved in selecting dates or the actual “mechanics” of implementing the options grants for Apple managers, which he categorized as “ultra key people,” “very important key people,” and “key people.”
Love Steve, love Apple, but those silly Californians and their super excessive applications of the language…
What’s your take?
Related Posts:
April 24th, 2009
It’s hard to believe Jobs was so involved in all other parts of Apple and didn’t oversee the stock options, especially since it was so crucial to retaining talent.
April 30th, 2009
He knew.
Control freak that Jobs is, there is nothing that he did not have intimate knowledge about in advance. He is just lucky that he has now followed other who pulled this stunt into jail.