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About the editor, regrets and memories of Steve Jobs

Ondrej Holzman
18

The life and achievements of Steve Jobs have been discussed in such detail in recent days that we already know them well. Much more interesting now are the various memories and stories of people who met Jobs personally and know him in a different way than as the gentleman in the black turtleneck who amazed the world year after year. One such is Brian Lam, an editor who has really experienced a lot with Jobs.

We bring you a contribution from Lam's blog, where the editor of the Gizmodo server extensively describes his personal experiences with the Apple founder himself.

Steve Jobs has always been nice to me (or the moron's remorse)

I met Steve Jobs while working at Gizmodo. He was always a gentleman. He liked me and he liked Gizmodo. And I liked him too. Some of my friends who worked at Gizmodo remember those days as "the good old days". That's because it was before everything went wrong, before we found that iPhone 4 prototype (we reported here).

***

I first met Steve at the All Things Digital conference, where Walt Mosberg was interviewing Jobs and Bill Gates. My competition was Ryan Block from Engadget. Ryan was an experienced editor while I was just looking around. As soon as Ryan spotted Steve at lunch, he immediately ran to greet him. A minute later I plucked up the courage to do the same.

From a 2007 post:

I met Steve Jobs

We ran into Steve Jobs a while ago, just as I was heading to lunch at the All Things D conference.

He is taller than I would have thought and quite tanned. I was about to introduce myself, but then he thought that he was probably busy and didn't want to be disturbed. I went to get a salad, but then I realized that I should at least be a little more active in my work. I put my tray down, pushed my way through the crowd and finally introduced myself. No big deal, just wanted to say hi, I'm Brian from Gizmodo. And you're the one who created the iPod, right? (I didn't say the second part.)

Steve was pleased with the meeting.

He told me he reads our website. They say three to four times a day. I replied that I appreciated his visits and would continue to buy iPods as long as he kept visiting us. We are his favorite blog. It was a really nice moment. Steve was interested and I was trying to look a little "professional" in the meantime.

It was a real honor to talk to a man who is focused on quality and does things his way and to watch him approve of our work.

***

A few years later, I emailed Steve to show him how the Gawker redesign was going. He didn't like it too much. But he liked us. At least most of the time.

By: Steve Jobs
Subject: Re: Gizmodo on iPad
Date: May 31, 2010
To: Brian Lam

Brian,

I like part of it, but not the rest. I'm not sure if the information density is enough for you and your brand. It seems a bit mundane to me. I'll look into it some more over the weekend, then I'll be able to give you more useful feedback.

I like what you guys are up to most of the time, I am a regular reader.

Steve
Sent from my iPad

Answered on May 31, 2010 by Brian Lam:

Here is a rough draft. Per Gizmodo, it should launch alongside the launch of the iPhone 3G. It's meant to be more user-friendly for the 97% of our readers who don't visit us every day…”

At the time, Jobs was engaged in bypassing publishers, presenting the iPad as a new platform for publishing newspapers and magazines. I learned from friends at various publishers that Steve mentioned Gizmodo as an example of an online magazine during his presentations.

I never imagined that Jobs or anyone at Apple, like Jon Ive, would ever read our work. It was very strange. People obsessed with perfection read something that is not meant to be perfect, but readable. Moreover, we stood on the other side of the barricade, just as Apple once stood.

However, Apple prospered more and more and began to change into what it had previously opposed. I knew it was only a matter of time before we collided. With growth comes problems, as I was to find out before long.

***

I had time off when Jason (Brian's colleague who discovered the lost iPhone 4 - ed.) got his hands on a prototype of the new iPhone.

An hour after we published the article about it, my phone rang. It was an Apple office number. I thought it was someone from the PR department. But he wasn't.

“Hi, this is Steve. I really want my phone back.”

He didn't insist, he didn't ask. On the contrary, he was nice. I was half way down because I was just coming back from the water, but I was able to recover quickly.

Steve continued, “I appreciate you messing around with our phone and I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the seller who lost it. But we need that phone back because we can't afford it to end up in the wrong hands."

I wondered if by any chance it was already in the wrong hands.

"There are two ways we can do this," he said "We'll send someone over to pick up the phone..."

"I do not have it," I answered.

“But you know who has it… Or we can resolve it through legal means.”

He thus gave us the possibility to simply sail away from the whole situation. I told him I would talk to my colleagues about it. Before I hung up he asked me: "What do you think about it?" I answered: "It is beautiful."

***

In the next call I told him we would return his phone. "Great, where do we send someone?" he asked. I replied that I needed to negotiate some terms before we could talk about this. We wanted Apple to confirm that the found device was theirs. However, Steve wanted to avoid a written form because it would affect sales of the current model. "You want me to trip my own feet," he explained. Maybe it was about money, maybe it wasn't. I got the feeling that he just didn't want to be told what to do, and I didn't want to be told what to do either. Plus someone to cover for me. I was in a position where I could tell Steve Jobs what to do, and I was going to take advantage of that.

This time he was not so happy. He had to talk to some people so we hung up again.

When he called me back, the first thing he said was: "Hey Brian, here's your new favorite person in the world." We both laughed, but then he turned and asked seriously: "So what do we do?" I already had an answer ready. "If you do not provide us with a written confirmation that the device is yours, then it will have to be resolved through legal means. It doesn't matter because we'll get confirmation that the phone is yours anyway."

Steve didn't like this. “This is a serious matter. If I'm going to have to fill out some paperwork and go through all the trouble, then that means I really want to get it and it's going to end up with one of you going to jail.”

I said we didn't know anything about the phone being stolen and wanted to return it but needed confirmation from Apple. Then I said I would go to jail for this story. At that moment, Steve realized that I was definitely not going to back down.

Then it all went a bit wrong, but I don't want to go into detail on this day (the article was published shortly after Steve Jobs's death - ed.) because I mean Steve was a great and fair guy and probably wasn't used to it , that he doesn't get what he asks for.

When he called me back, he said coldly that he could send a letter confirming everything. The last thing I said was: "Steve, I just want to say that I like my job - sometimes it's exciting, but sometimes I have to do things that may not be to everyone's liking."

I told him I loved Apple, but I had to do what was best for the public and readers. At the same time, I masked my sadness.

"You're just doing your job," he replied as kindly as possible, which made me feel better, but worse at the same time.

That might have been the last time Steve was nice to me.

***

I kept thinking about everything for weeks after this event. One day a seasoned editor and friend asked me if I realized, whether it was bad or not, that we had caused Apple a lot of trouble. I paused for a moment and thought about everyone at Apple, Steve and the designers who worked so hard on the new phone and replied: "Yes," I originally justified it as the right thing to do for the readers, but then I stopped and thought about Apple and Steve and how they felt. In that moment I realized that I wasn't proud of it.

In terms of work, I will not regret it. It was a huge discovery, people loved it. If I could do it over again, I would be the first to write an article about that phone.

I would probably return the phone without asking for confirmation though. I would also write the article about the engineer who lost it with more compassion and not name him. Steve stated that we had fun with the phone and wrote the first article about it, but also that we were greedy. And he was right, because we really were. It was a painful victory, we were short-sighted. Sometimes I wish we never found that phone. This is probably the only way to get around without problems. But that's life. Sometimes there is no easy way out.

For about a year and a half, I thought about all this every day. It bothered me so much that I practically stopped writing. Three weeks ago I realized I had had enough. I wrote Steve a letter of apology.

By: Brian Lam
Subject: Hi Steve
Date: September 14, 2011
To: Steve Jobs

Steve, it's been a few months since the whole iPhone 4 thing and I just want to say that I wish things had gone differently. Apparently I should have quit right after the article was published for various reasons. But I didn't know how to do it without sending my team down, so I didn't. I've learned that it's better to lose a job I no longer believe in than to be forced to stay in it.

I apologize for the trouble I caused.

B "

***

Young Steve Jobs was known for not forgiving those who betrayed him. A few days ago, however, I heard from a person close to him that everything has already been swept under the table. I didn't expect to ever get an answer, and I didn't. But after I sent the message, at least I forgave myself. And my writer's block disappeared.

I just felt good that I had a chance to tell a nice man I was sorry for being such a jerk before it was too late.

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