Samsung.
“That’s gonna work!” Steve would exclaim, hearing of one idea,
according to Elliot. That would be followed by “No, that’s not gonna work!”
In Korea, a twenty-eight-year-old chattering away to his elder—
especially the chairman of the country’s representative company—would be
a horrific insult by anyone else, worthy of banishment. But B.C. recognized
Jobs’s brilliance and overlooked his social solecisms.
“That was Steve. He threw his arms around, waving and pointing at
everybody, speaking his mind,” recalled Elliot. “I told him later, ‘You gave
away a few million dollars’ worth of ideas!’ He didn’t care.”
After Jobs departed, the Samsung founder, in his solemn, soft-spoken
manner and with a few carefully chosen words, declared to his assistants:
“Jobs is the figure who can stand against IBM.”
Two years later, Jobs was fired by Apple’s board, losing out in a power
struggle with CEO John Sculley. The tablet, in its early form, fell into the
dustbin of history, at least for the time being. And any plan for an Apple-
Samsung alliance was scuttled.
It would be more than two decades later that Samsung and Apple, the
component supplier and the computer manufacturer, would go to war.
—
ON AUGUST 4, 2010, a group of Apple executives arrived at Samsung’s
building in Seoul’s glamorous Gangnam district. It had opened a few years
earlier in what was the Beverly Hills of South Korea. All over Seoul,
smokestacks had been replaced with glossy blue high-rises; cutting-edge
technologies were on display everywhere. The previous spring, Samsung
had released the Galaxy S, which some in the media had dubbed the
“iPhone killer.”
Jobs, back at Apple, was livid. He believed Samsung had ripped off the
iPhone with a similar roster of icons, designs, and even packaging.
A group of Samsung executives, led by vice president Dr. Seungho
Ahn, joined the Apple executives in a conference room. Chip Lutton, an
Apple lawyer, launched into a presentation titled “Samsung’s Use of Apple
Patents in Smartphones.”
When he finished, the Korean executives fell quiet.
“Galaxy copied the iPhone,” Lutton said.