Kanye West says Steve Jobs should have given away his ideas before he died

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Kanye West
Kanye West in all his Apple-loving glory. Photo: Rodrigo Ferrari/Flickr CC
Photo: Rodrigo Ferrari/Flickr (CC)

With Kanye West’s astute analysis of Apple’s business, his close friendship with Steve Wozniak, and his unabashed love for “Jony Ives” (sic), Tim Cook must count his lucky stars every day that he managed to scoop the role of Apple CEO out from under Mr. Kim Kardashian.

Perhaps Yeezy was too busy laying down vocals for Watch The Throne to take over running Apple business back in 2011.

Whatever the reason, Apple probably wouldn’t be in too great shape under the control of Kanye since in a new interview he reveals what he thinks Steve Jobs should’ve done as his final move at Apple: given all the company’s patents away.

Yes, really.

Speaking with a crowd of 350 students at Oxford University recently, the world famous rapper noted that:

“I love Steve Jobs, he’s my favourite person, but there’s one thing that disappoints me. When Steve passed he didn’t give the ideas up. That’s kinda selfish. You know that Elon’s like ‘yeah, take these ideas’. Maybe there are companies outside of Apple that could work on them and push humanity forward. Maybe the stock brokers won’t like that, the stock holders wouldn’t like that idea, but ideas are free and you can’t be selfish with them.”

Kanye is no doubt referring to Elon Musk’s decision to make all of Tesla’s patents freely available, as a means by which to grow the electric car industry. Of course, there’s no point in articulating why this would be damaging to Apple’s business, or why a nascent industry like the electric car one is nothing like 99 percent of Apple’s businesses, which are in heavily saturated areas like the smartphone market.

Ultimately, it’s just another example of Kanye chipping in with advice to cement his status as the next Steve Jobs (or the “Steve Jobs of The Gap” as he recently hilariously described himself).

With so many non-stop messages for Tim Cook about how to run his business, maybe Yeezy should consider striking up a friendship with activist investor Carl Icahn?

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