Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wasn’t the most sentimental person ever, and we’ve just found more evidence to back that up.
It comes in an anecdote from a former product manager who was around 10 years ago for the company’s 30th birthday. And his dream of a huge celebration of the milestone earned him a healthy does of terse, Jobsian smackdown.
Today’s the 40th anniversary of Apple’s founding, and while we’ve certainly gotten into the spirit of the day, the guy who helped make the company what it is today could not have cared less. It’s pretty well in keeping with Jobs’ — and, therefore, Apple’s — reputation of aloofness, but this story still makes us chuckle.
David Pakman worked at Apple from 1991 through 1997, and when the 30th anniversary rolled around in 2006, he dreamt up the perfect way to celebrate, he told Fast Company. It was a massive party in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. The event would include everyone who had ever worked for the company, and we wish it would have happened because that would have been one hell of a giant cake.
But when Pakman e-mailed Jobs and suggested that they actually put on the big show to celebrate the company and its people, he got an answer right away:
David,
Apple is focused on the future, not the past.
—Steve
It makes sense, we suppose. Jobs seemed obsessed about the company’s next moves, and he didn’t need a recap of what it had already done. And besides, the first iPhone was launching in a little over a year, so he was probably a bit too busy with that to party down.
Still, that e-mail was pretty cold.
