No Notes
John Davidson, writing for the Financial Review on Phil Schiller’s testimony in Australia, where Apple is once again facing off against Epic Games (archive link in case FR’s web server goes down):
The casual approach to its meetings, instituted by Apple
co-founder Steve Jobs when he returned to the company in 1997
after having been fired in 1985, explained why Epic’s lawyers
could find precious few contemporaneous records of Apple’s
decision-making processes since the App Store was first launched
in 2007, Mr Schiller suggested.
“When Mr Jobs came back in 1997, in one of the earliest meetings
someone was taking notes, writing down what [Mr Jobs] was saying
about what we’re doing. He stopped and said ‘Why are you writing
this down? You should be smart enough to remember this. If you’re
not smart enough to remember this you shouldn’t be in this
meeting’. We all stopped taking notes and learnt to just listen
and be part of the conversation and remember what we were supposed
to do. And that became how we worked.” Mr Schiller testified.
“It was very action-oriented. It was built to be like a small
start-up where we all are working together on the same things, and
we all know what our plans are and what we’re doing.”
And:
Nor is there much talk in meetings of how profitable the Apple App
Store is, despite the fact it would be the 63rd biggest company on
the Fortune 500 if it were hived off as a separate entity.
“Are you telling His Honour that you have no idea whether … the
App Store has been profitable?” asked an incredulous Neil Young,
KC, leading the cross-examination on behalf of Epic Games.
“I believe it is [profitable],” replied Mr Schiller, who has
been in charge of the App Store since the beginning. “I’m simply
saying ‘profit’ as a specific financial metric is not a report I
get and spend time on. It’s not how we measure our performance as
a team,” he said.
Sounds like Epic is getting its hat handed to it once again.
★
John Davidson, writing for the Financial Review on Phil Schiller’s testimony in Australia, where Apple is once again facing off against Epic Games (archive link in case FR’s web server goes down):
The casual approach to its meetings, instituted by Apple
co-founder Steve Jobs when he returned to the company in 1997
after having been fired in 1985, explained why Epic’s lawyers
could find precious few contemporaneous records of Apple’s
decision-making processes since the App Store was first launched
in 2007, Mr Schiller suggested.
“When Mr Jobs came back in 1997, in one of the earliest meetings
someone was taking notes, writing down what [Mr Jobs] was saying
about what we’re doing. He stopped and said ‘Why are you writing
this down? You should be smart enough to remember this. If you’re
not smart enough to remember this you shouldn’t be in this
meeting’. We all stopped taking notes and learnt to just listen
and be part of the conversation and remember what we were supposed
to do. And that became how we worked.” Mr Schiller testified.
“It was very action-oriented. It was built to be like a small
start-up where we all are working together on the same things, and
we all know what our plans are and what we’re doing.”
And:
Nor is there much talk in meetings of how profitable the Apple App
Store is, despite the fact it would be the 63rd biggest company on
the Fortune 500 if it were hived off as a separate entity.
“Are you telling His Honour that you have no idea whether … the
App Store has been profitable?” asked an incredulous Neil Young,
KC, leading the cross-examination on behalf of Epic Games.
“I believe it is [profitable],” replied Mr Schiller, who has
been in charge of the App Store since the beginning. “I’m simply
saying ‘profit’ as a specific financial metric is not a report I
get and spend time on. It’s not how we measure our performance as
a team,” he said.
Sounds like Epic is getting its hat handed to it once again.