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SSSSCENE 16CCCEEENNNEEE 111666

Wear the

Appropriate

Costume

It is hard to think that a $2 billion company with 4,300-plus

people couldn’t compete with six people in blue jeans.

STEVE JOBS, RESPONDING TO AN APPLE LAWSUIT AGAINST HIM

AFTER HE RESIGNED TO FORM NeXT

S

teve Jobs is the anti-Cher. In her Vegas concert, Cher

and her dancers had 140 costume changes; Jobs has one

costume for every performance. For presentations, Jobs

always wears a black mock turtleneck, faded blue jeans,

and white sneakers. If you want to get more specific, he wears

aSt. Croix sweater, Levi’s 501 blue jeans, and New Balance run-

ning shoes. Not that it matters much, because you’re not going

to dress like him. He can get away with it because he’s Steve Jobs

and you’re not. Seriously. When you’re a business legend who is

credited with reinventing the entire computer industry, you can

show up in pretty much anything you want.

Although most people are familiar with Jobs’s black shirt

and blue jeans attire (even “The Simpsons” cartoon creators

dressed the Jobs character in jeans and a black mock for an epi-

sode in 2008), Jobs did not always dress this way. When Jobs

was a young man trying to be taken seriously by investors and

the public, he dressed much more conservatively. The Jobs of