A highly anticipated biography about secretive Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs, written by Walter Isaacson, is slated for release October 24. The Huffington Post, however, managed to obtain a copy early and revealed some very interesting tidbits about the life of the Apple visionary — namely that, upon meeting President Barack Obama in 2010, Jobs told him, “you’re headed for a one-term presidency.”
According to HuffPo, the book states that Jobs was critical of the Obama administration for not being business-friendly and blasted the nation’s education system as it is “crippled by union work rules.”
Jobs, who insisted the president personally extend an invitation to meet with him, told Obama that “regulations and unnecessary costs” make doing business in the United States, as opposed to China, prohibitive.
HuffPo adds:
Jobs suggested that Obama meet six or seven other CEOs who could express the needs of innovative businesses — but when White House aides added more names to the list, Jobs insisted that it was growing too big and that “he had no intention of coming.” In preparation for the dinner, Jobs exhibited his notorious attention to detail, telling venture capitalist John Doerr that the menu of shrimp, cod and lentil salad was “far too fancy” and objecting to a chocolate truffle dessert. But he was overruled by the White House, which cited the president’s fondness for cream pie.
Though Jobs was not that impressed by Obama, later telling Isaacson that his focus on the reasons that things can’t get done “infuriates” him, they kept in touch and talked by phone a few more times. Jobs even offered to help create Obama’s political ads for the 2012 campaign. “He had made the same offer in 2008, but he‘d become annoyed when Obama’s strategist David Axelrod wasn’t totally deferential,” writes Isaacson. Jobs later told the author that he wanted to do for Obama what the legendary “morning in America” ads did for Ronald Reagan.
Do these revelations about Steve Jobs’ opinion of the president surprise you at all?
Interesting.
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