For most people, the most memorable event coming out of yesterday’s CNN debate was the face-off between Donald Trump and Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina.
For Apple fans, it was the news that Steve Jobs had once called Fiorina at home to offer his condolences on her losing her job at Hewlett-Packard.
Is there a better way to appeal to tech fans in a campaign than to name-drop Steve? Except offering everyone brand-new iPhones, of course.
The Jobs anecdote came when Trump criticized Fiorina’s tenure at H-P, during which the company suffered big losses, leading to her firing.
In response, Fiorina said:
“I have been very honest about this from the day it happened. When you challenge the status quo, you make enemies. I made a few. Steve Jobs told me that when he called me the day I was fired to say, ‘Hey, been there, done that twice.'”
Fiorina went on to say that, “When you lead and when you challenge the status quo, you make enemies,” before name-dropping Jobs again.
Before the comparisons with the late Apple co-founder get too much, however, it’s worth noting that under Fiorina, H-P stock collapsed amidst the dot-com bubble bursting and company’s disastrous merger with Compaq. In 2008, she was referred to as the “anti-Steve Jobs” by InfoWorld.
It’s a class move that Jobs phoned her personally to express his condolences, though. Given the astonishing second act Jobs had in his career, who wouldn’t want the legendary CEO of Apple to have given them a call after they received some bad news?
Unless that person happens to be the head of BlackBerry, and the bad news is that Apple is launching its own smartphone, that is!
Via: USA Today
