The day Steve Jobs dissed me in a keynote (2010)

http://sivers.org/itunes

by beshrkayali • 13 years ago

442 104 13 years ago

sivers.org

bravoyankee• 13 years ago

This has been on HN a bunch of times already. News is supposed to be new, correct?

angersock• 13 years ago

This story was news to me, and I haven't seen it in a couple of years here.

The only part here not news is Steve Jobs/Apple acting like jackasses--the particulars of the story are interesting.

znowi• 13 years ago

Interestingly, he was also a close mentor to Larry Page and Sergey Brin :)

muyuu• 13 years ago

Same here, and it's one of the most interesting pieces I've read in a while.

sigzero• 13 years ago

This story was news to me, and I haven't seen it in a couple of years here.

Which is it?

msvan• 13 years ago

If it gets to the frontpage, it's because it was upvoted by people who hadn't seen it before. If you've already seen it, you don't need to click it.

epo2• 13 years ago

It gets upvoted because anti-Apple and Anti-Jobs stories feed the drooling hordes who seem to have become the majority here.

pavs• 13 years ago

News is supposed to be new, correct?

I don't think there is any rule on HN that says that all submitted stuff has to be new.

bornhuetter• 13 years ago

There isn't. Stuff gets posted all the time with [year] in the title; if it's interesting it gets upvoted.

skidding• 13 years ago

It's highly probable that someone saw it while checking out the aufond.me demo a few points down the front page (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5879071)

http://aufond.me/sivers/got-dissed-by-steve-jobs

beshrkayali2• 13 years ago

That's exactly what happened.

The only reason why I submitted it is that it was news to me.

czr80• 13 years ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1896189

dualogy• 13 years ago

Baffles me why the dupe-detector didn't work here? Exact URL after all, it seems.

acro• 13 years ago

It was submitted 945 days ago, if I remember correctly there is a time limit.

chris_wot2• 13 years ago

Yup, Steve Jobs was an arsehole.

gesman3• 13 years ago

At the top there are crowds of these... :)

dthunt2• 13 years ago

I think you learn everything you need to know about Steve Jobs by looking at the way he pursued his cancer treatment.

kunai• 13 years ago

This is why I think Apple will do better with Cook, Ive, Federighi, and Schiller as the frontmen. They can collaborate and judge what's best uninterrupted by the arrogant ramblings of Holy Jobs.

lostlogin• 13 years ago

I suspect that Apple define success with their own metrics. There are a few measures by which Apple is already the best - which areas do you think a Cook Apple might target? From the short Post-Jobs era, I'd say that Apple was more secretive, and quicker to acknowledge fault.

epo2• 13 years ago

I believe he was famously intolerant of idiots. Knew him personally did you?

chris_wot2• 13 years ago

He was also famous for screwing over his friends, idiots, charities, business partners, and his family.

I notice that most of your comments show a level of hostility that's often disproportionate to the topic or comment you are responding to. You seem like a very angry person. It's not very pleasant.

barbs• 13 years ago

" Whatever. Fucking Apple"

Just about sums it all up, really.

themstheones• 13 years ago

Story of my life!

wavefunction2• 13 years ago

seriously

shin_lao• 13 years ago

I think the problem was charging $ 40 to get to iTunes. Either you give the full catalog or you don't but it shouldn't be something you can purchase.

mathattack3• 13 years ago

From reading the text, was he able to charge $40 again? Seems unclear.

I can see Apple not wanting to introduce a middle man.

infinitone3• 13 years ago

He does say in the comments that after the refund- most of the artists told him to keep the $40.

msandford3• 13 years ago

The $40 was a service fee to cover the cost of having someone at CDBaby go into the warehouse, pick up a copy of the CD, put it into the CD drive, type in all the album, artist and track info and hitting "scan" and then putting it back when things are done. Doesn't sound like that big of a deal, you could do it for "free" yourself at home. But if CDBaby had to do 5000 of them there's a real cost associated. For a lot of people it's worth $40 to not have to think about anything and for it to "just work".

kefs2• 13 years ago

As I read the article, I couldn't figure out why Derek and cdbaby didn't just script a solution to submit the data appropriately from his already amassed archive (which he could then sell as another service on the side).

hobs• 13 years ago

Long story short, dont trust others with your business. I have seen this dozens of times where a smaller company gets really excited because they are working with the big brute, and they get screwed because the big boy gets to make all the terms, and if/when they break the contract or act like complete assholes, you have really no recourse.

gesman3• 13 years ago

Big entities can afford to be arrogant and are well known to pay with promises instead of money. Silicon Valley is full of skulls and bones of little guys who got too excited too soon.

Business as usual until papers are fully signed and money in the bank.

mathattack3• 13 years ago

Really the second half. It's the money in the bank. :-)

gesman3• 13 years ago

Right. I'll ditch papers for money.

infinitone3• 13 years ago

This- this and this. If every entrepreneur knew this from day 0, I'd garner we'd have a lot less mental breakdowns :)

It reminds me of a story of me when I got super excited about a contract with Zipcar, it was going great after meeting and email then silence. And 2 weeks later, got the call to end it all.

The lesson is to be humble/modest and don't get excited/lose focus when dealing with bigger cats- once the contract is signed AND money is transfered then maybe you can celebrate a bit.

numbsafari• 13 years ago

This is the essence of this story.

The past year of my life has been spent dealing with a founder who assumes every compliment is a business deal ready to happen.

We've wasted so much time and money chasing after "paradigm shifts" and "game changers" that were literally nothing more than polite, small-talky blow offs.

There's a certain kind of narcissism at work in the minds of many founders. Perhaps it is what makes them successful on some level. Perhaps it is what motivates them to go forward. I dunno. Whatever it is, it is endlessly frustrating.

Jd2• 13 years ago

"They had 300,000 songs while Rhapsody and Napster had over 2 million songs. (Over 500,000 of those were from CD Baby.)"

Something about this does not compute.

mavroprovato• 13 years ago

Of the 2 million songs available at Rhapsody and Napster, over 500,000 were from CD Baby

Jd2• 13 years ago

If that's what it means, it is a bit misleading since it is combining two other services (Rhapsody and Napster) against one (Apple).

brickmort• 13 years ago

CD Baby was HUGE in the early 2000s, especially for independent bands/musicians. This was before anything like Amazon music, iTunes store, etc. For the most part, digital music was still heavily being pirated at this point in time, at least until the music industry got a better grip of the digital music market.

jcampbell13• 13 years ago

I flew home that night, posted my meeting notes on my website, emailed all of my clients to announce the news, and went to sleep.
When I woke, I had furious emails and voicemails from my contact at Apple.

How was this unexpected? Who goes to a business meeting with a potential partner that can make your business soar, and then goes and blabs all over the internet about the partner's business strategy. Who does that shit?

He literally published Apple's perfected pitch and detailed strategy online the very next day:

http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=66729&cid=6133882

Apple & CD Baby's partnership was ultimately very beneficial for both companies, but Derek certainly went a bit overboard publishing those meeting notes.

fakeer• 13 years ago

>Who goes to a business meeting with a potential partner that can make your business soar, and then goes and blabs all over the internet about the partner's business strategy

One who has thousands of people(and more who can be potential independent businesses(musicians/singers) on his portal) to communicate to in a short time and the other guy(business) who never mentioned[0] secrecy[1].

[0] Yes, you out to have done that. [1] Source: post.

jcampbell13• 13 years ago

I agree that he needed to communicate with the artists. The problem is the level of detail of the notes he shared. Did you read through his notes? Those notes were a perfected business plan handed to Yahoo / eMusic / Rhapsody, and a bit of a slap in the face to the major labels.

I have mixed feeling about whether it was right for Steve to be vindictive, but I am certain I would be pissed.

skue• 13 years ago

There's a great expression that is especially useful when dealing with big companies: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately described by incompetency." [1]

While it's tempting to think that Jobs was pulling all the strings, the reality is that Apple is a large company where legal departments take forever, internal debate occur, and communication is slow.

It sucks that Jobs made that $40 statement without someone vetting (or caring) that they were negotiating with CDBaby and that's their price. It sucks that Apple did not communicate better about the reason for the delay. But doing enterprise deals is nothing like working with an individual, and in that context I wouldn't simply assume that Apple/Jobs was being spiteful.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

larrys3• 13 years ago

Look Jobs could be the way he is because he has things that people want (I don't mean Apple products so much as what someone like Jobs is able to do for someone economically).

If he didn't have those things nobody would pay attention to him or care about him other than the base level that anyone cares about anyone day to day. He knows that. Same as some pretty girls know why guys are interested in them. (Or rich guys hopefully know why girls are interested in them). It's a symbiotic relationship.

SiVal• 13 years ago

Read Jobs's biography (or talk to any of us who worked with him) and decide for yourself 1) whose personal decisions were behind the actions of Apple down to a "micromanaged" level of detail, and 2) whether that guy was better described as malicious or incompetent.

aneth4• 13 years ago

Not to be an apologist, but it seems like Apple's actions make a lot of sense.

First of all, who posts meeting notes from meetings with top executives when given a heads up about upcoming products? NOBODY. Of course it's confidential by default.

Second, Apple was right to presume a company charging to get music in the App Store would likely provide lower quality music. Charging for access completely reverses the motivation of record companies. Until they were ready to open the floodgates, excluding companies that charged was a reasonable if rough quality filter.

msandford3• 13 years ago

Confidential by default? Says who? Just because you say so doesn't mean everyone assumes that.

It's not as though the people there didn't know that Derek represented a bunch of independents who would all be able to make their own decisions. And if they somehow did not know, then they're fools for not spending 5 minutes to understand how CD Baby worked and what it meant for Derek.

They could have said in less than three seconds "This is all confidential." And then Derek would have had a conversation with them about what he could and couldn't say. I don't think he was at all in the wrong to not assume confidentiality at the get go. People sharing information have a responsibility to set expectations on it's use. Not the people receiving it.

parasubvert2• 13 years ago

Says who? Anyone that's ever been involved with technology businesses for 30+ years knows you risk your relationship when you breach confidence. It's common sense.

Of course, common sense is rarely common, which is why we have NDAs.

vacri• 13 years ago

Wow.

In another thread, we have links to the Debian project leader politely and directly talking to someone who is causing an issue for them, suggesting pathways for a relatively win-win resolution. He got labelled as treating the guy poorly.

Here we have Apple responding like a spoiled brat "What, how dare you do that! Take it down! Now we're going to do stuff without telling you, changing the bargain from our side, and make snide sideways remarks directed at you. We'll cut off communication and you have to guess at why we're doing this" and they get a pat on the head.

michaelhoffman• 13 years ago

It's almost like the comments were posted by different people!

parasubvert2• 13 years ago

One is a community project for volunteers, the other is a competitive deal between for-profit businesses.

Very different expectations of behaviour given the amounts of money and risk involved.

nly• 13 years ago

Anyone who believes that a potential new partner with no reason to be loyal to you, and not held back by a confidentiality agreement, won't use your offer in negotiations with competitors is a fool. There were 150+ attendees, this was never going to be confidential.

That said, CDBaby were foolish to think divulging these details wouldn't effect their potential business arrangement.

psychotik2• 13 years ago

'Whatever. Fucking Apple.'

As a developer, I find myself saying that more often than I would like. Glad this isn't just a developer thing that Apple does - it seems like a consistent part of their DNA.

kbenson2• 13 years ago

Your glad about that?

psychotik2• 13 years ago

You don't see the sarcasm there?

k2xl2• 13 years ago

Couldn't agree more. As a developer I can't stand their review process. http://k2xl.com/wordpress/ios-is-the-worst-platform-for-deve...

apl002• 13 years ago

Ha! "Whatever. Fucking Apple." was literally the only thing i took away from this as well. shout out to us frustrated developers.

dmourati• 13 years ago

What you should have been doing (hindsight 20-20 and all that) was quietly going around to the other hundred or so people and getting together on this. Come through with one legal team representing the newly founded consortium and then negotiate from a position of strength.

Sign the deal, get cash up front, and then begin the drudgery of complying with Apple's byzantine requirements as a group.

tod222• 13 years ago

You and only a few other commenters have recognized the abuse of power here:

They said sorry - you need to use this software - there is no other way.

It would have been easy for Apple to work with entities such as CD Baby to whip up an alternate method to handle the importation of large catalogs of music. Once specified I'm sure such a trivial web API could be implemented and tested quickly.

But Apple and Jobs didn't do this because they knew they had the power to insist that their software be used even though it was only suited for single CD submissions.

I find it interesting that many commenters are critical of Sivers while completely overlooking Apple's abuse of power.

dmourati not only recognized the abuse of power but recommended a method for meeting it head on.

robomartin3• 13 years ago

Brings back memories.

After a series of emails with Steve Jobs --all while I was coding at four in the morning!-- my then partner and I flew to Cupertino for a meeting with VP's directly under him and about thirty engineers and managers from various areas of the organization. We brought with us nearly a million dollars of equipment to put on a good demonstration and illustrate our technology. Apple asked us to develop a product they needed. We threw a ton of money and effort at the task and got it done in three months (a redesign of an existing product). They started to promote the product, gave us a direct link on their website to ours. It was amazing.

Six months later a cheaper (20% of our price) bad quality product (among other things, there were reports of it catching fire) came into the scene. Apple dropped us like a hot potato. We lost a ton of time and money on the deal.

Am I angry? Nope. I have enough experience dealing with large companies to know you should go into these deals nearly expecting the worst corner cases. This, I think, is certainly true for small companies. Besides, I had a conversation with Steve Jobs at four in the morning. Perhaps that alone was worth the cost of admission...and I am not even close to being an Apple fan boy.

As for the OP, I don't think he was very wise in posting meeting info as he did.

infinitone3• 13 years ago

Hmm... sounds like the other product was a Jawbone product :d- the up maybe?

robomartin3• 13 years ago

It's been a few years. It wouldn't serve any purpose to air details as this is ancient history. Pivot and push forward.

larrys3• 13 years ago

"Am I angry? Nope."

Usually when people do get angry about these things it's because they don't have what you say next, in other words they haven't been around the block:

"I have enough experience"

More directly people get mad when you feel naive that you expected something and were fooled. In other words "I'm loyal to that girl and now she cheated on me". So you are mad at yourself for trusting and feeling fooled.

Sivers of course will most likely never make that type of mistake again. He has learned from the situation. If he does do the same thing though it will be with full knowledge of the possible outcome.

robomartin3• 13 years ago

And that's probably true. I can't remember the first time I felt I got shafted (personally or in business) but I am sure I was fuming angry. There's truth to the concept of growing a thick skin. You really need it for business.

oconnor0• 13 years ago

It's interesting to me that Apple's complaint is that anyone could get their crappy music into iTunes for $40 and that's a problem, but that free is fine.

thehme• 13 years ago

Wow! The things to learn. I am not sure how I feel about this or what to get out of it, although I am feeling a bit dizzy/warm. Should we buy music from Apple or other "nicer" companies? Pretty messed up though what Jobs did, although posting their business plan was most likely what made "them" angry. I am with you though that if it was confidential, you should have been given notice.

danbmil993• 13 years ago

TL; DR: Steve Jobs really was quite a dick

danbmil993• 13 years ago

The fact that a statement like this will never be voted up says so much. Do we rational hacker types really believe in ghosts? He did great shit, and he was a dick. Is that so hard to accept?

lolcraft• 13 years ago

I'm somewhat amused that many here mention the amateurishness of Sivers' behaviour, yet there's no mention of Jobs' passive-aggressive bullshit.

"But we realize record companies do a great service. They edit! Did you know that if you and I record a song, for $40 we can pay a few of the services to get it on their site, through some intermediaries? We can be on Rhapsody and all these other guys for $40?"

Dude, what a pompous douchebag. You got a problem with what I did, tell me. Just don't screw around, sending mixed signals in a very roundabout way in the hope that I get it, because you're too scared of any confrontation in your Garden of Reality Distortion. I know Apple likes being this impenetrable Kremlin, but this is just plainly taking pages from Stalin's Guide to Management. "Did you know some CEO from a very successful tech company is a pompous douchebag?..."

WalterBright2• 13 years ago

I saw a documentary on a guy who has amassed the largest vinyl record collection in the world. The claim was made that 87% of all vinyl is not available on CD or other formats.

It'd be nice to see all that back catalog stuff available. I know I have a number of records that are good, but are not available digitally.

UniZero• 13 years ago

Can you remember what that documentary was called? I would love to see that

WalterBright2• 13 years ago

It was on the Roku's PBS channel. It's called "The Archive" under "PBS Online Film Festival".

The day Steve Jobs dissed me in a keynote (2010)

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