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Comment by MrTonyD | Hacker News Reader

Back in the days there were backroom deals to get Adobe on Apple platform. Steve would meet with Adobe executives and trade them cash and offshore stock (untraceable, of course) so that they would port to Apple. All the development for Apple was fully funded for Adobe. In case it isn't obvious, Adobe could choose to support only Windows and do just fine - eliminating development and support costs for the Apple platform. Thus, bribing the rich and greedy became the effective technique.

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You've posted many such claims and stories to HN in the past. Unless you can substantiate them, would you please not continue to post like this? The genre of the internet forum comment doesn't allow us to disambiguate true first-hand stories from people making shit up for weird reasons, and unfortunately there are many more of the latter than the former.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14053357 and marked it off-topic.

Source? This seems incredibly unsubstantiated. There were public efforts Steve made to keep Adobe on the platform and I know there were developer meetings to ensure the transition to Carbon and Cocoa went fine.

I have seen no evidence of illicit stock grants or Apple giving direct cash to executives at adobe.

I hate to be that guy but I would like more information on this, otherwise it feels rather unsubstantiated and just paints both Apple and Adobe in a bad light for no reason.

I worked on projects for Steve and reported to his direct reports. One would have to be very naive to think that this isn't just typical business practice. Or do people really fall for that "free market" stuff that we are being sold?

Well, I'm not naive. I'm sure there is a lot of things that the public would find unsavory that happens all the time at the upper echelons of companies like this, sure. I'm willing to believe that.

I just have never seen any substantiation between Adobe and Apple doing this sort of thing, even when Steve was alive. This is the first time someone has even confirmed it yet alone alleged this happened. I know both companies had done things in the past that were less than savory (see that whole lawsuit about suppressing wages. Very disgraceful!)

Never this. It's been alleged for years, but never once was there evidence.

I'm sure you could make a mint here if you wanted to, if you could substantiate any of it.

Steve talked about a lot of things - and even more to his direct reports. But the only people who would have proof are also people who would never talk about it. I also worked for a direct report of Bill Gates and a direct report of Larry Ellison. They did the same types of things - often illegal. But everybody who was involved is very motivated to never talk about it. I may be one of the few people who turned down executive positions when offered - I didn't like the "business values".

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