The Story Of Steve Jobs And Gizmodo

The Story Of Steve Jobs And Gizmodo

This is a really sad day. I sort of can’t explain it. I feel helpless and wistful and overwhelmingly sad. These days, Gizmodo is an unspoken name at Apple HQ. A publication pariah. But it wasn’t always that way. Here’s what happened behind the scenes.

More: Gizmodo’s Steve Jobs Obituary. We’re going to miss him.

According to a just-posted touching read from former editor of Gizmodo US, Brian Lam — Steve used to be a fan, he used to read the site three to four times a day.

I don’t ever think I was comfortable with the idea that Jobs or anyone at Apple, like Jon Ive, was reading our work. [Gizmodo is]scrappy, sloppy, inspired, mainstream-ish, and in general, experimental in nature. It was, frankly, embarrassing to have people who were obsessed with perfection reading something that was designed to be imperfect but alive and flowing. It was also firmly anti-establishment, like Apple used to be.

That was before we got our hands on his phone, of course. An hour after the story went live, Brian received a call from Steve:

He wasn’t demanding. He was asking. And he was charming and he was funny. I was half-naked, just getting back from surfing, but I managed to keep my shit together.

“I appreciate you had your fun with our phone and I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at the sales guy who lost it. But we need the phone back because we can’t let it fall into the wrong hands.”

You should really read Brian’s piece on his history with Jobs. It’s the most interesting thing you’ll read about Steve Jobs this week. [The Wirecutter]


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