David Rosenthal: belief

Transcript context

…And there’s this like team of Apple people in the room that all laugh and the Panic guys look at each other like “Ah, okay. They all know something we don’t.” Then I think either Phil or Steve at that point is like, “We’re building that. It’s going to be called iPhoto. ” So the Panic guys at this point are probably literally in a panic. So Steve continues and he says, “So here’s how I kind of see this playing out if you stay independent and try to compete with us. It's like you guys are a little pushcart going down the railroad tracks, and we’re a giant steam engine about to run you down.” And then he follows up with, “But we want you guys to work with us. You guys have shown us that you can do a lot with a little. You guys kick ass. Your software totally kicks ass. Cabel, your marketing kicks ass. We think you do an incredibly work and we want you to join us.” Imagine getting that offer. They have complete autonomy now. They have no idea what it looks like if they join Apple. It’s hard to know to really have a negotiation around what those details could look like. I think Cabel goes into this in the post that basically it should have been a hard decision but they both already sort of knew that the answer was no and that they were independent by... it was kind of their nature and that's what they were going to go and keep doing. So I think this was largely before the term acquihire had been coined but, you know, an attempted acquihire.…

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