Steve Jobs: "The App Store will never work"

Inspirational, visionary, but also explosive or arrogantand. AND these are the words most of those who have had the opportunity to meet or work with him describe Steve Jobs. And even though the founder of Apple 9 years ago gone forever, stories about him still appear today.

Salesforce founder Marc Benioff shared one such story with viewers when he was interviewed by host David Rubenstein on his show on October 18, 2019. The year was 2001 and Benioff company existed only 18 months. It only worked for a short time, but even then somehow it got the attention of Mr. and Mrs. Jobs. They invited him to an event in support of higher education organized by Laurene Powell. Towards the end, they wanted to have dinner at a restaurant that Laurene had looked at earlier, but she forgot to make a reservation, so it was full when they arrived. However, Steve Jobs insisted that they wait here until some stůThere is no alternativeataken into account.

Steve shortened the wait for a table to be free by showing Marc Benioff a prototype iPod with words "vthere you go, i have 1 songs in my pocket! What do you say?", to which Benioff responded enthusiastically. But then he added that in this facility he sees potential, perceives it like a small laptop, only it lacks applications and a color display or the ability to watch movies. And as was the case with Jobs, any idea was initially stupid. "I will never do that. It's the dumbest idea I've ever heard of,” Benioff recalls of Jobs' reaction.

A little later, Jobs called him to say that Salesforce needed his help. So Benioff and some of the engineers stopped in Cupertino, where they presented to Steve Jobs business model of your company. According to Jobs, the presentation was really terrible, and he added that if he wanted the company to succeed, he had to do three things.

First they have to find the biggest client possible, like Avon. And so it happened, Avon really became a client of the company. Second understandingit, that it must be within 24 months company 10kcount larger, otherwise endí. And that happened too. And thirdly, it is necessary build around applications the economy. This was the first time Benioff had heard of it, and so he was amazedě he asked Jobs what it was like. "I don't know, and therefore you should find out,” was Jobs' reactione. So Benioff began to think about what such a system should look like. Then one day he got an idea. He envisioned a huge online app store where developers could publish their apps. The company started working on this idea and in 2008 it was ready to launch under the name App Store. She also had it registered.

Scoincidentally at that time Benioff and a few other members got management of Salesforce an invitation to an Apple event where Steve Jobs presented the iPhone 3G and also a new product called App Store. It shocked Benioff and his associates, but after the presentation was over Jobs he said: “Hey, I'll give you a present. I'll give you a free trademark and URL for whatever you do for meě did.” And Jobs' reaction?

"That's us je useless. You do realize that the App Store will never work, right? It will never be a big deal.”

Source: Bloomberg